Small State Behavior in Strategic and Intelligence Studies

What is the nature of small state proliferation behavior? Answering this question involves working from the individual to the international environment, which produces the structure of the security dilemma. Incorporating John Boyd’s dialect engine and Observe, Orient, Decision, and Action (OODA) Loop, this study demonstrates small state proliferation is an exercise in state building and is not necessarily a strategic activity. The significance of this work is it increases our understanding of how to prevent a crisis based on proliferation issues from turning into a war.

This chapter is organized: first, to define strategy as a theory, then categorize the elements of strategy including; the state, rationality, power, and the pseudo-environment. Next, the chapter investigates how the elements of strategy work by explaining John Boyd’s Observe, Orient, Decision, and Action (OODA) Loop. Finally, this chapter discusses the role of intelligence inside strategy as both a theoretical and practical concept.

American strategic culture has been changed by events of the 1960s, from a culture which produced victories to a culture where victory is not even contemplated. The issue of proliferation starts with the American invention of the atomic bomb. The effort of invention took the mobilization and the direction of resources of a great power in time of war. This case study serves as a comparison of the effort of invention to the act of imitation. One reason proliferation is such an important issue in the world today, is the technology is no longer revolutionary. The tacit knowledge of the inherent scientific information is now generally understood by not only the scientists of the world, but by a large number of ordinary people.

The decision-making process of the People’s Republic of China during the 1950s and 1960s under Mao Zedong was inside the mind of one person. Mao decided to pursue nuclear weapons and missile technology after the United States deported Tsien Hsue-shen. Tsien gives the Chinese ruling elite, the tacit knowledge required to pursue nuclear weapons and missile technology at the same time. This chapter is organized by using the Observe, Orient, Decision, and Action (OODA) Loop and highlighting the perception of Mao, and the Chinese ruling shared, that China was a small state in search of recognition by the Superpowers. The efforts of the Chinese had a direct link to the geography of Southern California. The security dilemma created an incentive for the Chinese to increase their international status and in effect enhance the legitimacy of the ruling elite.

What happens when there is not a direct link to the established network of tacit knowledge enjoyed by the Chinese, or Americans? In this chapter we move our analytical framework to South Asia, testing the theory against proliferation programs of both India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan share a common historical experience of suffering under British Imperialism, which seems to have contributed to having both of these states engaged in one of the most severe rivalries in the world. This chapter highlights the effect of the security dilemma, and the pursuit of these weapons for prestige.

Everyone agrees, Israel did achieve the ability to build and deliver nuclear weapons in the 1960s. Yet, Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its capability. Israel has adopted John Boyd’s priorities of people, ideas, and then technology. The tacit knowledge provided for the Israeli program came from the first generation of American scientists including J. Robert Oppenheime, Edward Teller, and even Albert Einstein. The Observe, Orient, Decision, and Action (OODA) Loop is applied to the Israeli case. This case study highlights the usefulness of ambiguity in how a state can achieve nuclear status without causing crises and recriminations. Israel proliferated and the world looked away.

Today’s proliferation crisis centers on the proliferation programs of North Korea and Iran. How have the actions of the United States after the attacks of September 11, 2001 been interpreted by the strategic culture of North Korea and Iran after being labeled inside the Axis of Evil. Although this idea has been forgotten by most Americans, the term still has resonance in Iran and North Korea. This chapter explores the pseudo-environment of all three countries and how each country’s perceptions have led them in the cases of North Korea and Iran to proliferation and in the case of the United States to actively try to thwart the efforts of the two small states. Using the synthesis of the theoretical framework developed in other chapters, we establish the activities of the Iranians and North Koreans are not strategic (the effort to blackmail or conquer another state), these activities are designed to improve each state’s international status in order to enhance domestic legitimacy. Therefore, the United States should be aware of the perception the Axis of Evil term produced and not rush in to create a crisis environment; which could turn into war.

Conventional wisdom has it that the more arms a state has; the more likely that state will use them for either blackmail or conquest. This study disproved this idea. We took from sociologist the concept of the state and ruling elite contribute to a shared pseudo-environment, as Walter Lippman observed the behaviors produced by the pseudo-environment is manifested in the real environment, causing unintended consequences and misunderstandings of behaviors, which leads to crisis and if one is not careful war. Combining this perceptional phenomenon, this study applied John Boyd’s dialect engine and the Observe, Orient, Decision, and Action (OODA) Loop to the decision making process of small states and found small states who choose to pursue nuclear and missile technology have the common characteristics: charismatic leadership of the ruling elite, tacit knowledge of the scientific elite, the ability to control the natural environment as infrastructure, and the state’s capacity to harness and mobilize resources necessary to develop the technology. The conclusion of the study is; small state proliferationis not a strategic activity and the world should encourage proliferation not hinder it in small states. However, the use of these weapons, should be understood by all states, will ensure the death of the ruling elite and the state which uses them.