BORN-AGAIN WAR The Low-Intensity Mystique
Sklar, Holly
Counterrevolution has been born again as "low-intensity conflict" (LIC), and anti-interventionists are not immune to its mystique. The faddish use of "low-intensity" to describe war in...
...Trilateralist doctrine for the Third World advocates multilateral efforts by the capitalist powers, working with selected "new influentials" (e.g...
...If the FMLN's 1981 "final offensive" had approached victory, the Reagan Administration would surely have deployed U.S...
...Peacetime contingency is defined as "Politically sensitive military operations normally characterized by the short-term rapid projection or employment of forces in conditions short of conventional war, for example, strike, raid, rescue, recovery, demonstration, show of force, unconventional warfare and intelligence operations...
...The Administration has been side-tracked, but not necessarily derailed, by Irancontragate...
...intervention would have a far firmer foundation...
...forces...
...Permanent Instability Miles' characterization of LIC implies permanent instability and defeatism: the United States may not be able to beat Third World revolutionaries, but it can keep them from winning-or punish them if they do succeed...
...Victory . . . can be better measured by avoidance of certain outcomes, or by attitudinal changes in a target group...
...Although repression can be made more discriminate, it is never indiscriminate...
...Army's Joint Low-Intensity Conflict Project has issued a final report which designates insurgency/counterinsurgency, terrorism counteraction, peacetime contingency and peacekeeping operations as LIC's major categories...
...It is wrong to say the United States is training contra forces or client states to fight a "cleaner war...
...Her latest work is Reagan, Trilateralism and the Neoliberals: Containment and Intervention in the 1980s (South End Press...
...ground troops and dismisses the threat of "another Vietnam...
...It was the effective practice of LIC with devastating consequences for Grenada and important lessons for war- and peacemakers alike...
...In contrast, the Joint LIC Project Report warns: "Our short-term budget cycle, our four-year presidential election cycle, and our national impatience with long-term commitments in doubtful circumstances make it difficult for the United States to make long-term plans or to be sure of sustaining a protracted effort...
...The borderline between low-and mid-intensity conflict is ambiguous (the Korean War is an example of mid-intensity conflict...
...From the multinational corporate perspective, U.S...
...We cannot focus only on maximalist goals and discard partial successes...
...The campaigns against National Guard deployment are fighting the real war, as are countless other popular education, protest, lobbying and electoral efforts, support for Contadora and the promotion of alternative policies and principles...
...confrontation, where not...
...Miles reproves those who called it an "assassination handbook" and concentrated "on issues of legality rather than of military strategy...
...Seldom that of conventional victory" is not the same as "no such thing as victory by force of arms...
...Critics are not mistaken in thinking of Vietnam's CORDS/Phoenix when they read it...
...Reagan's Gunboat Diplomacy took back Grenada...
...The political focus of LIC is hardly innovative: a century and a half ago Clausewitz pronounced war to be the continuation of politics by other means...
...Army Training and Doctrine Command, states that: "In Vietnam, [the Soviets] proved that low-intensity conflict would work against the American democracy" Although this approach [LIC] lessens the likelihood of US involvement in combat operations, it is possible that a threat to US interests will not be identified until it has reached serious proportions or has grown beyond the capability of local forces to contain...
...A reading of the primary sources does not support this interpretation...
...In late 1981, for example, the "Red Christmas" plan aimed at "liberating" ter- ritory on the Atlantic Coast and invoking the Rio Treaty to invite in U.S...
...often is measured" does not mean "better measured...
...It is mystifying and demobilizing where it should be mobilizing and demystifying...
...The factors of SA [security assistance], logistics and communications and recommends that the Army develop a new doctrine "to win not lose" the next war...
...In such cases, the commitment of US forces in direct support of indigenous forces engaged in combat and, at the extreme, directly to combat on behalf of US interests, is possible...
...A close reading of the Kupperman Report contradicts Miles' assertion that "There is no such thing as victory by force of arms in a lowintensity conflict...
...fighting and teaching others to fight dirty wars...
...LIC rhetoric must be judged against past and present practice...
...They are more than isolated acts of terrorism...
...When it comes to military strategy, Miles stresses winning population versus territory...
...The Real War" * not only takes the rhetoric of LIC at face value, it quotes selectively from that rhetoric to support a distorted conception of LIC-a conception which precludes the direct use of U.S...
...Major General Donald R. Morelli, U.S...
...Thus, the total preparation of the conflict area has served a contingency function as well by providing the basic intelligence, logistic and command and control infrastructure to support the introduction of US combat forces in advisory, supporting, peacekeeping, counterguerrilla or higher intensity operations...
...Grenada, though, was not a "red herring...
...success often is measured only by avoidance of certain outcomes or by attitudinal changes in a target group" [emphasis added], writes Kupperman...
...If we have not derailed intervention it's not because we are fighting this particular war in the wrong way, however much we can and must do better...
...war fronts," we are told, "were coordinated in a dazzling demonstration of the principle of synergy, in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...
...All the hot air about the Reagan Doctrine clouds the fact that global counterrevolution (often successful) is a U.S...
...To "avoid certain outcomes" is hardly the stuff of glory or promotions...
...In contrast, Miles' LIC promises a good divestment climate with permanent instability-the Lebanization of the Third World...
...Meanwhile, the fragmented movement was suffering from an "invasion watch" mentality and fighting a war that did not and would not exist...
...Yet the contras have repeatedly tried to hold a piece of territory, hoping to shortcut the long road to popular insurrection...
...A war of attrition cuts both ways...
...tradition...
...policy in Central America without which U.S...
...It is, in essence, an environment in which political concerns predominate...
...Since publication of "The Real War," the U.S...
...This "temptation to escalate" appears stronger when we consider that "freedom fighters" are more popular in Washington than in their homelands, and policy-makers are worried about the loss of U.S...
...The Kupperman Report, a 1983 study for the U.S...
...Noting that "The Nicaraguan resistance . . . is not likely to succeed in overthrowing the government in short order...
...In my view, the United States has been moving toward an invasion of Nicaragua-seen by many planners as a relatively rapid, winnable war-precisely because that is the only way to achieve the policy objective, the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government, before the end of Reagan's term...
...troops may be directly engaged in combat at the lower end of the conflict spectrum (see box...
...intervention should ensure a good investment climate by enforcing political stability...
...support for the counterinsurgent infrastructure, which has disappeared thousands of Salvadoreans, and subjects thousands more to bombs, bullets and hunger...
...Army Holly Sklar is writing a book on U.S...
...Mexico), to channel social change through accommodation where possible, as in Zimbabwe...
...LIC terminology, it seems, owes more to Orwell than to Clausewitz...
...If it becomes necessary to commit US forces, the fundamental requirements of intelligence, CA [civil affairs] and PSYOP [psychological operations] remain primary concerns...
...Army, retired, and Major Michael M. Ferguson, U.S...
...Giving in, Going in In the June 1986 Report on the Americas, Allan Nairn writes, "Allen Dulles and Teddy Roosevelt would not be impressed" with Reagan...
...We have learned from Vietnam...
...indeed, the resistance itself may face extinction," the report questions "Whether the United States, impatient and result-oriented . . can resist the temptation to escalate [its] involvement to make up for the slowness [or failure] of supported insurgency or counterinsurgency...
...She wishes to thank Sara Miles for sharing her LIC files...
...and they may become as serious as the Vietnam War...
...LIC is not nearly so unequivocal as Miles would have it...
...Miles stresses the protracted nature of LIC, its ability to avoid "giving in" or "going in," divorcing it from political constraints...
...U.S...
...It is designed to kill, terrorize and displace revolutionaries and their supporters, whether actual or potential...
...There is a long history of U.S...
...A notable "peacetime contingency" operation cited was the 1983 invasion of Grenada, known as Operation Urgent Fury...
...Winning Hearts and Minds Miles claims that the CIA's contra manual was an attempt to teach the "conventionally minded contra forces the more sophisticated" LIC techniques for "winning the population...
...Because unconventional tactics are often used, success in low-intensity conflict is seldom that of conventional victory by force of arms...
...In 1982 Plan C targeted Jalapa in northern Nicaragua...
...See "The Real War: Low-Intensity Conflict in Central America," Report on the Americas Vol...
...The faddish use of "low-intensity" to describe war in Central America is as wrong as using "peacekeeper" for missiles or "freedom fighters" for contras...
...The Pledge of Resistance, formed in its wake, is one of many streams feeding an uneven river of public opposition to U.S...
...In broad terms, low-intensity conflicts are usually limited wars or revolutionary/counterrevolutionary wars," observed LICer Sam Sarkesian in a March 1983 National Defense University symposium on special operations...
...policy toward Nicaragua...
...XX, No...
...military involvement along the conflict spectrum and right to see a "deadly connection" between unconventional, conventional and nuclear war...
...Red Herrings "The Real War" unreasonably embellishes the warmakers and belittles the peacemakers...
...We are right to fear "another Vietnam," right to see the risk of escalation inherent in every U.S...
...In contrast, the Reagan Doctrine is myopic, unilateralist, militaristic and anachronistic...
...In essence," states the Joint LIC report, "low-intensity conflict incorporates all those situations involving the use of, or the threatened use of, force outside the realm of direct combat between conventional or nuclear forces...
...Carter, together with the International Monetary Fund, rolled back socialism in higher-stakes Jamaica...
...2 (April/May 1986...
...In March 1986 the House Intelligence Committee re- ported Administration claims that, with the $100 million in aid, the Colomoncagua refugee camp United States would try to give the contras the ability to seize territory and proclaim a provisional government...
...But U.S...
...But the "terror manual" jargon and the issue of illegality fueled a scandal, making in the public eye an all-too-rare association between terrorism and the U.S...
...government...
...Army, "Low-Intensity Conflict: An Operational Perspective," Military Review, January 1985, p. 14 MARCH/APRIL 1987 9 9 MARCH/APRIL 1987means "Military operations conducted in support of diplomatic efforts to achieve, restore, or maintain peace in areas of potential or actual conflict...
...American military culture is racist and macho...
...colomoncagua retugee camp Majors and often-quoted LIC experts Ferguson and Morelli make it clear that U.S...
...Ultimately, we will not stop intervention in other countries unless progressive forces win power and justice in this country and renounce the traditional right of intervention which liberals as well as conservatives endorse...
...And, if the contras had succeeded in taking Jalapa, for example, the U.S...
...Like most LIC rhetoric, these terms are euphemistic...
...Miles dispenses with Trilateralism I0 MARCH/APRIL 1987 10 MARCH/APRIL 1987in a sentence, but the Reagan Doctrine pales in comparison to Trilateralism as a comprehensive program to preserve Western dominance in a postPax Americana era...
...Neither would Lyndon Johnson (Dominican Republic, Congo...
...Numerous reports assert the contras will not attempt to seize territory in coming months, not because they are committed to Prolonged Popular War, but because they are incapable of success...
...That may make sense in some cases, but not as a global military creed...
...Peacekeeping also take on greater significance to provide adequate support to the military effort...
...the recent Americas Watch report testifies to their "escalating brutality...
...In El Salvador, efforts to "clean up" death squads are grounded in decades of U.S...
...We can analyze the objectives, strategy and tactics of LIC-style intervention without accepting its rhetoric...
...would not have tolerated their annihilation in a second Bay of Pigs...
...forces, and would do so today...
...Whose LIC is it Anyway...
...credibility" in protracted, seemingly unwinnable wars...
...The contras remain a terrorist force...
...But the manual, Psychological Operations and Guerrilla Warfare, is derived from a 1968 Army Special Warfare lessons book...
Vol. 21 • March 1987 • No. 2
