On November 4, the Modern War Institute will convene its annual Class of 2006 War Studies Conference. The conference’s theme is “Coercion & Competition: How the United States Can Impose Costs and Disrupt Adversaries Without Resorting to War.” Panels will be convened virtually, and can be watched via Microsoft Teams.
Is the United States truly equipped to compete with other great powers?
According to the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the greatest threats to American national security now come not from nonstate actors and ungoverned spaces, but from powerful states with revisionist goals. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran all seek to undermine American influence and interests wherever they can.
Like the low-intensity conflict of the last two decades, competition in this environment means committing to a strategy for the long haul. However, the array of threats that come from hostile states with peer or near-peer capabilities greatly differs from the challenges posed by nonstate adversaries. These states have more resources, better coordination across theaters, and the ability to use or interfere with global institutions.
Confronting these problems requires new skillsets. Modern conflict will play out across domains that were practically unthinkable during earlier eras of great power competition. For example, the symbolic struggle of the Cold War space race has given way to a sophisticated and crowded theater of conflict with an entirely new US military service dedicated to it. Social media and information technology have drastically changed the way states engage in ideological conflict and propaganda. And American society may struggle to meet the personnel requirements of prolonged conflict.
This year, the Modern War Institute’s annual USMA Class of 2006 War Studies Conference will grapple with how the United States can compete and thrive in this new threat environment. Importantly, our theme asks panelists to think broadly about competition; our adversaries have been engaging the United States outside the conventional battlefield, and all parties are aware just how costly a conventional war would be. Coercion and competition are the key words: How can the United States achieve its goals without resorting to war?
This theme considers that planning how to win in peacetime is at least as important as winning in war. To win without war, though, we must know where our red lines are, how to communicate them to our opponents, and how to make it too costly to cross them. Similarly, we must know when and how to exploit weaknesses in other states. We must reconsider traditional theories of deterrence and coercion, while also adapting irregular warfare lessons to this new environment.
The War Studies Conference will ask these questions more, with each panel bringing together expert scholars and practitioners to focus on these problems as they relate to one of the four state adversaries named in the National Defense Strategy. A final panel will examine the diverse threats facing the United States from the perspective of grand strategy: How do these threats interact with each other? How should we prioritize them? And, of course, how do we address them holistically, while still securing ourselves against continuing threats from nonstate actors?
Our goal is that this conference will begin an ongoing dialogue between diverse segments of the US defense community about how to best secure American national interests in an increasingly multipolar world. We hope you will join us on November 4 as we debate and answer these vital questions.
You can read more about the conference’s theme here, find the full schedule and list of panelists here, and download the official conference registration book here. This year’s USMA Class of 2006 War Studies Conference will be held virtually. Join via Microsoft Teams.
Until the election of our current president, the greatest threat to our competitors and enemies HAD BEEN the threat posed by our efforts to transform other states and societies (especially those of our competitors and enemies themselves) more along modern western political, economic, social and value lines. This "weapon," more than anything else in our arsenal, brought fear to the regimes of China, Russia, Iran, N. Korea — and also stood directly in the way of the ambitions of the Islamists — and, most importantly, showed that we were true competitors.
Indeed, back before 2017, and with this such amazing "weapon of peace as well as war" in our arsenal, we held a distinct advantage over our state and non-state adversaries — who, back then, had no comparably potent weapon of their own. (Authoritarianism held little sway before 2017?)
Q: How then to become competitive once again — in peace as well as in war?"
A: Bring back the amazing "weapon of war" that I describe in my first paragraph above – and with renewed vigor.
(In 2017, it appears we believed that if we took transformation of other states and societies [more along modern western political, economic, social and value lines] off the table, this would cause our great nation adversaries — WHO WERE NOW TO NO LONGER TO BE THREATENED AS BEFORE — to [a] cease and desist in their efforts to undermine American influence and interests and to [b] concentrate now more on cooperation. [Foolish and wishful thinking indeed?] Instead, our such [appeasement?] effort only indicated to our adversaries that we were not very bright, appeared to be rather desperate, were certainly no longer interested in "competing" in any true and meaningful way, and, in fact, were ripe for overthrow as leader of the world?)
With regard to my original comment above, consider the following from authors Joseph L. Votel, Charles T. Cleveland, Charles T. Connett, and Will Irwin in their 2016 NDU paper "Unconventional Warfare in the Gray Zone:"
"Advocates of UW first recognize that, among a population of self-determination seekers, human interest in liberty trumps loyalty to a self-serving dictatorship, that those who aspire to freedom can succeed in deposing corrupt or authoritarian rules, and that unfortunate
populations groups can and often do seek alternatives to a life of fear, oppression, and injustice. Second, advocates believe that there is a role for the U.S. Government in encouraging and empowering these freedom seekers when doing so helps to secure U.S. national security interests."
"human interest in liberty trumps loyalty to a self-serving dictatorship"
Im sorry, BC. This is not a absolutely true statement. Liberty comes with benefits, and with consequences. Spend time on the ground in places where liberty is not a given. Many, many, many people prefer the convenience of tyranny over the responsibility of liberty.