Mark Thomas
The Age of the Dictator?
Will the 21st century belong to the dictator? The United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are competing to decide this existential question. The U.S.-led liberal world order is built on democracy, free trade, and universal human rights, while the PRC’s vision is based on survival of the Chinese Communist Party, civil obedience, and preeminent global influence. For the US to prevail in this struggle, it must be able to support those who seek to resist the authoritarian rule modeled and exported by the PRC. Consistent with integrated campaigning, a critical Department of Defense (DoD) role in great power competition is to conduct unconventional warfare (UW). Joint doctrine defines UW as activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area. U.S. Army Special Forces are the only Department of Defense element authorized to conduct UW. To cite a well-known example, U.S. Special Forces conducted a UW campaign in Afghanistan supporting the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban in 2001. Although this campaign was successful, the Taliban exerted only tenuous control over their country.
More modern authoritarian states wield sophisticated internal security apparatuses that cannot be easily defeated by the likes of the SF “horse soldiers” in Afghanistan. While resistance movements have increased in the past decade, their success has greatly decreased (see Figure 1). This resistance paradox presents both a problem for aspiring democracies and an opportunity for the US to gain strategic initiative over authoritarian states. Research by Harvard professor Dr. Chenoweth shows that most successful modern resistance movements are largely nonviolent (see Figure 2). While current U.S. military resistance doctrine acknowledges the growing importance of nonviolence, UW education and training still emphasize a protracted, violent struggle – reminiscent of a Maoist insurgency campaign of the early 20th century. However, the character of modern 21st-century resistance demands an evolution of the UW enterprise to account for these new trends toward nonviolence.
No comments:
Post a Comment