Military Strategy for Dummies
Have you noticed that our nation is chock full of armchair military strategists? Everyone seems to have an opinion about the war: At the highest level of generalization are statements such as -- “Our current policies have been a disaster” -- to which I reply with equal perspicacity and nuance: Says who?
It’s hard to find a coherent strategy from any national Democrat (excepting Joe Lieberman) but they have in common a commitment to discrediting the war and accepting defeat. The House passed legislation last week, with 95 percent of Democrats voting in favor, requiring that the United States withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by April 1, 2008. The jist of their argument is that we need to step out of the way of the sectarian strife and let the Sunnis and Shiites battle it out. Little thought is given to the slaughter that would ensue; even less to the effect this action might have on U.S. security and prosperity, never mind the rest of the world.
Armchair strategists have even suggested that allowing Iran to support the Shias would be a way to insure victory over the Sunni militias and their al Qaeda friends. Now there are reports (with videos) of a field in Iraq containing 50 Iranian-made rocket launchers, all aimed at a US army base. But hey, we ought to trust the Iranians, just like Jimmy Carter did.
To attempt a rational conversation about the war it is important to have a realistic perspective of our goals and objectives. After 9/11 it was obvious that our decades-long strategy of siding with brutal dictators in the Middle East, while ignoring an occasional attack on American interests, was both absurd and immoral. President Bush took aim at two of the bad actors in the Islamic world when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. The goals were to overthrow the dangerous Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes and to establish governments that would cease to be breeders and sponsors of terrorism.
It was clear that dictators and elements of Islamic religious law that stand in the way of personal freedom and religious tolerance breed discontent. Thus the governments we are attempting to establish are based on core democratic principles including free elections and basic individual rights.
Remember, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, units of our armed forces are in 30+ countries around the world hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very little publicity. People can argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong, but they should be clear about our strategy -- to remove the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. We are demonstrating to the Islamic world that (1) America will not tolerate attacks on our people or interests and (2) freedom is the way to personal prosperity and happiness and acceptance into the league of respected nations. Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century. It will take time and we must continue our effort. We cannot just pull out and let chaos take our place.
Aside from the political and humanitarian consequences, we must stay the course because we are an honorable nation that went to war for honorable reasons. The just-war philosophy rests on three principles: ius ad bellum, ius in bello and ius ad pacem: “war-decision law” and “war-conduct law” and “war into peace law.” In the words of James Turner Johnson, the foremost historian of the just-war tradition: “Just war in the age of global jihadist terrorism is not simply about the right, even the obligation, to use armed force to protect ourselves, our societies, and the values we cherish; it is not only about how we should fight in this cause; it is ultimately about the peace we seek to establish in contrast to the war the terrorists have set in motion. We are, as Augustine put it, to ‘be peaceful . . . in warring,’ that is, to keep the aim of peace first and foremost, and not only to ‘vanquish those whom you war against’ but also to ‘bring them to the prosperity of peace.’ . . . The ideal expressed in the just war tradition . . . is an ideal in which the use of force serves . . . to create peace. This is a purpose that must not be forgotten.”
This perspective is elaborated by George Weigel in the April, 2007 issue of First Things magazine. (http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5465)
And please don’t fall into the trap of believing that if only we weren’t in the Middle East peace would prevail. In the age of globalization the Western way of life is all too apparent to the peoples of the Islamic world. The masses love our freedom and prosperity but it is messing with their social constructs by empowering women, tolerating gays, respecting other religions. The radicals among in Islam, many educated men, find this social change intolerable and are willing to fight to destroy modernization, and us with it.
posted by Bill Lama at
5:43 PM
10 Comments:
Glad to hear about your grandson! Our nephew is there for another nine months (second tour), driving his Humvee every day from the base to the neighborhood he is assigned to patrol. He and his crew like the locals, and are often fed great meals by an Iraqi woman who has become their mom away from home.
As for the "ensuing chaos," let us suppose that subsequent to a pull-out, ethnic cleansing took the form of concentration camps complete with gas chambers and soap factories. Would the Dems be remorseful? Would they want to go back in?
Greg
Bill, I'm so happy for you that your grandson is outa there and safely back home; you may not believe it but I've worried about possible injury to him ever since I first heard that one of yours was there. He was the only military guy that I knew (3rd hand) over there.
Now, no more Mr. nice guy. Only rarely do I summon up the will and time to respond to your visions:
1. Your piece is titled "Military Strategy for Dummies"--it's not news that we have very differing views as to who the dummies are!
2...."chock full of military strategists"--including all of us----- and you. You're correctly saying that some of us are right and some of us are wrong (dummies). Well, I think you're wrong, and therefore.....
3."The gist of their argument is that we need to step out of the way of the sectarian strife and let the Sunnis and Shiites battle it out. Little thought is given to the slaughter that would ensue; even less to the effect this action might have on U.S. security and prosperity, never mind the rest of the world." My reading is that "the rest of the world" is as smart as the 75% of Americans who realize that we've irrevocably blown it--whether our intent was initially correct or not--and the world and our country would be far better off if we didn't continue to blow our treasury (estimates of the true cost for our Iraq adventure are close to a trillion (a trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon it adds to real money!) and if we didn't continue to add to the number of US military who are destined to be mentally diminished the rest of their lives (the consensus seems to be, though those figures are masked by the administration) that it's well over 50,000 and growing.
I've been asking you for the year that we've known each other what you see as the end point of our staying there; so far I haven't heard any logical answer.
So what happens after we leave? I think it's pretty clear that it is NOT going to revert to a Sunni minority running Iraq. The Shia majority will prevail, and there are many specific scenarios that we can postulate, including that the several million Sunnis that have already left the country will be joined by whatever number is left--probably 3+ million to go. Whether they go to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or remain in Iraq dead or alive is something we cannot and therefore should not insist on ordaining. When any of these things finally happen Iraq, with the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world, will be a semi-stable place cranking out more and more millions of barrels of oil that are needed by this world.
4. "After 9/11 it was obvious that our decades-long strategy of siding with brutal dictators in the Middle East, while ignoring an occasional attack on American interests, was both absurd and immoral." Bill, Bill, that seems to parrot the simplistic objectives that your friend George (the one in D.C.) initially blabbered about, thankfully he's now seen the light. There would/will be very stark unintended consequences of helping the Arab or Pakistani or any Muslim peoples overthrow their governments. Democratic governments are not built in a day and are not built from the outside. Watch out what you wish for, please!
5. "It was clear that dictators and elements of Islamic religious law that stand in the way of personal freedom and religious tolerance breed discontent. Thus the governments we are attempting to establish are based on core democratic principles including free elections and basic individual rights." More of the same. Iraq is not a gov't based upon democratic principle. Sistani says vote and they voter; if he said don't vote, they would stay home in droves.
6. "We cannot just pull out and let chaos take our place." We can; we cannot stay in quicksand, and you cannot crystal-ball the result. My gut feel says that when we do so "al Qaeda in Iraq" will finally and quickly be smashed. If it happens to be with Iran's help, that's what the geodynamics indicates will occur at some time, so accept the inevitable. On the other hand all the info indicates that the Iraqis look upon the Iranians as cousins but definitely not brothers, so Iraq will not become part of Iran.
7. "And please don’t fall into the trap of believing that if only we weren’t in the Middle East peace would prevail. In the age of globalization the Western way of life is all too apparent to the peoples of the Islamic world. The masses love our freedom and prosperity but it is messing with their social constructs by empowering women, tolerating gays, respecting other religions. The radicals among Islam, many educated men, find this social change intolerable and are willing to fight to destroy modernization, and us with it." Bill, we absolutely agree that we have a major problem with radical Islam, and that we have to vitally deal with that in the coming decades. That is no easy thing to do, but stubbornly staying with failed policies is not the way to accomplish our goals.
Burt
Your most helpful information serves to argue the point of 'why we are in Iraq' with all the ney-sayers. Glad that your grandson is home from Iraq, and please thank him from our whole family of 15 that we are soooo grateful for all that he has done to protect us and keep America free.
God bless you 'really good', Bill and family,
Maureen and 'tribe'
Hi Bill:
Excellent essay at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5465. Thanks.
I seems I have company in my pessimistic prediction, as shown by the following quote from the essay:
"The first place they ought to lead us is to the conclusion that the worst answer to the dilemma of Iraq—the worse answer from a moral point of view, and the worst answer from strategic point of view—is to follow Congressman Jack Murtha and many others in saying, “We’re out.”
What would “out” mean? At the moment, it would certainly mean a genocidal war of Balkan ferocity or worse within Iraq. That war would almost as certainly draw in both Iran and the Sunni powers of the region; if Iraq imploded, Iraqi Kurdistan would be severely tempted to declare its independence, perhaps in league with fellow Kurds in the adjacent areas of Turkey and Iran. And then, it seems almost certain, the entire region would explode, with incalculable political, economic, and human costs. In the midst of that chaos, al-Qaeda and similar networks would find themselves new Iraqi havens, as they did in the chaos of the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan—which would, in turn, likely mean that the United States would have to go back into Iraq in the future, under far, far worse circumstances than we face today." --George Weigel
George
The author's "certainly" or "almost certainly" is debatable. Were y'all also saying that it was certain or almost certain that if we withdrew from Vietnam the dominos would surely tumble? Remember? My guess is that the same people against our withdrawing during those times are--guess what--in the same position today. So look at where Vietnam and surrounding countries are today. Where would they have been --and where would we have been-- had we stayed to do the "moral thing?" The moral thing then and the moral thing now is to let them hash out the mess we've made. Probably the net result of this much-needed review will indeed be a draw-down leaving enough forces out in the sticks to ensure the Kurds' safety from both south and north and little more.
Burt
um......Burt,
Didn't both Vietnam and Cambodia get taken over by murderous communist dictators?
-Rick
Aw, Rick. The domino theory was that if Vietnam became communist the other Southeast Asia countries would "fall like dominoes." I don't believe that anyone spelled out how many dominoes there were but Southeast Asia has 11 countries most of which were nominally subject to "falling down." Many of those countries had communist parties, as did much of the world including the capitalist west. Only one "fell" (Cambodia) after we gave up Vietnam to the North Vietnamese, and that was not exactly a domino causing the next domino to fall. The Cambodia Khmer who took over were so obnoxious to their communist neighbor Vietnamese that relatively soon thereafter 100,000 Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, and that was the end of the Khmer Rouge.
Burt
I've been staying off of this thread, much as I enjoy it.The only points I would add here are minor. I believe that it was both Laos & Cambodia that "fell" to the Communists, including South Vietnam.
As to the Domino effect at the time, the first person I head make such reference was President Eisenhower. The other person heard use it was President Kennedy during an interview with Walter Cronkite. That has been replayed as part of several documentaries on the History Channel. When expressing it, Kennedy referred to all, or almost all the countries of S. E. Asia.
So, were he alive toda, chances are, from what you write, that he would be making the same argument.
I think a more salient point is that, in Korea and Vietnam, the U.S. showed that we can train native armies to fight well alongside us, but they collapsed when we were not there. I hope the same does not happen in Iraq.
Mike
I don't think one can draw the conclusion that native armies collapse when we leave. In Vietnam, we trained the South Vietnamese army, equipped them and they fought well. U.S. combat operations ended in 1971 and all our combat forces left in 1972. When Nixon mined Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam could no longer unload supplies from the Soviet Union, and because of Nixon's opening to China, China joined the Soviet Union in standing aside. When the U.S. prisoners in Hanoi heard the bombing, they cheered. They knew that war would soon be over.
The South Vietnamese army, unassisted by the U.S. except for air support, defeated the North Vietnamese offensive on the ground. The Paris Peace Accords, signed in 1973, included an unconditional cease-fire, three countries assigned to monitor the cease-fire, exchange of prisoners, the South Vietnamese government to remain in place, and the U.S. to provide continuing economic and military aid to the South Vietnamese government.
Unfortunately, the 1974 election brought Nixon's enemies into power and Congress prohibited the use of military force to maintain the agreement, cut back aid to South Vietnam repeatedly and finally cut it off entirely in 1975, in spite of President Ford's pleas. This action, in violation of our agreement with our allies, demoralized South Vietnam and encouraged North Vietnam. Knowing that we would not intervene, they overran the south. The countries that had pledged to monitor the cease-fire, including Canada, if I remember correctly, turned their backs. The war was lost in 1975, but it was lost in the Halls of Congress; it was not a military defeat for our forces on the battlefield.
Part of the confusion about when our combat forces left is caused by the fact that the U.S. sent helicopters to evacuate our South Vietnamese friends from the U.S. embassy. Those were not our troops retreating in disarray, but our allies trying to excape torture and death at the hands of the North Vietnamese..
Iraq is not a repeat of Vietnam, even in the minds of the opponents of the wars. No one, not even McGovern or Robert Kennedy, was proposing unilateral withdrawal, a logistical nightmare for the troops. The dove position was mutual withdrawal of U.S. and North Vietnamese forces.
What IS similar is the lack of American unity. The American people seem to no longer have the stomach for a war that lasts longer than a few months. After 9/11, we were unfied, but the protestors were soon in the streets and the people now want out. We are building a national reputation as an unreliable ally. If Iraq is allowed to turn into a defeat and our friends are tortured and slaughtered again, we will not be able to enlist ANY grass-roots support in the future. Believe it or not, the bad reputation of U.S. resolve costs American lives. For example, a large part of our problem in getting ordinary Iraqis to give us intelligence data is fear of reprisal later. They seem to be correct in their assessment of our staying power. They know Al Qaeda is in for the long haul, rewards their friends and punishes their enemies. Help the U.S. and you can expect torture and death.
George
George;
Thanks for your thoughts. You are correct in that on July 9, 1971 devense responsibility for the Northern Province Zone was turned
over to the South Vietnamese Army and on Aug. 11, 1971 Defense Secty. Melvin Laird announced that all ground combat responsi-
bility was now turned over to them
However, our military not only continued to supply train & advise them, we also provided a continuing heavy air support for all of their operations through the next couple of years. This was in addition to our ertensive, continuing bombing of North Vietnam. The South was definitely not doing it on their own. I also agree with you that, by 1972 the U.S. & the ARVN had virtually won the land war in South Vietnam. The role of U.S. ground forces did not really end until 3rd. Battalion, 21st. Infantry were pulled out of Danang on August 12, 1972. The last American troops left Vietnam on March 29, 1973, two months after the declared Cease Fire Agreement.
From then on here were no U.S. ground military forces present to maintain the agreement.
Democrats did pick up 5 Senate seats and 49 House seats in the 1974 off-year electiions. They would have taken office on January 20, 1975. In February-March, 1975 eighty-one Congressional members spent a week in Vietman for purposes of determining if further U.S. aid would make a significant difference in their defense. The Communist invasion started three days after they left and the ARVN collapsed in the North & the West two weeks later. The second largest ARVN army was assigned to defend Danang. They put up
little resistence. The city fell ten days after the ARVN collapse in the North & the West. By the end of April South Vietnam had officially surrendered to the Communists.
The North had planned a two year war. It lasted less than two months. I don't see how any influx of American aid would have
made any difference. Virtually all of it would have ended up in Communist hands. This is the problem, George. They did fight well when we were there and we were supporting them. They were certainly supplied enough to put up a much better fight than they did.
If the South had shown the will to defend itself as the North thought they would, the mood of Congress may well have changed with time -- concerning supplying and maybe advising & training them. I got this inormation from my own copy of "The Encyclopedia of Military History" by R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy.
I agree with you that Vietnam is not a repeat of Iraq. And it remains to be seen how well the Iraqi Army will operrate on its own. I do predict one difference that may be to their advantage. Once we are gone, I think they will get at least as brutal as their enemies.
"Torture and Death" will become "Two-Way Street." Neither Shia nor Sunni will be putting their own people on trial for actions agains the enemy.
George Marshall used to say that Democracies will not sustain a war beyond seven years. Were he alive today he might adjust that figure downward. I don't know how this will work out. But help for another, in any situation, must be determined on to what degree the "other" is able & willing to help themselves. "Staying power" must be employed to the degree that it is applicable.
Mike
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