Lessons from the Past Twenty Years—A Former National Security Policymaker and Intelligence Community Leader's Perspective

Lessons from the Past Twenty Years—A Former

National Security Policymaker and Intelligence

Community Leader’s Perspective

Michael G. Vickers*

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

I. COUNTERTERRORISM,COUNTERINSURGENCY,AND HYBRID WARFARE

CAMPAIGNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

II. INTELLIGENCE,COUNTERPROLIFERATION,AND SUPPORT FOR ARMED

OPPOSITION MOVEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

III. RESPONDING TO THE RESUMPTION OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION . . . . . 31

INTRODUCTION

For almost all of the two decades since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has

been at war – in Afghanistan, in Iraq and Syria, and globally against al Qaeda and

ISIS. Although it has had some dramatic successes, the United States entered

these conf‌licts largely unprepared for the challenges it would face and made sev-

eral strategic and operational errors alongthe way. There are thus several positive

and negative lessons to be learned from our experience. The strategic environ-

ment, moreover, has changed dramatically during the past two decades, with the

resumption of great power competition with China and Russia, a global f‌inancial

crisis and a global health crisis, and continued advances in emerging technolo-

gies. There are lessons to be learned as well from how well we prepared, or failed

to prepare, for these more recent challenges. This essay looks at some of these

lessons from a number of vantage points: counterterrorism; counterinsurgency

and nation-building; conventional and hybrid warfare campaigns; intelligence

and covert action; counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction; armed

support for opposition movements; great power competition; national security

strategy; and defense planning and investment. It draws extensively on my expe-

rience as a national security policymaker and Intelligence Community leader

from 2007 to 2015 and is adapted from my forthcoming memoirs, By All Means

Available, which is scheduled to be published by AlfredA. Knopf in May 2022.

* A former CIA Operations Off‌icer and Army Special Forces Off‌icer, Michael Vickers was Under

Secretary of Defense for Intelligence from 2011 to 2015 and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special

Operations, Low-Intensity Conf‌lict, and Interdependent Capabilities from 2007 to 2011. He served at a

senior level in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. He has a B.A. from the

University of Alabama, an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.

D. in International Relations and Strategic Studies from Johns Hopkins University. ©2021, Michael G.

Vickers.

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