What does it all mean? I've been reading and deciphering national security directives for decades, and one thing is clear from the Presidential directive: It is all management, all coordination, all endless reorganization. STRATCOM may on paper be the "lead" and the goal of preemption may be the policy, but there is no silver bullet, no real "red line," in fact, no actual different policy than what has always existed.
. WMDs as a money pit for the Mil/Industrial Complex: (How it works... Spend funding, do nothing tangible...) Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security U.S. Fails at Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/10/us_fails_at_countering_weapons.html Since September 2002, the United States has had a publicly declared policy of preemption, implemented in the National Security Strategy <http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf>, that it will not allow additional nations to go nuclear. President Bush drew a red line in May 2003, declaring specifically that the United States "will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea." Since the preemption policy was adopted, the White House has additionally developed a "strategy" for combating weapons of mass destruction <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/WMDStrategy.pdf>, has ordered military commands and civil government to focus on WMD, and has directed the development of not one but two new war plans to go on the offensive to implement the number one national priority. So what has happened? "Combating" WMD has become a gigantic black hole. For all of the public talk of going on the offensive and not letting ambiguous smoking guns today turn into mushroom clouds tomorrow, the actual Bush capability that has been built over five year is little more than existed in the previous administration. In fact, combating WMD and "counter-proliferation" has become so complicated and lost in management and reorganization, the U.S. military capacity to stop a nation from going nuclear, short of going to war, is zero. No wonder then that when North Korea gives the United States and the world the finger and conducts a nuclear test, the Bush administration is reduced to protesting. On September 4, 2002, President Bush signed the Top Secret National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD)-17, a "national strategy" to combat weapons of mass destruction, the practical manifestation of the policy of preemption. (An unclassified version of the classified directive was later issued in December 2002 as the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction.) NSPD-17 has been hailed as a "comprehensive approach" to counter nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. To succeed in countering WMD, the directive stated, "we must take full advantage of today's opportunities, including the application of new technologies, increased emphasis on intelligence collection and analysis, the strengthening of alliance relationships, and the establishment of new partnerships with former adversaries." The directive laid out the "full-range of measures which must be employed against the WMD threat," from peacetime security cooperation and "threat reduction" efforts to secure nuclear materials and equipment from smuggling and sale, to interdiction and offensive operations to stop nations from obtaining nuclear weapons, to missile defenses should there be WMD use. The Washington Post reported in December 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A36819-2002Dec10¬Found=true> that the directive named Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya among the countries that were to be the central focus of the new U.S. strategy. A senior administration official briefing reporters on the new strategy told reporters that the options even included the use of U.S. nuclear weapons -- even preemptively -- to stop the use of WMD against the United States, its forces abroad, its friends and allies. In a January 6, 2005 memo from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) was officially designated the "lead command" for combating WMD. Rumsfeld had already approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400071.html> Alert Order" in the summer of 2004 directing the military to assume and maintain readiness to attack hostile countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran and North Korea. The interim capability was implemented because of the gravity of the problem. Last year, military commanders bragged that they were ready to go within 30 minutes of a Presidential order, should for instance, there be warning of an impending nuclear test, movement, or strike. The Omaha-based STRATCOM, according to the January 2005 directive, was given the responsibility for "interdicting and eliminating WMD and related materials," integrating all U.S. capabilities "to dissuade, deter, and prevent the acquisition, development, transfer, or use of WMD, their delivery systems, and associated technology and materials." On May 5th of this year, President Bush signed a new "Unified Command Plan" formally assigning STRATCOM "unique responsibilities," including (and here I quote from the document, revealed for the first time here in Early Warning): /"(10) Serving as lead combatant commander for integrating and synchronizing DOD CbtWMD [combating weapons of mass destruction] efforts, including: (a) Planning, integrating and synchronizing DOD CbtWMD efforts with the efforts of other US government agencies, as directed. (b) Integrating USSTRATCOM's global missions to support combatant command and defense agency efforts in combating WMD. (c) In coordination with USFJCOM [Joint Forces Command], develop and make recommendations to the Chairman regarding joint force integration, exercises and training for CbtWMD. (d) Responsible to the Chairman for identifying and assessing readiness of US capabilities, adequacy of partner capabilities, and capabilities of potential adversaries. (e) In coordination with the Chairman, advocating combating WMD capabilities of all combatant commanders. (f) Supporting geographic combatant commands and USSOCOM [Special Operations Command] for CbtWMD planning and execution. (g) Providing military representation to US national and international agencies for CbtWMD matters related to US and multinational campaigns, as directed. (h) Providing the single military point of contact for CbtWMD efforts in space."/ What does it all mean? I've been reading and deciphering national security directives for decades, and one thing is clear from the Presidential directive: It is all management, all coordination, all endless reorganization. STRATCOM may on paper be the "lead" and the goal of preemption may be the policy, but there is no silver bullet, no real "red line," in fact, no actual different policy than what has always existed. A classified August briefing from STRATCOM on its new Center for Combating WMD show the bankruptcy of the "mission area spectrum" from peacetime to post-nuclear. Image: <http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/CWMDAug2006.jpg> The briefing unambiguously lays out the same old "basket" of capabilities that have always existed. If all else fails, STRATCOM says, fear not: Part of the "new" capacity to "combat" weapons of mass destruction includes "consequence management," that is, cleaning up the mess after the enemy attacks. What we are really witnessing is government at its worst, not just promising a capability that it can not deliver on, but even worse, communicating American resolve and toughness on the one hand while exposing weakness and impotence when it matters. Tomorrow: The empty war plans to combat WMD.
