This is the first entry in the new WOTR series, Art of War. To submit to Art of War, email Kathleen.McInnis@warontherocks.com with “SUBMISSION” in the subject line.
Ever since we were cavemen around campfires, humans have been using storytelling to explore the deep, underlying meanings of our existence. While science, logic and reason can tell us the facts about our world, stories give us the methodologically unbound space to help us interpret the facts, what they mean for us, and how to become who we want to be. It is for this reason that the insights we take away from a piece of great art or fiction can resonate in ways that profoundly move us. We learn from our heroes in stories, their triumphs, and their mistakes, in important ways. This is true for every sphere of human activity, including – if not especially – the realm of realm of strategy and statecraft.
Thus, the purpose of this column is to do exactly that: explore great works – contemporary and classic – and derive insights on statecraft for your consideration and discussion.
It is with this in mind that I’d like to call your attention to the new horror film – “Oculus”. The main character, Kaylie, believes that a mirror is the cause of a horrific incident in her childhood involving multiple murders. After years of research on the mirror – and years of attempts to recover it – she finally secures it for a night. She does so in order to prove that the mirror was responsible for the terrible events that destroyed her family.
Kaylie has a plan. She’s been crafting it for years: catch the mirror doing its thing on video and exonerate her family. And she designs an elaborate experiment in order to do so. Multiple cameras record the mirror and, crucially, her own actions as she exposes herself to its paranormal radioactivity. She ensures she has enough food to eat, water to drink, and backup lighting in case the power goes out. Not willing to underestimate the mirror, Kaylie goes one further. She builds in backup systems in case the mirror starts playing with her perceptions of reality, as she believes it did with her parents. As she proceeds, Kaylie trusts that her research and precautions will protect her.
Yet soon after the experiment begins, she finds she is completely out of her depth. She quickly discovers herself in a twisted psychological maze, which ultimately proves her own undoing. Unreality becomes reality, and vice versa. Kaylie becomes controlled by the very thing she sought to control. In the process, she destroys everything – and everyone – she loves.
Her precautions were amateur. Her plans were easily obviated, her actions easily manipulated. Hubris led her to believe she could actually grapple with – and destroy – the forces represented by the mirror. She couldn’t.
What does a psychological horror movie about an evil mirror have to do with national security policy and grand strategy? If we take “Oculus” as metaphor, we can creatively contemplate U.S. actions in the wake of September 11, 2001. The particular themes that resonate for me include:
- The importance of defining clear and actionable strategic objectives;
- How important it is to learn from the mistakes of others;
- The need to guide actions with meaningful intelligence rather than sloppy analytic assumptions;
- How easy it was for the US to lose touch with reality when conducting interventions;
- And above all, the dangers of hubris.
Reflecting on Post-9/11 U.S. Strategic Choices
The events of September 11th, 2001 shook the national security establishment to its core. Post-mortems on the run-up to the attack notwithstanding, the hard truth is that no one could have predicted the event or its implications, not really. The United States was caught blind-sided. Ideas and paradigms that had shaped the thinking of our nation’s key leaders were thrown out the window. The calculations of the President became binary. Black, white, good, bad. “You are with us, or you are against us.” “Terrorism” became rhetorically synonymous with evil.
Those who dismissed the rhetoric at the time were unwise to do so. When it comes to statecraft, words matter a lot. Speeches inform guidance; guidance becomes programs and priorities. And as any kid who’s played the “telephone” game before knows, there’s a reason that simplicity is one of the key principles of warfare. Messages and guidance have to be clear and straightforward if they are to be effectively translated into action by soldiers, sailors and airmen scattered around the globe. For better or worse, the nation was suddenly involved in wars that were hopelessly complicated, utilizing the most basic of emotional rationales articulated by President Bush: root out evil by going to war against terrorism.
In hindsight (which, of course, is always 20/20), there were a number of problems with this approach. But one of the key intellectual conundrums: terrorism is a tactic that employs violence towards a political or cultural end, not a person, group or nation with its own agency. By oversimplifying the problem and confusing the terms, the United States not only confused a psychological mindset with an actor possessing its own agency. The U.S. also created military objectives that were simply impossible to achieve. A military fights and wins wars against adversaries, not tactics. We might as well have declared war against an evil mirror, much as Kaylie attempted to do. Formulating well considered, well-crafted guidance is absolutely essential if we want to prevent ourselves from tilting at windmills.
Regardless, between 2002-2005, the United States found itself leading major nation-building efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. We congratulated ourselves for the good work we’d done: freed the oppressed peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan, held elections, dug wells, built schools. We read the history books and determined for ourselves that we were not like any prior occupying force like the Soviets or the Brits. We convinced ourselves that we were somehow different.
It’s precisely the kind of self-delusion Kaylie must have employed when she arrogantly assumed she could take on the mirror without incurring any damage. She failed to heed the dark history of the mirror and all the terrible things it caused to its previous owners. And she failed to meaningfully appreciate the lesson from her own tragic experience: exposure to – and involvement with – the mirror can have fatal consequences. Kaylie’s experience reminds us that we should have heeded the hard-won lessons of our predecessors, and ourselves. Namely, those who became embroiled in messy wars in the Middle East and Central Asia before us.
As time wore on, it became clear that the United States had kicked over a hornet’s nest in a region deemed critical to its national interests. By 2006, sentiments changed, local grievances grew. The United States went from being a “beloved” liberator (a somewhat dubious assertion at the outset) to an active participant in massive counterinsurgencies in two nations. The U.S. was in over its head, and struggling to apprehend the dynamics of the conflict. And people were dying. Thousands of US soldiers along with tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans lost their lives. We believed that we comprehended the conflict, that we could be a force for good. But our intelligence turned out to be mirror imaging; we acted on assumptions rooted in our own thought processes rather than those of the local populations we were there to protect and support.
Because we didn’t understand what we were doing, it became easier and easier to lose touch with what we were attempting to achieve (poorly formulated though our objectives were). Tasked with winning “hearts and minds” of ordinary peoples, soldiers on the battlefield desperately tried to understand and address the dynamics driving the insurgency. But local tribal dynamics are complex and often lethal; US soldiers unwittingly became pawns in local disputes and, in turn, further alienated local populations. And with respect to Afghanistan, Pakistani agents actively worked to manipulate U.S. perceptions and actions on the ground. The result: what was really going on was nearly impossible to discern. We began to see what we wanted to – and what our adversaries wanted to show us – rather than reality. Which led to even more missteps. This brings us back to Kaylie. As she confronted an object about which she had very little true comprehension, she found herself losing her grip on what was real versus illusion – and making tragic mistakes as a consequence.
Because ultimately Kaylie was fighting her reflection; ultimately she was fighting herself. While the ghosts of the other mirror’s victims featured in her nightmare, the demons she ultimately confronted were her own. Does the same hold true for the U.S. experience in Iraq and Afghanistan? When recalling incidents like Abu Ghraib, or the Maiwand District murders, one wonders: were the real demons we confronted our own? Did we end up fighting ourselves?
Implications for Today’s Strategic Choices
Hubris drove Kaylie to try to control the uncontrollable, to try and decisively deal with a threat that defied her understanding. She was outmatched and outwitted and paid the price. That said, failing to act would have simply meant making the mirror someone else’s problem. So the question that Oculus ultimately raises: in retrospect, should Kaylie have spared herself the grief and pain and foregone her experiment with the mirror? Or should she have attempted to control the mirror anyway, knowing the price she would ultimately have to pay? In other words, was it worth it?
This is, ultimately, the question that the United States is asking itself as it draws down from Afghanistan and reflects on its Iraq experience. When taking on foreign policy and national security challenges that are breathtaking in scope, is persistent vigilance the requirement and small victories the norm? And if so, what is the price we are ultimately willing to pay? Important questions indeed. Especially given the scope and scale of the present – and future – challenges in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and pockets of the Americas.
Thus, metaphorically speaking, the United States is having a Kaylie moment: staring at the mirror, deciding what to do about it. The thing is, these issues can never be solved, just as the mirror cannot be “solved.” It can be managed, it can be fought against, but never decisively dealt with. Not really. It’s an ultimately frustrating, “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. But failing to act will likely have consequences as well. What price are we willing to pay for small victories in an uncertain environment?
There aren’t any good answers, of course. Only ambiguity. But then again, easy solutions in the world of policy and national security are also exceedingly rare. “Oculus,” for me at least, is a good way to creatively think through some important strategic dynamics. And if we are to begin learning from our experiences and discerning what they mean for our future, creative thinking is absolutely required.
Now, over to you. What are your thoughts?
By the way, next up: Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.”
“Oculus” was released in theaters on April 11th, 2014.
Kathleen J. McInnis is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and a Research Consultant at Chatham House. She served as a Pentagon strategist from 2006-2009. She is the editor of the new WOTR series, Art of War. The views expressed are her own.
Photo credit: The U.S. Army
lawrence schneider 
B 
kathleen 
Ryan Evans 
A LA G 
ntenghtim 
when i first read the premise of this series i jumped to the erroneous conclusion that it was going to be some rediculous “touchy feely” artsy and annoying series.
i was wrong – very wrong! this is brilliant! you’ve illuminated aspects of the dynamics of our current quandary and i can’t wait for your perspective from Conrad.
thank you,
larry
Kissinger described the actions of the statesman thusly:
“The statesman’s responsibility is to struggle against transitoriness and not to insist that he be paid in the coin of eternity. He may know that history is the foe of permanence; but no leader is entitled to resignation. He owes it to his people to strive, to create, and to resist the decay that besets all human institutions.”
There is only ambiguity, yet decisions must be made within the shroud of darkness enveloping our understanding. A statesman never can have final victories, but they can resist decay and prolong the benefits of civilization. That should be the primary objective of American leadership today.
Sadly, we are watching the decay morph into a collapse of the entire post-WWII order and there is not a good replacement for it yet.
You cannot just break the mirror?
nope! after all, that would make it a pretty lame movie…
Kathleen: it’s all ok until you get the line about the “breathtaking challenges” of the modern era. The empirical data suggests otherwise — the idea that we are in this kind of deeply dangerous present with unforeseen and dark challenge is just not supported by the evidence. Threat inflation is a time-honored practice in the US for all sorts of obvious reasons. The world’s oceans are almost completely free of organized violence; the world’s skies are free, and the developed states so far so no inclination to go back to war with each other. Intra-state violence in the developing world is an irritant, but not a strategic threat to global stability and certainly not to the basic security of the United States. Mearshiemer did a pice on this “American Unhinged” in the National Interest about a month ago Your readers mind find it interesting.
James: You should consider writing for us sometime.
Whilst I agree on the idea that words and rhetoric matter enormously in communicating a strategy or strategic objective, especially as they become the vehicle that allows everyone to assimilate it (be it to execute it, fund it, have an opinion about it or critique it), there is much more to say about the limits of US (or great power(s))strategy making in the last decade or so. And though it is a widespread opinion in people from developed countries that there was an unquestionable consensus on the need to act against terrorism (again, I agree with having to attack an enemy and not a tactic) after 9/11, this perception varies drastically if you ask people from underdeveloped countries. And the answers have a lot to do with things other that “hating on” the US, and it brushes on the idea of how a lot of things are not really a threat to global security, nor to US (or great power) interests, and are just a manifestation of how a lot of countries (most of the countries, actually) experience statecraft and international arena “beinghood” in a very different way than that taught through international relations theory.
Intrastate conflict is, in reality, a myriad of phenomena that manifest in different ways that range from separatism, to drug violence, ethnic rivalry… you name it. And while some of these conflicts sometimes overlap with an interest that really affects a great power, many times great powers act out of misperceptions, misinformation, misrepresentations, miscalculations, or any other “mis” concept; even the “responsibility t protect” overlooks the host country’s government, population, political parties, clans, tribes, economic powers willingness to change or resolve what is at the core of the problem, if it’s a solvable problem, and who benefits from it. So even though some may say the list is growing, it may just be a list not intended for great powers to deal with. Not saying great powers should pass on averting humanitarian crises, but if great powers want to not have to deal with everything, they should start not trying to deal with everything.
I think this new column is such a great idea and and such a fresh take; you should even take suggestions and challenges for future installments. And maybe, if I could encourage anyone reading this, every now and then, when thinking about strategy (sp in the international context) try to remember geographical standpoint, what passport you hold, your cultural background and the language you speak influence the way you understand and live it as much or even more than art or theory.
Your comparison of strategy and the arts is timely. I found it interesting that another blog I saw today suggests that we should stop “ransacking the past for analogies.” This is pointless advice, because we are always looking for narratives that illuminate our future and explain our past – whether the narrative is historic or fictional, this is what we do.
So, while I didn’t watch the movie in question…the inference is that once the protagonist decided to challenge the mirror, she planned, prepared and then initiated an operational chain of events. The subsequent events quickly exceeded the initial conditions identified in her intelligence estimate – with failure as a result.
As a narrative against which we can match some of our post-9/11 strategic actions I think this story is interesting. After the protagonist identified the mirror as an enemy, the intent to create a situation that “publicly proved” that the mirror was a bad-actor was the key decision. This commander’s intent required good intelligence, a nuanced use of force, the ready availability of additional resources, some way to document the proof, and finally, the ability to tactically adapt to the adversary’s actions….and, oh yes, it also required a desired end-state. (It also occurs to me that this also requires an external audience that actually cared if the mirror was bad or not).
Clausewitz suggests that a more sound strategy would have been to plan to destroy the mirror entirely – and if in the course of events the mirror was proven to be malevolent – all the better. After all, once you have positively identified an adversary with the capability and demonstrated intent to do you harm it is time to act. History suggests that half-measures used to prove an adversary’s malevolence to the satisfaction of some external review frequently fail to achieve their intent. The problem comes because we frequently misjudge the adversary’s capability and our own preparation – and we believe the cost required to be “right” is worth the expenditure. This is how nations end up in a survival situation with many fewer resources than they initially began with. Even with all the time and effort spent planning, we are horrible at judging risk. The assumption that a combination of massive resources, extensive prior preparation, great intelligence and the availability of overwhelming force are enough to protect from the unexpected is still an assumption.