Global Counterinsurgency: An Holistic Approach Is Needed
"Global Counterinsurgency" panelists (L to R) Michael McConnell, John Keane, Jane Harman, and Michael Chertoff, and moderator Fred Kaplan
Booz Allen Hamilton Senior Vice President Mike McConnell was a part of a panel titled “Global Counterinsurgency” on July 2, 2009, at the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival. McConnell, who leads the firm’s national security business, appeared alongside Michael Chertoff, former secretary of Homeland Security and founder of the Chertoff Group; Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif), the ranking democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the Homeland Security Committee; and John M. Keane, a retired four-star general and senior managing director and co-founder of Keane Advisors LLC. The panel was moderated by Fred Kaplan, a journalist, author, and “War Stories” columnist for Slate. Following the panel, McConnell shared these additional insights.
An audience member asked the panel about cybersecurity. What challenges do we face there?
Since the 80s, we’ve gone from a wireless world to the Internet explosion to the exponential expansion of bandwidth and the ability to move data. You can be in Tokyo, have an exchange with a business partner in Washington, D.C., and have a proposal, a response, and an agreement—all in cyberspace—in five minutes. In a second or two, you can move a billion dollars through a banking system.
The threat is that someone in a remote location overseas can attack the financial system. They can attack transportation systems. Although it’s introduced incredible positive aspects in terms of an increased standard of living, it’s also introduced unprecedented vulnerability. As a nation we need to figure out how to react to that.
The issue in the United States is spread across bureaucracies, and about 98 or 99 percent of it is in the private sector. Our vulnerability is high. We’ve got to mitigate it.
Michael Chertoff talked about the need for a “metastrategy” to bring together a range of tools to fight terrorism.
He’s absolutely right. We need to think holistically about all the players. We are so interdependent. The security of China is tied directly to the security of the United States. As we think through the Internet and global connectiveness, we’re going to have strange bedfellows. We’re going to be conducting global enterprise in a world that’s shrinking all the time.
How prepared are we do deal with the fact that the next threat may come from anywhere—from Iran, Somalia, a terrorist cell in Argentina, or, as Fred Kaplan suggested, an apartment in Hamburg?
It means very robust capability in terms of signals intelligence. If they’re talking about it, we listen. It means imagery intelligence. If they move or are building something, we observe. And human intelligence: the ability to penetrate it and understand their planning.
It’s easy to talk about Somalia or an apartment in Hamburg, but those are hugely different things. It takes a very robust capability to understand and track each one of them. Where do you put your priority? What resources are you willing to commit?
You mentioned an increasing mindset of “precision and persistence” in the intelligence community since the Cold War.
In the wars we’re fighting now, there’s no tolerance for collateral damage. That requires the intelligence community to know everything there is to know about an area of operations. It’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it has to be precise. Our military can’t attack a dozen insurgents and result in the deaths of 35 people in the area.
You said a weapon of mass destruction event may not be far off.
The best minds [the intelligence community] could assemble concluded that there is a greater than 50 percent chance that a weapon of mass destruction will be used somewhere in the world in the next five years. That could be India, Pakistan, North Korea, the United States, Europe … who knows?
That will change the debate again. Just like 9/11, a weapon of mass destruction event anywhere in the globe would shock us in the United States. It will change the whole debate.
Watch a Clip from the Panel Discussion
Watch a clip from the “Global Counterinsurgency” panel.
Learn more about Booz Allen's participation in the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival.
story posted July 3, 2009
