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American military history, particularly low-intensity conflict, revolutionary and guerrilla warfare, the Vietnam War, and the American colonial war in the Philippines are all areas of expertise for John Gates. John Gates is the Aileen Dunham Professor of History at The College of Wooster. He received his bachelor’s degree and his master’s degree from Stanford University. He then earned his Ph.D. from Duke University and joined the faculty at Wooster in 1967. Gates is the author of Schoolbooks and Krags: The U.S. Army in the Philippines, 1898-1902; more than 20 published articles and book chapters; and a 12-chapter Web publication, titled The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare, available on-line at www.wooster.edu/history/ jgates/book-contents.html. Gates is a member of the Society for Military History, the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Ohio Academy of History. |
As revolution, civil war, guerilla warfare, and terrorism continue to rage on just about every continent, the United States finds itself in an increasingly precarious position. Government officials must decide whether or not to intervene in an attempt to resolve these situations, often referred to as low-intensity conflicts or irregular warfare. John M. Gates, professor of history at The College of Wooster, specializes in military history, particularly these types of conflicts, and he addresses some of the tough issues on the subject in this column. How does one define low-intensity conflict? I never use the term "low-intensity conflict." It is both ambiguous and deceptive. It originated as a substitute for terms like counterinsurgency that had negative associations with the war in Vietnam. The "intensity" was defined in terms of the American input and did not represent a true measure of a conflict. I have begun to think about intensity in terms of the level of casualties, finding that many so-called "low-intensity" conflicts are very intense if viewed from that perspective. For example, the 10,000 Nicaraguans that Sandinistas claimed were victims of the Contra war would be the equivalent of 800,000 people killed in the U.S. The 75,000 killed in El Salvador’s civil war are the equivalent of 3.75 million dead in U.S. terms. If the new Bush administration follows through on its plan to avoid using the military for peacekeeping and nation-building operations, will the world see more conflict like there has been in central/southern Europe? I am not sure the world will see more conflicts because American interventions have not been particularly effective in preventing or ending conflicts. More important, the Bush policy will be difficult to implement if Americans find the scenes on their TV sets too horrible to contemplate and demand that their government "do something." Has there been an increase in such conflicts since Vietnam, and does that indicate that a full-scale war is less likely to happen? I am not sure if there has been a numerical increase. Many conflicts remain hidden from view in places such as northern Burma. What I do see, however, is a change in the nature of conflicts. Prior to the end of the Cold War, many conflicts involved leftist revolutionary challenges to existing conservative regimes. In the past decade, however, many more conflicts have involved separatist groups that emerged as states such as Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union collapsed. Also important are non-state actors – drug lords, religious sects, and the like. If international war seems improbable, what kind of threat would necessitate a missile defense system? I would have said that full-scale war is very unlikely until the emergence of the Bush policies that seem calculated to antagonize China and Russia. One antagonistic policy is the missile defense system itself. I see no threat that necessitates such a system. Any so-called "rogue" state choosing to attack the U.S. can do that easily using biological or chemical agents. It need not engage in the patently stupid means of launching missiles from its own territory, something that could instantly be traced back to it. With wars of and against terrorism common in the Middle East, Africa and Europe, do you see the U.S. getting more involved in counter-terrorism? The U.S. is involved in counter-terrorist activity already. The problem is that there is no sure way to prevent terrorist attacks. Also, the U.S. seems unable to differentiate between acts of terrorism and more legitimate acts of undeclared war. I would argue that an attack on uniformed military personnel is not a terrorist act. The U.S. has failed to realize that some groups see themselves at war with the U.S. As a result, the U.S. military has been lax in its security measures overseas, particularly in the Middle East. Is the U.S. no longer safe from terrorists? The U.S. never was safe from terrorists, nor can it be made safe from terrorism without creating an authoritarian police state. Some acts of terror are the result of actions undertaken by angry, even psychotic individuals. Identifying every such person is impossible, as is protecting and securing every potential target they might attack. Terrorist acts, like criminal acts, will happen. We can decrease the number through good policing, but we can not reduce it to zero. How will the armed forces have to adjust their tactics to be effective against such enemies? Security can be tightened, both at home and wherever the military is deployed abroad. Commanders of military bases on foreign soil should assume that their facilities and people are potential targets and act accordingly. The U.S. could also use special military units to target known terrorists and "neutralize" them. That, however, could mean taking casualties, and Americans seem adverse to any solution that might lead to Americans being killed or wounded. Also, it represents an implicit declaration of war on terrorist enemies and is more a strategic than tactical change. Personally, I have wondered what the effect might be of a policy that targeted terrorists, which would imply holding any captured terrorists as military prisoners (without trials) rather than subjecting them to the civilian criminal justice system. I also wonder what might result if the "drug war" became a real war, in which drug dealers were attacked on sight. |
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| Last updated: January 10, 2006 · For more information, contact John Finn | ||
