December 5, 2003

Author's Note:

The accompanying report in PDF Format suggests that the United States needs to rethink its approach to the Iraq War as one part of a series of enduring conflicts in the Middle East that are coupled to major strategic risks in Korea and the Taiwan Straits.

Four Wars and Counting: Rethinking the Strategic Meaning of the Iraq War
By Anthony H. Cordesman

Almost without sensing it, America has drifted into involvement in four separate and simultaneous conflicts. The most obvious war is Iraq. Former regime loyalists and violent Islamic extremists are fighting a low intensity conflict. American and other coalition soldiers die there every day, a U.S.-led occupation force governs it, and it has the highest media and political profile. No matter how this conflict develops, there is little prospect of a stable Iraq over the next 5-10 years, or that Iraq will serve as an example that will transform the Middle East.

In the process, the second conflict - Afghanistan - has become the "not quite forgotten" war.  Americans and America's allies die there too, but not as regularly. Nation building is having its own crisis in Afghanistan, but at less cost and no longer under high profile American direction. "Victory," however, has proved as relative as in Iraq. The Taliban has mutated and is fighting again, Al Qaeda has lost many of its leaders but has mutated and relocated some of its operations in Pakistan, the internal tensions in Afghanistan threaten to make its central government the government of "Kabulstan," and the spillover of Islamic extremism into Central and South Asia continues.

The third war, the broader global "war on terrorism," continues, but in an increasingly confused form. The Bush Administration has sometimes sought to make Iraq its focus, knowing that Americans (and presumably the world) will react better to the "war after the war" in Iraq if it is blamed on terrorism and Al Qaeda, than perceived as a product of the Bush Administration's failure to prepare for conflict termination and nation building.

Top officials like President Bush and Vice President Cheney still talk in these terms although the U.S. military in Iraq talks about a threat that is "95% former regime loyalists," and Secretary Rumsfeld has made it clear that Saddam's regime prepared to fight the conflict we now face before the U.S. invasion began. This, however, is only part of the problem. Rather than making war on specific terrorist movements hostile to the United States and its allies, many in the U.S. Congress and media have used rhetoric that has made the "war" seem like a war on Islam and the Arab world. Others continue to try to make Saudi Arabia its focus in spite of the fact that the Saudis are fighting their own battle against Al Qaeda.

The war on terrorism involves hostile Islamic extremist movements and cells all over the world, and its focus is global and not simply Iraq or Saudi Arabia. It is a war being fought primarily within Islamic states between secular leaders and religious extremists - Shi'ite, Salafi, Sufi, and neo-Wahhabi.  However, it is a "clash within a civilization" that continues to spill over into other regions and which often uses the United States as a proxy target for local regimes.

Other potential struggles are waiting in the wings, although it is far from clear that war will actually occur. These flashpoints include Iran and Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, North Korea's efforts to proliferate and constant stream of threats, and the much lower level of tension across the Taiwan Straits. At a less intense level, the United States is also involved in Colombia in a war on drugs that inevitably means involvement in Colombia's civil war and faces an uncertain situation.

This report highlights the issues involved, as well as serious problems in the U.S. strategy and organization for modern war. It outlines both the key policy issues that must be dealt with and the new strategic options that must be investigated.

Click here for the full report in PDF format.

Dr. Anthony Cordesman holds the Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is Co-Director of the Center's Middle East Program. He is also a military analyst for ABC and a Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown. He directs the assessment of global military balance, strategic energy developments, and CSIS' Dynamic Net Assessment of the Middle East. He is the author of books on the military lessons of the Iran-Iraq war as well as the Arab-Israeli military balance and the peace process, a six-volume net assessment of the Gulf, transnational threats, and military developments in Iran and Iraq. He analyzes U.S. strategy and force plans, counter-proliferation issues, arms transfers, Middle Eastern security, economic, and energy issues. Dr. Cordesman served as a national security analyst for ABC News for the 1990-91 Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia, Operation Desert Fox, and Kosovo. He was the Assistant for National Security to Senator John McCain and a Wilson Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian. He has served in senior positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. His posts include acting as the Civilian Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Director of Defense Intelligence Assessment, Director of Policy, Programming, and Analysis in the Department of Energy, Director of Project ISMILAID, and as the Secretary of Defense's representative on the Middle East Working Group. Dr. Cordesman has also served in numerous overseas posts. He was a member of the U.S. Delegation to NATO and a Director on the NATO International Staff, working on Middle Eastern security issues. He served in Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Turkey, the UK, and West Germany. He has been an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe, and has traveled extensively in the Gulf and North Africa.