An appropriate way to mark the 65th anniversary of Pearl Harbor is to reconsider one if its key lessons: the difficulty of predicting an enemy's strategy and tactics, and problems this poses for a primarily defensive national security strategy. As Roberta Wohlstetter showed in her classic study, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision , US intelligence actually had a great deal of evidence suggesting the possibility of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor even before December 7, 1941. In fact, the US, through its MAGIC program, had broken the Japanese military and diplomatic radio codes, and so was reading many Japanese communications in "real time." Yet US officials still failed to predict the attack in large part because the evidence pointing in the right direction was balanced by lots of other evidence suggesting that Japan would pursue other options (such as attacking the Phillipines, attacking British and Dutch possessions in the Far East while leaving the US alone, etc.). Only after the fact was the US able to separate what Wohlstetter called the "signals" from the "noise."
The 9/11 Commission report suggests that signals and noise issues also played a role in intelligence failures prior to 9/11, though we did not have as good intelligence on Al Qaeda prior to 2001 as the US did on Japan prior to Pearl Harbor.
As the MAGIC example dramatically demonstrates, there are serious limits to even the best intelligence. A reasonably smart enemy will deliberately send out contradictory signals and "noise" before any attack. This point applies with special force to modern terrorists, who have a large number of potential targets to choose from. Sooner or later, they will catch us by surprise again.
For these reasons, among others, we cannot win with a purely or even primarily defensive orientation. Ultimately, we have to engage in offensive operations, in order to destroy the enemy before they are able to implement their own attack plans, and so we ourselves can exploit the advantages of surprise and confuse the enemy's own intelligence. Offensive strategies certainly have their own risks, and are not a panacea. However, even more than 9/11, Pearl Harbor demonstrates that an exclusively defensive orientation is a guarantee that our enemies will take us by surprise sooner or later - with potentially devastating results.
UPDATE: Many of the commenters have, perhaps predictably, immediately gone into a debate over the Iraq War. The point of this post is both broader and narrower than Iraq. Narrower because the balance between offense and defense is just one of many factors that needs to be considered in assessing the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Broader because the point of the post applies to other conflicts too. In particular, it applies to the debate between those who believe that we can best counter terrorism and other threats through defensive "homeland security" measures and those who believe in a more aggressive offensive approach. In my view, the former strategy is likely to break down over time because 1) the enemy has an almost infinite range of targets to pick from, making it difficult to predict which one they will hit, and 2) the "signals/noise" problem ensures that we will periodically have intelligence failures similar to Pearl Harbor - especially if we don't have information comparable in quality to what MAGIC provided back in 1941. Does that mean that offense is a once size fits all solution to all national security threats? Of course not. But it's an important point to consider that I think is too often ignored.
Your post thus seems a little bizarre. Are you saying that we need to attack an enemy that we are engaged in a war with? That seems a bit obvious, no? Or are you saying that we need to attack someone whom we suspect is likely to be an enemy before they attack us in the first place just because their intelligence is confusing? We need to start off more wars in the hopes of not having other people start them?
What you seem to be saying is that the Japanese had the right idea and that we should have just bombed Tokyo to begin with before they got us in Pearl Harbor. Again, in hindsight, sure (though that may not have played out as well as things did in the end for us). But as a general policy, that would have meant WW3 when the opponent was, for instance, Russia. In that case, we were just as continually unsure if a Pearl Harbor was imminent. But that attack never came. I'm not sure a policy of pro-actively bombing Moscow would have turned out so great though.
So, in the end, I'm really not sure what you're suggesting.
This is only logical and prudent if a state of war already exists. Not the case at Pearl Harbour. Otherwise it means that anyone can engage in a "preemptice war" once they become convinced they are threatened. We have just had that scenario, with terrible results: The US have attacked another country which did not threaten them, the very action they tried German leaders for in Nuremberg.
I can imagine this exact line of reasoning being used by the Japanese military to justify the need for a preemptive attack against Pearl Harbor.
War is about much more than destroying the enemy . . . I'd elaborate on that point but it's finals week and I should be working.
He did send the Doolittle raid against Japan, and then attacked Germany and Italy instead of Japan.
Damn that Roosevelt and distracting obsession with Germany. It distracted us from the War on Japan.
Not sure what you mean by troops on the ground, but the first direct encounters between US and Japanese ground troops would have been Wake Island and the Philippines I believe, both of which the US unfortunately lost.
It's late and you should be mixing drinks instead of mixing metaphors.
The Doolittle raid was by no means ineffectual. It caused the Japanese a huge shock that their homeland could be attacked despite all official proclamations to the contrary. It resulted in the loss of credibility of the military and the retention of more resources for homeland defense, to the detriment of other areas.
By contrast, Iraq had invaded and occupied a US ally (Kuwait) and then repeatedly violated the terms of the cease-fire. It also funded terrorist attacks on another US ally (Israel).
One can certainly argue cogently that invaded Iraq was unwise, but it is silly to suggest that it was illegal.
As for Pearl Harbor, I realize that there is an element of hindsight here, but what could the Japanese have done in the face of the the Anglo-US oil and rubber boycott?
1. Renounced their imperial ambitions
2. Allowed their military to suffocate from a lack of materiél
3. Attempted to displace the British military from (oil- and rubber-rich) Indochina
4. Launch a coup de main against the US and Britain
I guess the US was hoping for (1) but it is difficult to imagine any ambition country, let alone Japan, deliberately acquiescing to that or (2). (3) would have meant a full-fledged war with the US anyway -- a US with the full use of her Pacific fleet.
So the Japanese inevitably did what you or I would have done under the same circumstances: hit their enemies as fast and as hard as they could. The only reason that the US was surprised was the prevalence of wishful thinking.
Why does everyone act like we attacked Iraq just out of the blue as if Bush threw a dart at a map of the middle east and proclaimed "Iraq!". A state of hostilities has existed between Iraq and the US since 1991. The only thing preventing war from breaking out was a cease fire which Iraq never bothered to obey. In short the only thing preventing a resumption of hostilities was the fact that the US and its allies had no political will to do so.
That's ludicrous - the US and its allies didn't "resume hostilities" because there was no point to it. Iraq was crippled due to a decade of economic sanctions. Sadam didn't have access to large swaths of the country due to the "no-fly" zones. The Kurds were largely autonamous in the North. You've heard the precautions he had to take - sleeping every night in a different place, employing doubles, etc. Iraq was basically hamstrung. Iraq wasn't a credible threat to us and it was ridiculous, illegal, wasteful, and counterproductive to attack them.
We knew Al Qaeda was an enemy long before 9/11. They themselves had said so.
Except that the US had desire to go to war with Japan and the Japanese well knew it (which is why one of their strategies to lull the US was to engage in peace negotiations for months before Pearl Harbor). THe point of this post was not to start another debate over Iraq. But there is a large contrast between US behavior towards Japan prior to Pearl Harbor (efforts to avoid war) and Iraq's behavior to the US prior 2003 (shooting at US and allied planes, among other things).
It is finals week and I should be studying Contracts.
We had two allies who were being pummeled - Britain and the USSR!
Iraq wasn't a credible threat to us and it was ridiculous, illegal, wasteful, and counterproductive to attack them.
One, three, and four are arguable, but not two. Nothing illegal about it. Thus you should say, "It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder." =)
Occupation absolutely has offensive merit. Why else did we occupy Germany and Japan in 1945?
I'm going to agree with the commenters above--the "signals/noise" problem creates just as many dangers in preemptive offensive operations as it does in defensive operations.* Ensuring that the potential enemy that you have identified is actually someone who is planning to attack you is neither easy nor simple, and "false positives" may create as many or more problems as the occasional failure of defense.
This is not to say that a) once attacked, we should not fight back in the most effective way possible, or that b) we should refrain from taking preemptive actions where appropriate. Of course we should do both of those things, but those propositions are fairly unremarkable. I don't see any evidence in US policy that offensive options are "too often ignored;" indeed, I think it is fair to say that over the past 60 years the US has routinely engaged in offensive operations of various kinds in order to remove or neutralize threats, and we are safer for it.
Of course, the entire discussion of Pearl Harbor as a failure of defense ignores the point one commenter made above, which is that the Japanese military action was precipitated by the reaction of a militaristic government to the imposition of sanctions. In this sense, Pearl Harbor may be seen as the result of an ineffective *offense* on the part of the United States, rather than a failure of defense.
And we took offensive action against Al Qaeda long before 9/11, though of course it wasn't "preemptive" since it was precipitated by Al Qaeda attacks. Of course, the offensive action turned out to be ineffective, but there you go--that's another risk of engaging in an "offensive" rather than "defensive" strategy. You have to figure out what targets to hit, what force to use, and whether that force will be effective or will instead provoke sympathy among other actors for your enemy.
In hindsight, it *may* have been better if we had launched an invasion of Afghanistan prior to 9/11, but to even make that judgment assumes that a) it would have worked, b) there would have been the political will to do it, and c) the law of unintended consequences (which, recall, resulted in our friend against the Soviets bin Laden turning into our sworn enemy) would not have reared its head.
In short, it's easy to say that we should engage in offensive actions. It's much harder to actually *do* it, because our knowledge is not perfect, our force projection capabilities are not infinite, and offensive actions can sometimes cause more harm than the solve. I reiterate my challenge to the underlying assumption of the post, which is that American policymakers often ignore offensive options--I don't think this is true, and I see no evidence to support it.
That might quiet various half-ass groups looking for Saudi money by talking big about defeating the US.
It's one thing to allow our enemies to self-identify. It's another to take the next step, which is to destroy them. I prefer to let them talk and keep the targeting information up to date.
But to let people talk and talk and talk with no consequence eventually convinces the less contemplative among them that they can attack with no consequence.
An excellent defensive counter-strategy is to use deception, in a number of ways, to nullify the attacker's advantage. For example, a defender might expend vast resources to create the illusion of weakness where he is in realty very strong, or to create the illusion of security for the attacker where he is in fact exposed to counter attack or survellance.
Revelations by U.S. news agencies that U.S. intelligence services were collecting financial and communications information on the attackers may have served to foil an effective U.S. defensive counter-strategy.
That's not true. The US had broken only the diplomatic codes up to that point, an important distinction b/c the Japanese avoided discussing war plans in the diplomatic codes. the miltary codes weren't broken until 1942. furthermore, the war party in the military didn't trust the diplomatic corps and a lot of information about war plans wans't passed to the foreign ministry.
In the first case, a well-established set of rules, legally binding, comes into play. This applied to WW II.
In the second case the enemy is amorphous and not bound by any rules. Approaching them the same as a State is a mistake. Treating them as a criminal organisation shuts no doors as to how they can be dealt with and avoids breaking treaties we signed. It even allows for preemptive measures not likely to be tolerated if directed against a State. Furthermore, should it become clear that a State allows them safe haven, the rest of the world will understand and agree that self-defense requires action as in Afghanistan.
But to attach another agenda such as democratisation to that action is wrong and usually doomed to fail.
In any case, comprehensive intelligence is the key to defense.
Unfortunately, even the best intelligence will not guarantee that no attack will ever succeed. To attain zero defect in this area requires us to give up a number of valuable principles, both internationally (violating others' sovereignty) and domestically (curtailing important liberties). Active preemptive measures usually result in the same and history has shown that the temptation to attach a political or ideological agenda is too much to resist for the people in power.
To prevent attacks there is, in my opinion, no substitute for thorough, creative and competent intelligence, followed by rational, measured and competent action. Events of recent years have shown the opposite: Bad intelligence followed by ideologically driven actions and a lot of incompetence.
Just so we all acknowledge that this problem did not begin in January 2001...
IIRC, it was the Kuwaitis that first violated Iraqi territorial sovereignty with their slant-drilling techniques. That certainly doesn't justify what Iraq did about but I am amazed that people forget that Saddam didn't just get up on day and randomly decide to invade his neighbor.
Again, not justifying Saddam's action here but consider what would happen if Mexico started slant drilling into any of the Texas oil fields . . . (plus doesn't any of it remind you of the Simpsons and Mr Burns "Slant Drilling Company"?)
(I've also grown convinced that influential elements in Japanese leadership really believed the Pearl Harbor attack would convince the US to stay out of the existing war. Had Nagumo launched the third wave to take out the oil depots and dry docks, the US would have had no choice for a significant period. I consider this to be one of the greatest strategic blunders in military history.)
Of course we can win a defensive GWOT, you, you, you neocon, you.
We merely have to turn America into a police state. And carry out pogroms.
See? Easy.
Strom Thurmond: "As an added benefit they'll make great color TVs and automobiles. No good rock and roll bands though."
Infidel! May Guitar Wolf feast on your entrails.
Ilya, what is your authority for this claim? It seems a controversial point to me.
If in negotiations, the US Government revealed to Japan that it's "mail was being read," Japan's diplomatic codes would change immedietly, and become a closed book once again.
Even worse, the information on American cryptology could have been passed to the Germans, and the Battle of the Atlantic would have been harder. However, the "Enigma" machine was already known to be broken at this point, by the Polish.
The United States could have just sat back and done nothing and avoided the war if a strict neutral isolationist policy had been followed.
Stinnet has about 17yrs worth of FOIA documents, which is the basis for the book.
It is worth reading.
I have not read Wohlstetter, but AIUI, MAGIC did not provide any definite warning of the attack, because the plan was not discussed over radio nor disclosed to the diplomatic service (the US began reading Japanese military codes only after the attack). There were clues, which if properly assembled would amount to warning of air attack. But I don't know of anything that could have warned us of the backdoor maneuver Japan used to achieve surprise. Sending the fleet over 4,000 km from the Kuriles base to the north of Hawaii was extremely bold.