Drone Command

FIFTY-FIVE

The three faculty members sat on one side of the conference desk and Troy on the other. The air reeked of too much Old Spice but no one said anything. Troy was better dressed in his sport coat and tie than the faculty who wore Levi’s, collared shirts, and loafers.

Troy’s master’s thesis was brilliant but controversial. He applied a quantitative game-theory approach to the qualitative work of William S. Lind and others on fourth-generation warfare. He proved the hypothesis that 4GW was the future of conventional warfare in the third world because it was superior to the current forms of warfare deployed by the West. The Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia a few years earlier wasn’t just a tragic error, he argued; it was a portent of things to come.

Troy’s thesis defense for his master’s degree today was a technicality, but it was also a chance for the department chair, Dr. Fagan, to get even with him. Troy had embarrassed him publicly on a number of occasions in seminars and colloquia, successfully challenging the professor’s indefensible positions on security issues and his slavish devotion to political correctness.

Dr. Fagan was also an intellectual bully, and Troy wouldn’t put up with it. Fagan was infamous for publishing articles in his own name that had been researched by talented graduate students in his department without giving those students proper attribution. Troy had publicly denounced that practice in faculty meetings, earning Fagan’s undying enmity.

Drs. Garth and Pembroke were the other two faculty members on his thesis committee, men he deeply respected for their scholarship and integrity. He was glad they were there. Garth was his thesis advisor, and Troy had been a teaching assistant for Pembroke’s undergraduate poli sci classes.

Garth opened with a softball question and Pembroke followed up with a few technical clarifications of Troy’s game-theory analysis. They were both satisfied with his responses and spoke effusively about his graduate work in general and the thesis in particular.

Then it was Fagan’s turn.

He waved a copy of Troy’s thesis in the air.

“I don’t get the title. ‘Future War’ sounds like a sci-fi novel, not a serious academic treatise. And for the record, fourth-generation warfare isn’t the future of warfare. It’s just terrorism by another name.”

The sonofabitch hasn’t even read it, Troy realized. He wanted to grab Fagan by the nape of the neck and toss him out of the door. How many times had he seen Fagan screaming at some poor sleep-deprived grad student for not coming to one of his seminars fully prepared?

But Will had warned Troy about controlling his temper today. Troy’s goal was to get Garth and Pembroke to approve his defense and the master’s degree was assured. Only two votes out of three were needed. It would be better, though, if all three committee members signed off, and better still if they would award him a superior commendation. That would require a unanimous vote, but if he got it, it would guarantee him a slot in the Ph.D. program at Stanford or anywhere else in the country he might choose. Unfortunately, Fagan’s recommendation carried a lot of weight in the tight circles of top-tier academia.

The worst-case scenario would be that Troy would so lose his cool that he wouldn’t provide a coherent defense of his work despite its obvious merit. That might prompt Garth or Pembroke to vote against him and delay or even deny him his master’s. Garth and Pembroke, despite their tenured status, feared Fagan’s power over them as department chair, a position that could make their professional lives extremely inconvenient — seven a.m. classes, odious committee memberships, extension-class assignments. If Troy was too rude or even threatening, Fagan might bully them into voting with him, literally. At six-foot-four and two hundred forty pounds, Fagan towered over the other faculty in his department, mostly narrow-shouldered hipsters or portly middle-aged golfers in penny loafers. But like most bullies, Fagan was wary enough to never try that with an alpha male like Troy despite his junior status in the department.

“As I’ve cited from the works of Lind, Schmitt, Sutton, Wilson, Hammes, and others, 4GW isn’t just ‘terrorism’ or even asymmetrical warfare, though both would be subsumed under that rubric. 4GW is a whole new strategic conception of warfare, which is why I refer to it as the future of warfare. The next major war the U.S. will fight won’t be with other industrial powers like China and Russia, but with nonstate actors like Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.”

Fagan shook his head. “Hezbollah and al-Qaeda are terrorist groups. You’re talking about terrorism, not warfare. Terror tactics are what terrorists use when they can’t fight wars. Don’t you understand the difference?”

Troy flexed his aching fists beneath the table. Watching Fagan swallow his teeth might just be worth losing his master’s. But Will had invested too much time and energy into him these past six years. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Fagan, but he’d rather die than disappoint Will Elliott.

“Nonstate actors use terror as part of their concept of strategic warfare. We did the same thing at Dresden, firebombing an ancient city with no military value in order to terrorize the Germans into surrendering. If we’re smart enough to use terror to accomplish our strategic goals, so are our opponents.” Troy leaned forward. “Unless you’re calling the United States military just another terrorist group.”

“You’re just proving my point. World War Two was a war between state actors. War-fighting nations can use terror in their campaigns, but they’re still fighting wars for strategic goals. Terrorism as practiced by nonstate actors isn’t a strategic concept, it’s a reaction. A tactic at best.”

“The strategic goal of warfare is winning, period. And the tactics of 4GW are aimed at undermining the will of state actors to continue fighting, and they almost always work. But the 2G and 3G tactics we use against nonstate actors are almost always guaranteed to fail.”

They argued back and forth for the next forty minutes, ignoring the other two faculty who relished the savaging Troy was giving Fagan. They were careful not to smile or verbally agree with Troy, but they were silently cheering inside. Troy successfully reviewed the history of twentieth-century warfare and further explicated the 4GW concepts that Lind and the others had outlined. Troy also sided with them on the most controversial idea of all.

“Not only will our next major war be with a nonstate actor or an alliance of nonstate actors, it will be long, costly, bloody, and we’ll likely lose if we don’t change our strategic concepts of war.”

“That’s just stupid,” Fagan said. “We have overwhelming firepower and technology. We’re the wealthiest and most advanced economy on the planet. No nation can stand up against us. What hope would a far less powerful nonstate actor have?”

“We had overwhelming air, land, and sea superiority in our war in Vietnam. We even had nuclear weapons. How’d that work out for us?” Troy asked. “And don’t forget about the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Taliban broke them.”

“Thanks to poor tactics on the part of the Russians and the deployment of advanced American weaponry like Stinger missiles by the Taliban. You know as well as I do that Afghanistan was a proxy war between us and the Soviets. We prevailed, once again proving my point.”

“In order to frustrate the Soviets, we funded and armed the Taliban and al-Qaeda. They’re the real enemy. The Soviet Union was on its last legs, crumbling under the weight of its failing economic system and corrupt political regime. They would’ve lost that war with or without our help. But now we’ve trained and equipped our real enemies, who are playing a very long game.”

“We’re not the Soviet Union. If we ever decided to go to war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, we’d squash them like bugs. Worst-case scenario? We sit back and fire cruise missiles at their command centers and hideouts. War is about power, and it takes two parties to fight a war. Nonstate actors don’t have the power to wage war with us; therefore, the next war can’t be with them. End of story. To think we’d ever be in a protracted war with a low-rent organization like al-Qaeda is specious at best.”

“In the West, states fight wars against states. We win when we occupy enemy territory and force their governments to sign our peace treaties. But ‘terrorism’ doesn’t have a capital, and jihadism is completely decentralized — who would have the authority to sign a peace treaty that would end it?”

“You win the war on terrorists by killing terrorists faster than they can make them. It’s as simple as that.”

“No. You can only win the war on terrorism by killing all the terrorists — a genocidal war against the nonwhite, non-Western world, something we’d never do, nor should we. We’d lose that kind of war on moral grounds alone. But even if we did want to wage that kind of war, the only way to kill every terrorist is to occupy the entire globe, because terrorism is everywhere. It won’t be just a long war, it will be a forever war. And we’ll lose it because we don’t have the will to do what it takes, and they always win by not losing. Time will be on their side, not ours. Trying to fight a 4GW war with 2GW weapons and tactics is the strategic equivalent of a nineteenth-century cavalry charge against a twentieth-century machine-gun nest.”

Fagan rolled his eyes. “How do you think a bunch of third world peasants armed with AK-47s are going to stand up to our fleet of B-2 stealth bombers?”

“Women wearing suicide vests beneath their burqas are pretty stealthy, too. So are Toyotas loaded with C-4 on a crowded city street. In a war by civilians against civilians, the burqas trump the bombers.”

Fagan stood. “I’ve got a committee meeting in ten minutes across campus.”

Troy stood and held out his hand. Fagan reluctantly took it. Troy resisted the temptation to crush his moist grip. The other faculty stood as well, chairs scraping against the linoleum.

“Thanks for taking the time to hear me out,” Troy said.

A smile stole across Fagan’s face. “Interesting presentation. Good luck.”

That’s a no vote, Troy knew. Fagan was too much of a coward to say it to his face. “Thanks.”

Fagan left the room. The other faculty members shook his hand and clapped him on the back.

Garth said, “Best thesis defense I’ve heard in twenty years. Don’t worry about him. He’s just mad he didn’t think of your idea first. You’ve got my vote.”

Troy relaxed. Even smiled. “Thank you.”

Pembroke added, “Great job. You can easily turn that third section into a journal article. I know a couple of editors who would eat this up. I’m happy to write a cover letter for you.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

Garth stroked his graying beard, barely hiding an impish smile. “Just one thing kept bugging me while you were talking today.”

“Shoot.”

“How’d you get that black eye?”