--Or so it so often seems to the Geek.
SecDef Gates may have taken a firm grip on reality, but many of the highest ranking officers under him are charter members of the out-to-lunch bunch, uniformed division. The Secretary accepts the unpleasant feature of the world today and into the near-term. The major use of American combat forces will be as it has been for more than a decade now--stability operations.
As the Geek well remembers from his encounters over this subject years ago, the men with stars on their shoulders all-too-often will not march on the sound of reality. They prefer to hang on to the hopes of a conventional conflict.
The most recent outbreak of uniformed nostalgia for the good ole days of War As We Would Like To Know It eluded the mainstream media but was caught by by Wired News. Take a look, http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/some-observers-.html. Further details can be found on http://insidedefense.com/. This latter source can also shed light on internal inconsistencies within the massive military establishment concerning what kind of threat(s) our forces should be preparing to counter.
There is no surprise that the Air Force is particularly unhappy with the idea of stability operations including counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, and counter-terrorism. The majority of senior zoomies such as Lance Smith are jet jocks. The kind of guy who lives to strap on umpteen thousand pounds of thrust between his legs and pull back on the stick.
Experience shows that the fast-movers which are the heart and soul of the Air Force are massively irrelevant and even counterproductive in stability operations except in unusual and narrowly circumscribed applications. That doesn't help come appropriation time.
It doesn't help come promotion time either.
While it is easy to understand why the boys in light blue don't want to be thought of (or think of themselves as) a collection of airborne bus and truck drivers providing dreary logistic support to the actual warfighters, it is a little harder to understand why the upper echelon of the Army is unhappy as well.
Army Chief of Staff George Casey like his predecessor Peter Schoomaker have made mighty groans concerning the possibility that the ground-pounders are "off-balance" and less able to engage in conventional war. Joined by Marine Commandant James Conway, the two have viewed with alarm the tilting of American ground forces toward the requirements of stability operations.
The latest voice in the chorus is that of Admiral Michael Mullen, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gotta admit that is an impressive constellation of stars, right?
It is that. Impressive amount of tin on the shoulders and braid on the hats. Taken in totality, the pounds of tin and braid mean these men are fine bureaucratic politicians.
Possession of stars, however, does not mean that the individual is an experienced fighter of real wars. Neither does it imply that the man under the stars and braid has a grip on the nature of present and future wars.
The initial blundering in the planning and execution of our adventures in regime change in both Afghanistan and Iraq show two realities quite clearly.
Our senior military commanders were either intellectually bankrupt or moral cowards when they agreed to execute the lamebrained notion of "shock and awe" sponsored by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his neocon ninny brigade. Then, the events on the ground until quite recently demonstrated that our forces were far too heavily tilted toward conventional war with a symmetrical opponent.
American officers of stratospheric rank have never cottoned to guerrilla war. They certainly didn't like the counterinsurgency portions of the Vietnam War. Even way back when, in the late Nineteenth Century, unconventional approaches to defeating the Indians such as practiced by General Crookes were cast aside (as was Crookes) by the senior commanders in favor of less effective, more lethal conventional means.
Generals Smith, Casey et al, and Admiral Mullen are captives to a set of paradigms. Deadly paradigms because they are ill-suited for the world as it is and will be for some while yet.
The buried paradigm is that of war as a pursuit for professionals sharing common world views and values. It is the paradigm of a sand table exercise enlarged to cover thousands of square kilometers. It is the paradigm of Clausewitz with movement and concentration of forces ending in "bloody and decisive combat."
The surface paradigm is that of the post-World War II experience, culminating in the concept of the Air-Land Battle, which has been enshrined in doctrine for two decades and more. It is the paradigm that assured quick and bloodless victory over the hopelessly overmatched opponent in the Gulf War of 1991 and the conventional portion of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Air-Land Battle represents War As We Would Like It To Be to these generals and many like them. It is the kind of war, with its emphasis on breaking things and killing people, at which we are best prepared and equipped to wage.
The paradigms guiding the thinking of these generals (as well as lurking under Rumsfeld's concept of shock and awe) promise quick and decisive victory. Victory fast enough and cheap enough in American lives to assure the end of the war before the political will of We the People is exhausted.
Here is the subtext message upon which to get a grip.
The generals listed as well as Admiral Mullen and many others are desperately afraid of stability operations. They are more afraid of counterinsurgency than they are of death itself.
Why?
Simple. These men are scared of us. They are made fearful, not by any actual or potential enemy, but of We the People.
They are afraid that We the People and our "representatives" will lose the political will to continue the stability operation, the counterinsurgency, the peacekeeping mission, the counter-terrorist campaign when "victory" proves elusive and expensive in time and lives.
When that happens, they will be left holding the same bag as their predecessors following the self-inflicted Vietnam defeat. They will be left with the hollow forces, the empty appropriations, the testimony before hostile committees, the blighted careers.
Where does the fault lie?
It is easy to say it lies with backward looking, intellectually deficient military politicians more worried about careers, promotions, appropriations and glory than about the effective use of the military in support of national interest. That is the easy, attractive way to point the finger.
Or, we can take the harder route. We can look in a mirror.
The present and future reality is that Secretary of Defense Gates is right. Stability operations are and will be the order of the day. This unpleasant fact of life requires both the changes in military doctrine and orientation so recently undertaken.
But, it requires more.
Of our senior military officials, particularly the bureaucratic politicos in uniform, it requires honesty. It requires that they shift the paradigms that have served as pole stars for their entire careers. That is tough--damn tough. But, no tougher than slogging along looking for the ambush or the roadside mine.
Senior military commanders have to both adjust to the new reality of war and insist that We the People do the same.
The ultimate (perhaps unachievable) requirement is that We the People and our "representatives" acknowledge that there are no quick, decisive, and cheap victories in the offing. Wars today and tomorrow are going to be long, indecisive, and quite probably not completely satisfying in their outcome. That is the nature of all stability operations, most particularly counterinsurgency.
Presence on the ground, persistence over time, and patience are the prime requisites. This means the political will of We the People is the foundation for achieving the minimal acceptable outcome of any stability operation.
The minimal acceptable outcome?
Not losing. As the Korean War demonstrated, not losing is both the minimal acceptable and often the only possible outcome of a war.
We are and will be again in situations far more akin to the Korean War than World War II. We best get a grip on that.
Our future administrations had best get a grip on it as well. Getting into war is a lot easier than getting out of it without declaring defeat. Vietnam showed us that. Iraq is showing it again right now as is Afghanistan.
A hint to future administrations from the past: Don't march off to war unless and until you not only have a clear understanding of what is at stake, what is the desired better state of peace, and, most importantly, what is the definition of "not losing?"
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3 comments:
The conventional "suits" are losing out to players like David Petraeus, Ray Ordinero, and Stan McCrystal. The USAF in particular is losing out, in several different areas, and should be:
1) UAV's. The AF has wanted total control over all UAV's (issues over potential "air confliction"), but recently lost that one. They'll never win that fight.
2) A2A UAV's. The fighter mafia wants this so dead & buried it won't ever be found, but too bad. Actually, the biggest supporter of A2A UAV's is the Navy. Imagine being able to host a number of high performance unmanned A2A combat aircraft off destroyers, or even LCS (assuming that the program doesn't get gold plated).
3) SOCOM air assets. There's a steady movement about giving SOCOM it's own air asset capability, including transport capacity (similar to C2A Greyhounds), modified A-10's, OV-10A/D Bronco's (or equal), etc. And they'll probably get their way, eventually.
4) Transportation/Logistics. There's also a movement to have a totally separate command for Transportation/Logistics, which would be made up of different USAF, Navy, & Army components. Not there yet, but could easily happen - think of it as a military version of FEDEX/UPS/DHL/Maserk combined.
Besides, if you talk to a number of the next generation of officers (non star wearers), they'll tell you that there have been some good aspects, in that a whole lot of doctrine which was taken as unassailable gospel has been challenged, reviewed, and revised. Conflicts where there's lots & lots of shooting going on tend to do that.
I mean, when you have the military actively looking for & recruiting Anthropologists to assist them in their work - now that's getting creative (and it's also smart thinking).
There's still big issues that need to be addressed by the military - particularly retention and career advancement of non-general level officers (Captains, Majors, etc.).
But overall, got to give our Military credit for smart leadership and innovative thinking. And they haven't had to lose a war to demonstrate that capability.
Hey Geek!
Have you joined that out-to-lunch bunch you post about? What is "not losing?" Wars are either won or they are not. If they are not won--they are lost!
Perhaps I'm missing something somewhere, but you ought to explain what you mean--I'm probably not the only reader who hasn't gotten it.
The Geek will reserve comment on whether or not the younger officers have had to lose a war in order to learn the realities of stability operations. The verdict is not yet in on our two ongoing efforts. Still, the Geek agrees with the importance of younger officers, particularly those who have not yet reached full-bird status.
For over a decade the Geek focused in more lectures, briefings and writings than he cares to remember on the company, junior field grade and non-commissioned ranks. As a result he has been gratified to see many of his words appear in slightly modified form in new doctrine and concepts. He is as happy with that as he is with the successful application of many historically based lessons of stability operations recently in Iraq.
The Geek was unsurprised by the blue suiters wanting control of all UAVs. To him it was a replay of the great Air Force vs Army war of the 1950s culminating in a treaty giving the Army the right to operate rotary wing aircraft if it gave up all fixed wing birds.
Technology is a force multiplier in all conflicts including the asymmetrical sort we are now waging. The Geek has noticed that high tech is not a sovereign remedy. As he noted in a previous post, there are low tech counters for all high tech capabilities. From the earliest Indian Wars of the Colonial period through the current affrays that has been the case.
Stability operations in particular depend upon the human factor. The individual snuffy in the field, history shows, is more important than the POTUS when the vibram hits the ground. His skill, independence of thought, initiative, courage, discrimination, and the doctrine which supports him is finally more vital for not only living or dying but in success for national policy. So, while the Geek applauds the technological and logistical changes made in recent years, he still puts his last dollar on the dude either out in the sand or crouching in a narrow passage between stone walled building housing both hostiles and the non-combatants with which the blackhats like to surround themselves. That is the nitty gritty of the whole show.
Not losing. The third option. The understanding of the end state of military operations which is both elusive and distasteful to contemplate.
We humans are brain wired to see the world in dichotomies: hot-cold, hard-soft, bitter-sweet, yes-no, right-wrong, win-lose. Still and all we Americans (sports fanatics as so many of us are) should automatically see the third option. The tie. The dead-heat.
In war that unpleasant alternative usually translates into the peace of exhaustion such as would have supervened in the Great War if the US had not ridden in. Of course, would that sort of "tie" lead to results any worse than those which did ensue twenty years after the guns fell silent on the Western Front?
The Korean War demonstrated a more useful way of understanding the third option--not losing. It ended with an emotionally (and politically) unsatisfying armistice with which we are still living.
However the armistice did mark the accomplishment of our original goal in entering the war. North Korea was repelled. The line of the armistice did follow (roughly) the antebellum border along the 38th parallel.
We had accomplished our minimum necessary goals. Invasion had been repelled. The political will of the US to stand firm against any expansion of the communist sway had been demonstrated. The UN had shown itself to be a useful US diplomatic tool.
It is true that the administration of Truman as well as the senior US military command had been victims of the same "victory disease" that had afflicted the Japanese prior to the Battle of Midway. After the Inchon invasion as the NKPA dissolved, we redefined our goals to the maximum desirable level--the extinction of North Korea.
We ignored ample warnings from the PRC. Our senior commander in theater blew off intelligence showing the concentration of PLA units on and, in some cases, over the PRC-Korean border.
As a result we received what might be termed an ass-kicking. In the event our political will remained intact and ultimately we did achieve our minimal goal.
In stability operations where there is little or no chance of achieving "victory" as such came to be understood from conventional wars (think WW II), entry into the operation should include a clear definition of the minimal necessary result.
Achieving this would constitute "not losing." Anything above the minimum would be pure frosting.
Goals have an unfortunate tendency to suffer rhetorical expansion during the opening phases of a conflict, particularly if the troops are doing well. We saw this during the Gulf War back in '91.
At that time, the administration made the decision to halt the war as soon as our minimal objectives had been achieved. Later that administration was criticised severely for throwing away "victory" by not having removed Saddam.
The Geek does not intend to enter that debate at this time. He's been there. Done it.
The point is simply that the accomplishment of minimum necessary results can bring about a better state of peace (at least from our perspective.) That may not be "winning" in the sense of the WW II paradigm. It is however "not losing," and that is usually enough.
Enough to accomplish our policy goal even if not enough to assure re-election. The Geek is of the view that accomplishing policy is more important in the long term national interest than is the outcome of the next election.
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