How the War Against Terrorism Could Escalate

Ever since hijacked aircraft smashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, the White House and the Pentagon have been devising a menu of retaliatory strikes against those deemed responsible. Just 24 hours after the attacks, President Bush reported he and his national security team had made preliminary plans for a sustained military campaign against terrorism. "This battle will take time and resolve," he noted, "but make no mistake about it: we will win."

Since then, selected National Guard and Reserve units have been called up to supplement U.S. forces already on duty, and the Department of Defense has ordered warships and combat aircraft to the Persian Gulf region. In his Sept. 20 address to Congress, the President went further, announcing the war against terrorists would not conclude "until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and destroyed."

However, Bush and his top advisers have made it very clear that the war against terrorism will be a long and complicated war, encompassing both visible events, such as air strikes, and hidden actions, such as night-time commando raids against suspected terrorist hideouts.

Administration officials also have been clear that the war will not entail a short burst of intense military activity followed by relative calm, but rather will be a drawn-out series of major and minor engagements. Thus the U.S. effort will not end with the capture of Osama bin Laden and his immediate associates. Rather, it will expand into a full-scale campaign against all significant terrorist organizations -- those with a "global reach" -- along with any government that continues to provide aid or support terrorist organizations.

But how, exactly, will this "broadly-based, sustained effort" be fought?

On this critical point, the White House and the Department of Defense have been noticeably silent. This means any attempt to picture the war we are about to commence must rely on conjecture, hints from presidential statements, rumors and the experience of past conflicts. What follows is one attempt to construct a likely scenario from publicly-available information.

A Recap

To begin this process, we need to recapitulate what can be surmised of the administration's potential battle plan:

First, this war will be a phased conflict, beginning with smaller-scale attacks against known terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, and leading over time to more robust strikes against states said to be harboring or aiding terrorists, including Iraq.

Second, it will include both conventional forces -- Army and Marine ground units, Navy carriers and cruisers, and Air Force bombers -- as well as unconventional, "special" forces -- Army Rangers, Delta commandos, Navy SEALs and so on.

Third, it will begin with a focus on Afghanistan, but will quickly spread to other areas said to harbor terrorists linked to the bin Laden network, such as Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union.

With all this in mind, it is possible to conceive of a three-phased effort, beginning with relatively small-scale measures in a week or two's time, followed in succeeding months by increasingly complex and demanding operations. A likely progression would proceed as follows:

Phase I

Phase I would begin with focused attacks on suspected terrorist facilities in Afghanistan and on the Taliban's political-military infrastructure. This would entail helicopter-borne commando raids on camps in Afghanistan that are believed to house associates of Osama bin Laden. The aim would be to apprehend members of bin Laden's inner circle and to destroy any fixed assets -- communications gear, weapons caches, etc. -- that are discovered. The commandos would seek to complete their assigned mission rapidly and then return to base camps, presumably in Pakistan or at Russian air bases in Tajikistan. If confronted by significant opposition, however, these units could be reinforced by quick-reaction teams equipped for more sustained, intensive operations.