Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

Parameters, a publication of the Army War College, often has some good articles. It’s a good window into how the defense establishment thinks and operates. New issue is out for Spring 2003.

PARAMETERS: US Army War College Quarterly, Spring 2003, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1

1. Taiwan: National pride is perhaps the prime motive for capturing Taiwan. Chinese leaders see Taiwan as the last vestige of the humiliation by Japan and the West during the colonial period when imperial powers carved China into spheres of influence. China reclaimed Hong Kong, the British colony, in 1997, and Macau, the Portuguese colony, in 1999. Taking Taiwan would complete that trilogy and end the civil war with the Nationalists.
2. The China Factor in the India-Pakistan Conflict
3. Sino-US Military Relations Since Tiananmen: Restoration, Progress, and Pitfalls: China handles its military relations independently, and conducts military exchanges and cooperation with other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Military diplomacy should serve the state’s overall diplomacy and the modernization of national defense and the armed forces. In pursuance of this purpose the PLA has actively engaged in external contacts and exchanges in a flexible and practical manner, and made sustained efforts for enhanced mutual trust, friendship, and cooperation with armed forces of other countries, and for regional and world peace, stability, and development.
4. North Korea’s Military Strategy
5. The Concept and Practice of Jihad in Islam: Islamic militancy is still not well understood by Americans. This is partly due to the secrecy which radical Islamic groups practice to protect themselves from the authorities and from outsiders who do not share their views and aims, but also because Western public communications media frequently tend to marginalize such groups. They are dismissed as religious fanatics, anti-Western hooligans, or mindless terrorists, without making an attempt to comprehend the deep discontents that have produced these Islamic groups’ violent actions or the logic of their radical cause which compels them to behave as they do.
6. Nuclear Smuggling: Patterns and Responses
7. Al Qaeda and the Internet: The Danger of “Cyberplanning”: The Internet allows groups with few resources to offset even some huge propaganda machines in advanced countries. The web is an attractive device to those looking for a way to attack major powers via the mass media. The “always on” status of the web allows these individuals not only to access sites day and night but also to scold major powers and treat them with disdain in a public forum. The web can be used to counter facts and logic with the logic of the terrorist. There is no need for the terrorist organization to worry about “the truth,” because ignoring facts is a standard operating procedure.

   Al Qaeda uses polemics on the net not only to offset Western reporting, but also to counter Muslims who don’t toe the party line. It defends the conduct of its war against the West and encourages violence. The web is important to al Qaeda because it can be used to enrage people and neutralize moderate opinion. The website of the Center for Islamic Studies and Research (according to one source, a made-up name), for example, has 11 sections, including reports on fighting in Afghanistan, world media coverage of the conflict, books on jihad theology, videos of hijackers’ testaments, information about prisoners held in Pakistan and Guantanamo Bay, and jihad poetry.26

   It does not pay for any major power to lie, as facts can be easily used against them. Even in the war in Chechnya, there were times when the Chechens would report a successful ambush of a Russian convoy, and the Russians would deny the event ever happened. To prove their point, the Chechens would show video footage of the ambush on the Internet, thus offsetting the credibility of the Russian official media and undercutting the power of their massive propaganda machine. Al Qaeda officials are waiting to do the same to Western media reporting if the opportunity presents itself. In other words, the internet makes government lies more risky.

8. Four Myths about
   Space Power: One way is through special forces actions. Given the growing power of small groups of people to inflict destruction, states may turn to developing massive special operations forces for spreading chaos behind an enemy’s lines. The Soviet Union had a force of 25,000 Spetsnaz troops who would have been unleashed en masse against Western targets from communications and transport systems to nuclear weapons facilities in the event of a third world war.14 North Korea has over 100,000 soldiers in its own special forces units, presumably intended to wreak havoc behind South Korean lines in a future conflict.15 It goes without saying that the chaos created by the most destructive attack a terrorist group like al Qaeda could stage pales compared to what such robust forces could accomplish given the chance.