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A Handbook to Stop a Genocide
By NATHAN HODGE
WSJ
MAY 9, 2011,
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.'Harvard professor Sarah Sewall has pushed the Pentagon to
have a plan on the shelf for responding to mass atrocities, ethnic cleansing
and genocide. Now, with Libya as a backdrop, her efforts are beginning to
bear fruit.
The U.S. has launched a high-level initiative to make the military more
ready and able to respond to potential mass killings. A senior Department of
Defense official said the project, which is at an early stage, would help
develop "a complete set of options that the leadership can consider in the
preventive area before it comes to sending in the military, or not sending
in the military."
Since 2007, Prof. Sewall has led a tight-knit group of academics, policy
makers and military officers lobbying the Pentagon to embrace a handbook
that details, step by step, the options for sending in the cavalry to
protect civilians. She and her allies are pitching the plan at conferences,
in war games and at military headquarters, urging the U.S. to incorporate
the lexicon and principles of genocide prevention into military planning.
The emerging doctrine is a blueprint for an interventionist foreign policy
that places such ideas as "responsibility to protect" on a par with the
principles of realpolitik. It falls within a broader debate in international
politics, and at the United Nations, about balancing state sovereignty with
the desire to protect civilians.
But on the definition of an atrocity, the atrocity handbook is agnostic,
leaving it up to government leaders to decide how much killing is too much.
According to the foreword, the document "is concerned with answering the
'how,' not the 'whether.' " As with the classic definition of pornography,
users of the handbook are expected to know genocide when they see it.
In theory, the handbook can be pulled off the shelf, offering what are
presented as formulas for thinking about the use of military force: when to
step up peacekeeping and monitoring of a volatile situation; when to
position forces as a deterrent or begin enforcing a no-fly zone; when to go
in heavy with ground forces, pursuing and arresting war criminals. It even
provides the organizational charts for an anti-genocide task force, which
could be scaled from a modest intervention of 2,000 troops to a contingent
of 25,000.
The 160-page document is heavy on jargon and acronyms that would be familiar
to a military planner. A fill-in-the-blanks "strategic guidance" document
for a hypothetical intervention in "Country X" outlines courses of action
that include everything from sending spy planes to document unfolding
atrocities to deploying special forces to train rebels. Scenarios in the
handbook underscore the value of ISR (intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance), PSYOP (psychological operations) and I&W (indicators and
warnings).
The military runs on doctrine'planning documents that guide the machinery of
war when threats appear around the globe. In the 1980s, it was built on the
idea that the armed forces would have to fend off Soviet divisions in
Europe. Since the September 2001 terror attacks, the military has crafted
doctrine designed to put down insurgencies. But military planners don't have
a formal blueprint for responding to large-scale atrocities.
"What was clear to me in the problem of mass atrocities, genocide prevention
... is that the military didn't think of it as a responsibility, so they
didn't invest any time in trying to understand it," said Prof. Sewall in an
interview at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "But that's what needed
to be done in order to inform civilian decision makers."
Now military leaders such as Gen. Carter Ham, who runs the military command
that led the initial attacks on Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya, are
looking to Prof. Sewall's work as a guide for the next time the U.S. feels
compelled to intervene to stop a massacre. Brig. Gen. James Lukeman, a
senior deputy to Gen. Ham, said Prof. Sewall's handbook was "a great tool to
have" for thinking about the unique problems such a challenge posed. The
current campaign in Libya, Gen. Lukeman added, was an "obvious parallel" to
the scenarios the handbook describes.
The Pentagon's initiative on atrocities draws direct inspiration from Prof.
Sewall's efforts. "Sarah Sewall gets enormous credit for pushing to focus
peoples' attention on this issue," said Rosa Brooks, senior adviser to
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy. "We are very much in
the spirit of the conversation that Sarah started."
Ms. Sewall is no Ivory Tower type. She has close ties to such influential
military officers as Gen. David Petraeus, commander of allied forces in
Afghanistan and the freshly nominated head of the Central Intelligence
Agency. She said her views were forged during the administration of
President Bill Clinton, when she was a senior Pentagon official dealing with
peacekeeping and humanitarian-assistance operations.
The handbook has come in for some strong criticism. Celeste Ward Gventer, a
defense expert who served in the administration of President George W. Bush,
said that "alarm bells went off" when she read a copy. Ms. Gventer, who
served two tours in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority and as a
civilian adviser to the military, said the effort looked like a way "to try
to force this [mission] into the military's toolbox ... 'Here's your manual,
don't worry about whether you want to or should do this, but here's the
How.' "
Joseph Collins, a professor at the National War College, questioned whether
the military should be reorganizing around a new type of conflict when it is
coping with insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and bracing for a budget
crunch at home.
"We are desperately trying in the ground forces to regain our skill in
conventional warfare, while at the same time training people massively for
counterinsurgency," Prof. Collins said. "And along comes somebody who says,
'Hey, this is a unique business, and you really need to train hard for this
particular scenario.' It comes at a bad time."
But Ms. Sewall's ideas are taking hold. The Army Operating Concept, a
document that envisions how the Army will fight in the next decade and a
half, says that the service "must be prepared to conduct mass-atrocity
response operations" as one of its core tasks.
Asked about the Libya intervention, Prof. Sewall gave measured praise to the
Obama administration, saying that "some aspects" were "exemplary," including
the speed of the response. But she said it was an operation conducted
without the proper "foresight and consideration."
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge @wsj.com
Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
From: A. Papazian
By NATHAN HODGE
WSJ
MAY 9, 2011,
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.'Harvard professor Sarah Sewall has pushed the Pentagon to
have a plan on the shelf for responding to mass atrocities, ethnic cleansing
and genocide. Now, with Libya as a backdrop, her efforts are beginning to
bear fruit.
The U.S. has launched a high-level initiative to make the military more
ready and able to respond to potential mass killings. A senior Department of
Defense official said the project, which is at an early stage, would help
develop "a complete set of options that the leadership can consider in the
preventive area before it comes to sending in the military, or not sending
in the military."
Since 2007, Prof. Sewall has led a tight-knit group of academics, policy
makers and military officers lobbying the Pentagon to embrace a handbook
that details, step by step, the options for sending in the cavalry to
protect civilians. She and her allies are pitching the plan at conferences,
in war games and at military headquarters, urging the U.S. to incorporate
the lexicon and principles of genocide prevention into military planning.
The emerging doctrine is a blueprint for an interventionist foreign policy
that places such ideas as "responsibility to protect" on a par with the
principles of realpolitik. It falls within a broader debate in international
politics, and at the United Nations, about balancing state sovereignty with
the desire to protect civilians.
But on the definition of an atrocity, the atrocity handbook is agnostic,
leaving it up to government leaders to decide how much killing is too much.
According to the foreword, the document "is concerned with answering the
'how,' not the 'whether.' " As with the classic definition of pornography,
users of the handbook are expected to know genocide when they see it.
In theory, the handbook can be pulled off the shelf, offering what are
presented as formulas for thinking about the use of military force: when to
step up peacekeeping and monitoring of a volatile situation; when to
position forces as a deterrent or begin enforcing a no-fly zone; when to go
in heavy with ground forces, pursuing and arresting war criminals. It even
provides the organizational charts for an anti-genocide task force, which
could be scaled from a modest intervention of 2,000 troops to a contingent
of 25,000.
The 160-page document is heavy on jargon and acronyms that would be familiar
to a military planner. A fill-in-the-blanks "strategic guidance" document
for a hypothetical intervention in "Country X" outlines courses of action
that include everything from sending spy planes to document unfolding
atrocities to deploying special forces to train rebels. Scenarios in the
handbook underscore the value of ISR (intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance), PSYOP (psychological operations) and I&W (indicators and
warnings).
The military runs on doctrine'planning documents that guide the machinery of
war when threats appear around the globe. In the 1980s, it was built on the
idea that the armed forces would have to fend off Soviet divisions in
Europe. Since the September 2001 terror attacks, the military has crafted
doctrine designed to put down insurgencies. But military planners don't have
a formal blueprint for responding to large-scale atrocities.
"What was clear to me in the problem of mass atrocities, genocide prevention
... is that the military didn't think of it as a responsibility, so they
didn't invest any time in trying to understand it," said Prof. Sewall in an
interview at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "But that's what needed
to be done in order to inform civilian decision makers."
Now military leaders such as Gen. Carter Ham, who runs the military command
that led the initial attacks on Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya, are
looking to Prof. Sewall's work as a guide for the next time the U.S. feels
compelled to intervene to stop a massacre. Brig. Gen. James Lukeman, a
senior deputy to Gen. Ham, said Prof. Sewall's handbook was "a great tool to
have" for thinking about the unique problems such a challenge posed. The
current campaign in Libya, Gen. Lukeman added, was an "obvious parallel" to
the scenarios the handbook describes.
The Pentagon's initiative on atrocities draws direct inspiration from Prof.
Sewall's efforts. "Sarah Sewall gets enormous credit for pushing to focus
peoples' attention on this issue," said Rosa Brooks, senior adviser to
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy. "We are very much in
the spirit of the conversation that Sarah started."
Ms. Sewall is no Ivory Tower type. She has close ties to such influential
military officers as Gen. David Petraeus, commander of allied forces in
Afghanistan and the freshly nominated head of the Central Intelligence
Agency. She said her views were forged during the administration of
President Bill Clinton, when she was a senior Pentagon official dealing with
peacekeeping and humanitarian-assistance operations.
The handbook has come in for some strong criticism. Celeste Ward Gventer, a
defense expert who served in the administration of President George W. Bush,
said that "alarm bells went off" when she read a copy. Ms. Gventer, who
served two tours in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority and as a
civilian adviser to the military, said the effort looked like a way "to try
to force this [mission] into the military's toolbox ... 'Here's your manual,
don't worry about whether you want to or should do this, but here's the
How.' "
Joseph Collins, a professor at the National War College, questioned whether
the military should be reorganizing around a new type of conflict when it is
coping with insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and bracing for a budget
crunch at home.
"We are desperately trying in the ground forces to regain our skill in
conventional warfare, while at the same time training people massively for
counterinsurgency," Prof. Collins said. "And along comes somebody who says,
'Hey, this is a unique business, and you really need to train hard for this
particular scenario.' It comes at a bad time."
But Ms. Sewall's ideas are taking hold. The Army Operating Concept, a
document that envisions how the Army will fight in the next decade and a
half, says that the service "must be prepared to conduct mass-atrocity
response operations" as one of its core tasks.
Asked about the Libya intervention, Prof. Sewall gave measured praise to the
Obama administration, saying that "some aspects" were "exemplary," including
the speed of the response. But she said it was an operation conducted
without the proper "foresight and consideration."
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge @wsj.com
Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
From: A. Papazian