The Age of Incremental War

Clever and calculating dictators have been manipulating and taunting the United States and the West for decades. Russia, Iran, and China, let's call them the RICs, are the masters of this game.

Russia is waging an expansive cyber war against the U.S. and NATO while pursuing multiple high-intensity mini-wars against neutral European countries, Iran is supporting violent proxy armies and terrorist acts throughout the Middle East, and China is aggressively forcing its way into the South China Sea waters claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Vietnam. It is also extensively hacking American infrastructure.

Let us consider examples of this aggressive incremental war. In 1990, Russia made a minor intrusion in Moldova, seizing 1,600 square miles. This intrusion was not a casus belli for the United States or NATO because Moldova is on the edge of Europe and not an E.U. member or a NATO partner.

It was, as Neville Chamberlain spoke of the Nazi conquest of Czechoslovakia in 1938, "a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing."

Then, there was the faraway Russo-Georgian War in 2008. This conflict was Europe's first 21st-century war. Russia ended up seizing Abkhazia (3,300 square miles) and South Ossetia (1,500 square miles).

Putin has also used proxy mercenary armies, like the Wagner group, to destabilize and manipulate governments in the Middle East and Africa: Syria, Libya, Mali, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, for example.

Iran has funded and directed violent proxy armies in Gaza (Hamas), Yemen (the Houthis), Lebanon (Hezbollah), and Iraq (Kataib Hezbollah). Iran has used these proxies to attack Israel and Western interests in the Middle East. Earlier this year, the Justice Department indicted Iran for ongoing hacking against national security agencies and corporations.

China is by far the most territorially aggressive of the three. In 1950, China seized Tibet, devouring its 475 thousand square miles, or four times the size of Texas. In recent years, China has claimed virtually the entire South China Sea, an area encompassing 1.4 million square miles, or one-third of the size of the United States. China has used its powerful Navy and maritime assets to gradually bully its way to domination in these waters and exert its claim over the vast energy resources it holds.

The U.S. Director of National Intelligence asserts that "China remains the most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. Government, private sector, and critical infrastructure networks."

In all these territorial seizures and online perfidy, the malevolent RIC chess players move a pawn against us and then pause. At first glance, the pawn's movement is only somewhat threatening, and we are not sufficiently alarmed. It is not an overt act of war against the U.S. or our allies. We don't perceive a direct threat to our core interests. Like the Obama and Biden administrations, or Europe in general, we don't want to acknowledge what is before our eyes. We don't want to escalate or make a fuss.

This hesitancy, this passivity of the West, will inevitably lead to a checkmate by our enemies.

Therefore, it's time for the West to respond and deter forcefully. The United States, hopefully with the assistance of some of our NATO partners, should set up a permanent strike force and direct it to prepare a list of targets and offensive measures against RIC provocations.

The Shadow Response Group should include members from the National Security Agency, the CIA, the DIA, the National Reconnaissance Office, DARPA, and military special operations units such as the Navy Seals. National leaders might add agencies like the Treasury, Homeland Security, and the FBI.

We should ask our NATO and non-NATO allies for suggestions. Since many U.S. allies know about particular RIC vulnerabilities we have missed, we should invite them to offer advice and recommendations. For some missions, they could become active partners.

The purpose of this Shadow Response Group should be to prepare and update a list of thousands of targets in Russia, Iran, and China that could be damaged or destroyed in response to an "incremental" attack by one of the three criminal malefactors. Damage to or destruction of the target should always be "incremental" and purposely kept below the threshold of war, but it should always be provocative and highly damaging. On a continuing basis, we want to make life uncertain and very unpleasant for the RICs' establishment and for the general population. We want to demonstrate forcefully that we, too, can move a pawn.

The U.S. needs to prepare an extensive list of RIC vulnerabilities. But where to start?

The economic backbone of all major societies is their system of utilities such as electricity, gas, water, and communications. At a regional and national level, these utilities are fed by a system of electric grids, water conduits, information systems, and energy-related pipelines. The national transportation system relies on an integrated system of airports, railroads, highways, and waterways. The national communication system depends on another sophisticated network of satellites, fiber-optic, microwave, and copper connections. All these systems on land, sea, and space are vulnerable to disruption or destruction.

The Shadow Response Group needs to analyze all of our adversaries' systems and networks and ferret out their vulnerabilities. Then, skilled and imaginative intelligence analysts and operatives must devise ways to disrupt and damage the RIC systems and networks. The level of damage should be at least as great as the damage caused by the RIC incursion, disruption, or sabotage.

The Shadow Response Group should prepare an ever-expanding list of potential targets for the Defense Department and the CIA to present to the President for prompt action. The President could order specific actions that he felt would have the maximum effect on our adversary.

A month-long shutdown of the metro system in St. Petersburg, Shanghai, or Tehran would get the attention of the national leadership, as would the failure of crucial electric generating plants, air terminals, government computer systems, financial infrastructure, GPS systems, citywide traffic signals, and water systems. The loss of all utilities in the political or military elite neighborhoods would undoubtedly impact the elite's thinking and force them to consider the consequences of their action. Hacking into everyday appliances, such as what happened recently in Lebanon, would unnerve any elites.

The United States has the most sophisticated computer networks in the world and some of the best hackers on the planet. Many of these hackers now work for the U.S. government to secure our thousands of networks. We may need to hire thousands of additional computer engineers and hackers to penetrate our adversaries' networks and discover their vulnerabilities.

Psychological warfare, propaganda, misinformation, rumors, visa bans, and reputational damage should all be part of the Shadow Response mission.

The basic goal of the Shadow Response Group's actions would be to slow or stop the RICs' incremental attacks. We want them to hesitate before they move the next pawn. The purpose is to persuade the RICs to de-escalate and prevent the outbreak of major hostilities.

We need to signal to the RIC leaders and opinion makers that their actions will promptly and constantly have painful consequences.

Creating a Shadow Response Group will require a new mindset in Washington and in NATO. Passivity will be out. The new mindset will be aggressive and proactive, not to stimulate a hot war but to prevent it.

James S. Fay is a semi-retired attorney, political scientist, and college administrator. His articles have appeared in social science and law journals, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and Real Clear Defense. He served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Germany. He has worked in both the public and private sector and has started three companies.