Conflicts short of war

"Power concedes nothing without a demand… it never did, and it never will. Find out just what the people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.…" --Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857.

Conflicts short of war are also known as "low intensity conflicts" (LIC), which the Wikipedia defines as "the use of military force applied selectively and with restraint to enforce compliance with the policies or objectives of the political body controlling the military force."

"Conflicts short of war include counterterrorism, some counternarcotics operations, strikes and raids, support for insurgencies, and counterinsurgency (guerrilla) operations." [1]

Military Definition

"The US military has jointly defined LIC as political-military confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states. It frequently involves protracted struggles of competing principles and ideologies. Low intensity conflict ranges from subversion to the use of armed force. It is waged by a combination of means employing political, economic, informational, and military instruments. Low intensity conflicts are often localized, generally in the Third World, but contain regional and global security implications." [2]

Special Forces

"Congress, as a part of the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986, directed the DOD to provide an appropriate force structure for simultaneously addressing conventional conflict and conflicts short of war. As a result of this legislation, the joint US Special Operations Command (USSOC) was created." [3]

Evolution of Military Doctrine

"A projection published in the January '96 professional journal of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C. sheds even more light on this ominous evolution of military doctrine. In the scenario, the ongoing 'revolution of military affairs' (RMA) will lead to a 21st century police state capable of using 'bioelectronics', 'psychotechnology' and chemical tranquilizers to fight conflicts short of war and subdue restive populations - including Americans. The U.S. adopted a strategy of 'dynamic defense', a use of 'computer-controlled perception-moulding systems' and other forms of mind control. 'The old Cold War structures - Department of Defense, Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency', etc., were replaced by two organizations called 'The Conflict Preemption Agency' and the 'Conflict Containment Agency'. The latter agency 'integrated the military [and] civilian law enforcement' and intelligence agencies. 'The organizational division between the military and law-enforcement was abolished.'" (Source: The New American magazine April 29, 1996). [4]

SourceWatch Resources

• Army After Next
• avian flu pandemic
• Bush Administration Plan for Flu Outbreaks
• Directed Energy Weapons
• enemy combatant
• emerging threat
• environmental warfare
• Establishing martial law in the United States
• fourth-generation warfare
• Hurricane Katrina: Police State Occupation of New Orleans
• Iraq as an imminent threat
• Iraqi insurgency
• Joint Vision 2010 (1996)
• Joint Vision 2020 (2000)
• Minuteman Project: "Armed Rednecks at the Border"
• national security
• National Security Act of 1947
• National Security State
• Office of Net Assessment
• Office of Strategic Services
• Operation Garden Plot
• Patriot Act I
• peacekeeping
• police state
• Posse Comitatus Act
• Proactive Preemptive Operations Group
• psychological warfare
• SARS
• State of national emergency
• U.S. Northern Command

Publications

• Chung Min Lee, "Crises and Conflicts Short of War: The Case of the Korean Peninsula," The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 7, no. 1 (Summer 1996): 31-53.
• John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt (eds.), "Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy," RAND Corporation, ISBN 0-8330-3030-2, 2001. Free downloadable pdf.
• John T. Fishel, ed., "Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement," Center for the Hemispheric Defense Studies, National Defense University. ISSN Print 0966-2847 / ISSN Online 1744-0556.e-journal subscription (sample links provided).

Documents

• New Release: President Orders Ready Reserves of Armed Forces to Active Duty. Executive Order Ordering the Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty And Delegating Certain Authorities to the Secretary of Defense And the Secretary of Transportation, September 14, 2001.
• News Release: President Signs Authorization for Use of Military Force bill, Senate Joint Resolution 23, the "Authorization for Use of Military Force," September 18, 2001.
• News Release: President Issues Military Order. Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism, November 13, 2001.

Research Resources

• Low-Intensity Conflict. SNCOA Library Bibliography. Compiled by SNCOA Library Staff, Air University Library, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, August 2000. Includes books, documents, and periodicals.

External links

• Major J.A. Robbs (Royal Australian Infantry Corps), "Low Intensity Conflict: A War by Any Other Name," Command and Staff College, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Virginia, May 9, 1988.
• Jochen Hippler, "Low intensity warfare and its implications for NATO," jochen-hippler.com, December 1988.
• Terry Doherty, "The Future of Low-Intensity Conflict. The Cold War is over! We won! Now what?" Special Warfare, U.S. Army, Summer 1989.
• Major William T. Eliason, "USAF Support to Low Intensity Conflict: Three Case Studies from the 1980s," USAF Thesis presented to the Faculty of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, for the Completion of Graduation Requirements, 1994.
• Steven Metz and James Kievit, "The Revolution in Military Affairs and Conflict Short of War," U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, July 25, 1994.
• "The Textbooks of Military Medicine: War Psychiatry," Office of the Surgeon General, [1995], Chapter 7: "U.S. Army Combat Psychiatry."
• William W. Mendel, "Combat in Cities: The LA Riots and Operation Rio," SmallWars.com, USMC Quantico, Virginia, July 1996.
• "'Peacekeeping' Armies Train for Global Control. The New System's War Against Civilians" (re Peace Nugget '97, WINDS, July 19, 1997.
• Gerrard Quille, "The Revolution in Military Affairs and the UK," International Security Information Service Briefing No. 73, December 1998.
• James Henry Graf, "Here's How It All Came About," 1998-2002.
• Frank Morales, "U.S. Military Civil Disturbance Planning: The War at Home," What Really Happened, circa 1999.
• Gerrard Quille, "The Revolution in Military Affairs and the UK," International Security Information Service Briefing No. 73, December 1998.
• James Henry Graf, "Here's How It All Came About," 1998-2002.
• David M. Bresnahan, "Marines hit beach in Kentucky today. Military training for U.S. deployment features mock-terrorism, 'earthquake'," WorldNetDaily, June 12, 2000.
• "Responding to Terrorism Victims: Oklahoma City and Beyond," Office of Justice Programs, Department of Justice, October 2000.
• Michael Ratner, "Moving Toward A Police State or Have We Arrived? Secret Military Tribunals, Mass Arrests and Disappearances, Wiretapping & Torture," Human Rights Now, circa late 2001.
• Arlene Tyner, "High-Tech Crimes and Electromagnetic Madness," tetrahedron, completed July 2001; published October 2001.
• "The Impact of Sept. 11, 2001, on the Unified Command Plan," Center for Defense Information, May 22, 2002.
• J. Michael Waller, "'Wahhabi Lobby' Takes the Offensive," Insight Magazine (Free Republic), July 15, 2002.
• Patrick O'Driscoll, "'One-stop' agency coordinates defense," USA Today, September 30, 2002.
• Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, "U.S. Policy in Latin America: Low-Intensity Conflict," Resource Center of the Americas, September-October 2003.
• "A Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century," U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), 2004, Chapter 4: "Assessing Terrorist Capabilities and Intentions."
• Imtiaz Ahmed, "Globalization, Low-Intensity Conflict & Protracted Statelessness/Refugeehood: The Plight of the Rohingyas," Program on Global Security and Cooperation, Social Science Research Council, Summer/Fall 2004.