The term “low-intensity conflict” (LIC) first appeared in the lexicon of the U.S. national security community in the latter half of the 1970s. During the 1980s, the Reagan administration and the Congress undertook several initiatives to prepare the United States to respond to various LIC challenges. Following a brief commentary on these developments, the author addresses three interrelated subjects. First, the conceptual debate surrounding LIC and its relationship to the American approach to strategy is examined. Second, the primary kinds of LIC that will occur in the 1990s are described. Finally, the implications and requirements for U.S. national security policy are outlined.
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References
1.
1. Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Warfare (London: Faber and Faber, 1971).
2.
Brian Jenkins is one of the leading specialists on international terrorism in the United States. Over the last two decades, his work on the subject at the RAND Corporation has set the agenda for those working on the topic. The results from the 1976 RAND meeting appeared in George Tanhamet al., “United States Preparation for Future Low-Level Conflict,”Conflict, 1(1-2) (1978).
3.
3. The results from the meeting were subsequently published. See Sam C. Sarkesian and William L. Scully, eds., U.S. Policy and Low-Intensity Conflict (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1981).
4.
Michael Klare and Peter Kornbluh, eds., Low Intensity Warfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).
5.
5. This is reflected in the Reagan administration's National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987). At the same time, the administration issued a national security directive on LIC to signify its importance.
6.
With respect to Army planning in the 1980s, see Richard Shultz and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., eds., The U.S. Army in the 1990s (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1991).
7.
7. Roy Godson, ed., Intelligence Requirements for the 1980s: Covert Action (New York: National Strategy Information Center, 1981).
8.
8. David Silverstein, “Preparing America to Win Low-Intensity Conflict,”Backgrounder: The Heritage Foundation, no. 786 (Aug. 1990).
9.
John Collins , U.S. Low-Intensity Conflict, 1989-1990 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, May 1990).
10.
Also see Regional Conflict Working Group, “A U.S. Strategy for Third World Conflict” (Report prepared for the Commission on Integrated Long-term Strategy, 1988).
11.
11. The statement is by former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Fred C. Ikle and is in Proceedings of the Low Intensity Warfare Conference (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1986), pp. 97-98.
12.
12. Quoted in Special Operations in U.S. Strategy, ed. Frank Barnett, B. Hugh Tovar, and Richard Shultz (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1984), p. 30.
13.
13. See ibid., n. 6, p. 135.
14.
14. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Joint Low-Intensity Conflict Project Final Report, vol. 1, Analytical Review of Low-Intensity Conflict (Ft. Monroe, VA: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1986).
15.
15. See ibid., n. 9, p. 136.
16.
16. Cited in Silverstein, “Preparing America to Win Low-Intensity Conflict,” p. 4.
17.
17. Maurice Tugwell and David Charters, “Special Operations and the Threat to United States Interests in the 1980s,” in Special Operations in U.S. Strategy, ed. Barnett, Tovar, and Shultz, p. 34.
18.
18. See Richard Shultz, “On Low Intensity Conflict and National Security Policy: A Comparative Analysis,” in Security and Arms Control, ed. Edward Kolodziej and Patrick Morgan, vol. 1, A Guide to International Policymaking (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989).
19.
19. Andre Beaufre, Strategy of Action (London: Farber, 1967), pp. 104-115.
20.
20. Russell Weigley, The American Way of War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973).
21.
21. John Shy and Thomas Collier, “Revolutionary War,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 831.
22.
22. Ibid.
23.
23. Small Wars Manual: United States Marine Corps 1940 (Manhattan, KS: Sunflower Press, 1989).
24.
24. This includes the fact that the primary threat that the United States faced during the Cold War was the Soviet Union. Consequently, our strategy focused on the nuclear and conventional levels of the conflict spectrum. Additionally, the first post-World War II shooting-war experience for the United States—Korea—was a conventional one.
25.
25. See Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: SAGE Publications, 1985), p. 3.
28. Among the terrorist operations conducted by Hezbollah in the 1980s are the truck bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut; the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut; the murder of Central Intelligence Agency Station Chief William Buckley; the kidnapping of several Americans in Lebanon, six of whom have yet to be released; and the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Higgins.
29.
“Aide Says Hungary Gave Refuge in 1979 to Terrorist Carlos,”New York Times, 28 June 1990.
30.
30. For a discussion of this and related issues, see Richard Shultz, “Covert Action,” in Intelligence Requirements for the 1990s, ed. Roy Godson (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 165-200.
31.
31. See Regional Conflict Working Group, “U.S. Strategy for Regional Conflict.”
