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| Chair: | Richard L. Garwin |
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| Publisher: | Council on Foreign Relations Press |
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Release Date: January 1995
16 pages
Task Force Report No. 4
The U.S. approach to international conflicts in the post-Cold War period—how we think about them and what actions we take—is enormously affected by America’s capabilities to quell them by diplomatic, economic, and military means. To date, the United States has been trapped between classic diplomatic table-thumping and indiscriminate economic sanctions on the one hand, and major military intervention on the other hand. But a new and effective middle option may emerge in the future, one that could lend weight to U.S. crisis diplomacy in situations such as the conflict in Kosovo and offer new capabilities for pressuring adversaries or fighting wars with minimal loss of life. This potential new option could come in the form of non-lethal warfare.
To explore this potential and its impact on policy, the Council on Foreign Relations sponsored this independent Task Force to assess the current status of non-lethal weapons development and policy. The Task Force found that while the military services have been examining non-lethal possibilities for years, weapons development and thinking usage has been very slow. This report recommends that the administration take three urgent steps: first, set clear guidelines for working through the pros and cons of when and how these weapons might be employed; second, provide substantial new funds for research and development; and third, ensure better leadership and coordination of this process within and among the military services. Until the administration is ahead on these fronts, and the Defense Department engages in a much more serious and systematic evaluation process, the Task Force judges that policy-makers will be in no position to determine just how useful non-lethal weapons might be and set policy accordingly.
RICHARD K. BETTS is director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor and director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He has published books on civil-military relations, strategic surprise, nuclear coercion, and military readiness.
PHILIP A. DUR, U.S. Navy (Ret.), is vice president of Tenneco Automotive. He is responsible for strategy and business development worldwide. He served as a line officer and political-military planner in the U.S Navy as well as served on the Navy Staff, in the office of the secretary of defense, for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council staff.
BART FRIEDMAN is a senior partner of Cahil Gordon and Reindel. He is a trustee of the Brookings Institution, vice chair of the Juilliard School, and a member of the visiting committee to the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
RICHARD L. GARWIN is Philip D. Reed senior fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as IBM fellow emeritus in the IBM Research Division. He is a long-time consultant to the U.S. government on national security technology and policy and arms control, and a member of several advisory committees in those fields.
DAVID JONES, U.S. Navy, is currently commander, Submarine Squadron Eleven in San Diego, California. He served as a 1998-99 military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
CHARLES R. LARSON, U.S. Navy (Ret.), is a senior fellow at the Center for Naval Analysis. He served in the Navy for forty years in a variety of command positions, including service as commander in chief U.S. Pacific Command.
EDWARD N. LUTTWAK is senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC. He is also a member of the National Security Study Group administered by the Department of Defense.
EDWARD C. MEYER, U.S. Army (Ret.), is chair of Mitretek Systems. He was formerly chief of staff of the U.S. Army and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
CHRISTOPHER MORRIS is vice president of M2 Technologies, Inc., support contractor to the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate. While serving as research director of the U.S. Global Strategy Council, he co-authored the original non-lethal weapons concept. M2 has been awarded four sole-source U.S. government contracts in the non-lethal weapons area.
JANET MORRIS is the president of M2 Technologies, Inc., and has authored more than forty books exploring the future of technology. She headed the first Non-lethality Policy Review Group as project director and senior fellow at the U.S. Global Strategy Council.
ROBERT B. OAKLEY is acting director for the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. He served twice as assistant to the president for the Near East and South Asia on the National Security Council Staff, and served as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and as ambassador to Somalia, Zaire, and Pakistan.
GEORGE H. QUESTER is a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, where he teaches courses on international relations, U.S. foreign policy, and international military security. He has served as the Olin visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and taught in the Department of Military Strategy at the National War College.
FREDERICK ROGGERO, U.S. Air Force, is the Commander, Twenty-Second Air Refueling Wing at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas. He served as a 1998-99 military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to the Council, he served as commander, 319th Operations Group, 319th Air Refueling Wing, Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota.
HARVEY M. SAPOLSKY is professor of public policy and organization and director of the MIT Security Studies Program.
MALCOLM H. WIENER is a historian specializing in the Aegean Bronze Age, following prior careers in law and in investment management as founder and chief executive officer of the Millburn Corporation. He served as chair of the 1995 independent Task Force on non-lethal technologies.
W. MONTAGUE WINFIELD, U.S. Army, is currently serving in Sarajevo as the executive officer to the commander of the Stabilization Force. He commanded troops in Haiti, Macedonia, and Bosnia. He also served as a 1998-99 military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
DOV S. ZAKHEIM is chief executive officer of SPC International Corporation and adjunct professor at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. He is a former deputy undersecretary of defense for planning and resources.
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