Hal Brands
For Americans, war is typically something that happens “over there” — in foreign countries far from their shores. They ought to start thinking about it as something that may well be experienced “over here.”
In future conflicts, American territory will not be a sanctuary. The U.S. is entering an era of homeland vulnerability, one in which technological advances are making it possible for geopolitical adversaries — not just terrorist groups — to bring the war to America itself.
Yes, the U.S. has been attacked before. The British burned Washington during the War of 1812. The Japanese struck Hawaii, then a U.S. territory, in 1941. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brought carnage to New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
But those episodes are so memorable because they are exceptions. For the most part, a combination of power and geography has given the U.S. greater homeland security than nearly any other major country. Since the Cold War, it has contended with terrorist attacks, but the states that it pummeled — notably Iraq and Serbia — lacked any ability to respond in kind.
For one thing, the number of rivals that can threaten the U.S. with nuclear weapons in a conflict is increasing. China, which traditionally had a small and vulnerable nuclear arsenal, is rapidly expanding it; Beijing wants to ensure it has could strike the U.S. in a conflict over Taiwan or any other hotspot. North Korea is on the verge of having, or may already have, nuclear-tipped missiles that can hit targets in the U.S.
America’s rivals would still have strong incentives not to conduct such nuclear attacks — not least of which would be the threat of devastating U.S. nuclear retaliation. But today, unlike during the Cold War, they could also strike the U.S. homeland in ways that are less apocalyptic, and therefore more feasible.
Both Russia and China have, or are developing, the ability to hit U.S. targets with conventional warheads mounted on long-range missiles — whether cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles or perhaps intercontinental ballistic missiles. There is growing concern that China could use swarms of small drones, launched from container ships, to hit targets on the U.S. West Coast or Hawaii.
These attacks probably wouldn’t cause catastrophic destruction. But they could disrupt U.S. logistics, communications and mobilization during a conflict — or simply give Moscow or Beijing a way of deterring, or retaliating for, American strikes against Chinese or Russian territory.
The most likely form of homeland attack wouldn’t involve overt violence at all. Cyberattacks against critical infrastructure or financial systems could snarl everyday life and hinder any response to aggression on the other side of the world. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, which caused gas shortages across the East Coast last spring, offered a chilling preview. Imagine a repeat performance, but on a far larger scale in the middle of a major international crisis over Taiwan, Ukraine or the Baltic states.
Such attacks would be appealing for Russian and Chinese planners. They can be clouded in ambiguity in a way that direct military strikes cannot. They can sow domestic disruption without directly causing huge numbers of civilian deaths. They can slow down the U.S. at the outset of a conflict, when Beijing or Moscow would be racing to achieve their military objectives in Eastern Europe or the western Pacific. And they can pose harsh questions for U.S. policymakers: Will Washington be willing to use force to halt aggression in faraway places, if doing so could expose painful vulnerabilities at home?
There is no perfect solution to this dilemma. Missile defenses, for instance, can help protect key targets, but they are too expensive and unreliable to afford any comprehensive protection. The best the U.S. can do is mitigate homeland security weaknesses through a mix of defense, offense and resilience.
This will require larger and more systematic investments in what was once called “civil defense” —hardening critical infrastructure, logistical facilities and communications networks against digital disruption. Washington will need to better advertise, in peacetime, its ability and willingness to exact retribution for state-sponsored cyberattacks. This will make adversaries wonder how the U.S. might respond to larger attacks — whether physical or digital — during wartime.
Yet there’s no avoiding the fact that absolute protection is an illusion. Accepting a higher likelihood of homeland attacks, and developing the economic and societal resilience necessary to absorb them, may be the price of global influence in a world where geography doesn’t provide immunity.
That will be a hard message for Americans to hear. It may provoke sharp debates about the costs and benefits of America’s global presence. But better for that debate to begin now than for Americans to recognize their new vulnerability only after a conflict starts.
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