Dr. Harlan
Ullman, CNA Corporation and CSIS
Includes notes from Q&A Session:
Complete Notes (pdf format)Overview: Drawing from
his latest book, Finishing Business: Ten Steps to Defeat Global Terror
and this Seminar Series, Dr. Ullman’s lecture discussed how the concepts of
global terrorism and the Principles of War are interconnected:
- When are principles really
“principles” and not formulas to rationalize slogans
- Are there universal
principles that actually determine the causes and interactions of war?
- Given the “traditional”
principles of war, which of these has changed, which have not and why?
- What does this mean for
the future?
From Clausewitz and
Sun Tzu among others, we know war is an admixture of policy with other
means, a violent struggle, in which the aim is to defeat the enemy's
will to resist usually by destroying or incapacitating his means of
resistance--his army. What has changed?
- Thermonuclear
weapons meant there were no winners or losers -- the defeated could
inflict unacceptable losses on the so-called winners
- Accuracy and
lethality have gone from virtually zero to virtually uniform
- War has shifted
from states and entities that could be defined by borders and other
demarcations to the diaphanous and faceless terrorists in which there
are no armies necessarily to defeat.
So what do we do?
The remainder of the lecture outlines ten steps that respond to these
new realities as well as the old principles and prepares us to deal with
the dangers of the 21st Century.
Complete notes
(pdf format)
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