Arenas of Destruction: Phase Zero and the Future of War

Voltaire once called “air, earth and water…arenas of destruction” in the natural state of perpetual war. I don’t know that I agree with Voltaire about the inevitability of war, though I certainly think it’s always prudent to be prepared. I do agree, however, that the natural world – air, earth, and water – is the arena for war. It is the battlefield, but also the fuel and fodder of conflict, and sometimes it’s a driver, part of the tangled mass of the root causes of war – along with history, politics, and many other factors.

Air, earth, and water are also the elements of peace and of prosperity – no nation can recover from a war without the restoration of resources and economic activity. Indeed, in many parts of the world today and throughout history, that restoration hasn’t come easily and war leaves a pernicious legacy of environmental degradation and poverty.

Ultimately, that’s the whole point: war is not about the fight, but about the aftermath. It’s about getting to a better peace. And with more than a decade of my career in the Pentagon and veterans in my family, I haven’t known anyone in uniform who thinks otherwise.

So, as the United States marks a sharp departure from the past and looks at the changing future of war, at new means for organized violence that are changing the character of war (if not the nature), and “revisionist” adversaries – what role will natural resources play in securing the peace? Allow me to suggest that they will be more than just a passive arena for lethality.

Here are a few numbers to consider.

At the turn to the 19th century, the world population hit the one billion mark for the first time.

At the turn to the 21st century, it was 6 billion.

By the middle of this century, it will be almost 10 billion.

Of that first billion, more than 90% lived in extreme poverty; today, less than 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, according to Our World in Data.

140 million people are joining the middle class around the world every year.

That’s a good thing, of course. More people are getting to enjoy dignity and quality of life. But that also means there are more people who need more, and more people who expect more. More food. More water. More land. More homes. More cars. More smart phones. Which, in turn, means everything from more natural gas and solar panels to more copper and rare earth elements.

Can the Earth meet all of these needs?  Well, the jury is out, you might say. Humans are remarkably ingenious, and we have found new tools, new resources, and better ways of consuming and producing throughout our history. But there’s no guarantee and there’s no free ride – there are always tradeoffs.

This is not necessarily a question of absolute scarcity causing unrest and conflict, though that may happen, especially with water; but resources are not always well managed. Nor are they evenly distributed around the globe. The United States is now the world’s largest energy producer, for example, while China is the world’s largest net importer. On the other hand, China produces most of the world’s rare earth elements – and many other critical materials that are indispensable to the information age.

Climate change, a consequence of our resource consumption and rising standard of living, will make the tradeoffs more stark and the pressures on resources more severe, or at least more unpredictable.Does that mean climate change will become the primary cause of war in the future?

No, of course not.

But climate change will interact with natural resources, demographics, poor and corrupt governance, poverty, historical enmity, and other root causes of war in ways that are hard to foresee.

That’s why we started our new project at New America, in collaboration with ASU, to see if we can anticipate better what these tradeoffs might look like and where the United States might be able to adopt strategies and make investments to promote resilience – whether that means being robust to a rising tide of natural disasters, or understanding how climate change might affect China’s global investments in land and minerals

The project is called Phase Zero – that’s a reference to something the Pentagon calls “phases of conflict.” Phase One is deterrence and prevention, while Phase 2 is preparing for the start of a conflict, moving forces into place. Phase 3 is active combat and Phase 4 is post-conflict stabilization. Phase 5 is the return of civil order. About a decade ago, defense officials added a “Phase Zero” – the time before a war starts, when there’s still a chance to shape the strategic landscape and avoid armed conflict.

To some extent today, that “phases of war” concept is not all that useful anymore. War is clearly not that sequential these days. It’s not even clear what constitutes combat, sometimes. Is the Russian attack on our form of government an act of war, for example? If so, what’s a proportionate response? Is Syria a civil war or a great power proxy fight? How about the South China Sea…or Yemen…or Ukraine? For that matter, the United States has been stabilizing and fighting simultaneously for more than a decade in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, while the tidy “phases of war” construct was arguably better for a more black and white time, Phase Zero is perfect for today’s shades of gray. Indeed, I would argue that the United States needs to be far better equipped for the gray zone.

That means we need a lethal military, sure, but we also need more ways and means to build security – whether that’s deterrence, diplomacy, special operations, or trade and development (and the money for each, of course). Natural resources, given all the pressures we expect to see in the 21st century, will be an important part of successfully shaping the strategic landscape.

A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to travel to Japan, and I went to Hiroshima. On August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped a 15 kiloton bomb there – which the new Nuclear Posture Review would call a “low yield nuclear weapon.” It destroyed most of the city and killed some 140,000 people.

 That was the ultimate arena of destruction.

 And while there are scars that I’m sure will never heal, Hiroshima, is pretty much a normal city now. There are trees and farms. There are cars, and there are smart phones. People go about their business, and Japan and the United States are the closest of allies.

 Hiroshima is a reminder not just of the terrible nature of war, but also of the remarkable resilience of nature – and more to the point, of people. But that’s not something we should just hope will take care of itself in the future of war. As they say in the Pentagon, hope is not a strategy.