Bad Analogies Equal Bad Results

There are a lot of people--including senior decision makers, even heads of state--who think by association.  You know it, the this-reminds-me-of-that approach to assessments and deciding.  It is this mental characteristic which results in the often used and frequently quite misleading reasoning by analogy.

Foreign policy, even matters of war and peace, are quite susceptible to reasoning by analogy.  A complex current situation is understood and explained by use of an overly simplified, normally highly inapposite analogy.

So it was during the Vietnam War when criticism of the war was typically rebuffed by use of the Munich analogy.  "Anything less than total commitment to stopping Ho Chi Minh is appeasement."  During the run up to the Gulf War twenty years ago, President George H.W. Bush constantly used Hitler as an analogy for Saddam Hussein--a comparison which was unfair to both men.

During the weeks preceding the more recent invasion of Iraq, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and many others assured each other and the American public that the invading troops would be greeted by cheering multitudes, bouquets of flowers, and general rejoicing in a manner identical with the reception given the American, British, and Canadian forces during the days following the landings in Normandy.  It was a heartwarming picture, easily reinforced by ancient black and white footage of joyously delirious French crowds waving American and other flags.  The idea like the grainy images were so appealing, so easy to believe, so seductive, so---

Wrong.  Utterly, absolutely, totally wrong.  The analogy used with such abandon by the planners and decision makers right up to the Decider Guy in the Oval equating the warmth purportedly extended to the Allied "liberators" in France with what would be expected in Iraq was tragically, disastrously wrong.  The tragedy and disaster alike came from the fact that planning for the day after was based upon an analogy which was not only indescribably wrong for the Iraqi context but was without basis in the reality of the days following 6 June 1944.

Wait one, Geek!  The old newsreels did show crowds of French and Belgian citizens kissing the GIs, the Tommies, tossing flowers, waving bottles of wine and champaign.  That was the truth.  All contemporary films, news reports, letters, even private diaries attest to that.

You bettcha, bucko.  The crowds, the cheers, the kisses were all genuine.  But, none came from the actual combat zone.  All happened after the breakout from the beachhead and the drive across France was in full sway with the Germans beating feet in all out retreat.

In the combat zones, in the areas surrounding the landing zones, the picture was completely different.  Different and not so encouraging.  Where the fighting occurred, there were no cheers, no kisses, no flowers, no joy.  The diaries, the letters, the censored and therefore never published dispatches, the intelligence reports all agree.  At best, the local folk, the French who cowered in fear as the bombs fell and the shells exploded, as their cities, towns, and villages were ground to dust by the white hot plow of war, were at best sullen, withdrawn, and anything but kindly predisposed to their "liberators."

The only reasons that armed resistance did not break out from the wells of local hostility were the lack of effective organization and, more importantly, the very high density of Allied personnel on the ground--some two million just before the breakout nearly two months after D-day.  Still, the anti-Allied sentiments were clear in attitudes and behavior alike across the ruins of Normandy.  The intelligence and civil affairs documents of the day make that obvious.

The joy of liberation sprang forth only in those areas of France and Belgium where there was no, or, at worst, minimal combat operations and concomitant damage and death.  Good feelings were directly proportionate to the lack of dead bodies and broken buildings.

Whether from pure ignorance or volitional misinterpretation, the Bush-Cheney neocon crew used a false analogy so neither the administration nor the military nor the American and world public were prepared for the instant outbreak of violence in the wake of the invasion.  There were no cheers.  No flowers tossed at the onrushing tanks.  No plethora of kissing.  There was a lot of looting.  A lot of shooting.  A lot of resistance both silently sullen and noisily hyperactive.

There was also a lot of local settling of old scores.  This aspect of the invasion and its aftermath could and should have been predicted on the basis of the World War II in France analogy.  The settling of assorted political scores, debts, vendettas poured swaths of blood the length and breadth of France.  This sanguinary effusion was well known at the time as it is by later generations of historians.  Only the Bush/Cheney crew seemed unaware of it with the result there were insufficient men and resources to deal quickly with the problems of "liberation."  The results of that are well known by all of us.

Bad analogy brought bad results.

But all the use of bad analogy does not exist on the American side of the hill.  It resides as well, for example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad commented during his recent Great American Tour that the US had never been involved in a "real war."  He opined that not even World War II, generally considered to be an excellent example of the breed, constituted a "real war."  The Ahmadinejad view of history and war has been echoed repeatedly by senior Iranian governmental and military officials over the past several years.  The constant refrain of Iranian military supremacy and an equivalent lack of American competence in the field can be amusing or infuriating in its unrealistic appraisals.  However, it is based on reasoning by analogy.

The prevalent Iranian understanding of war is predicated quite unsurprisingly on the Iraq-Iran War, which started thirty years ago.  To the Iranians, particularly those of Ahmadinejad's generation, this singularly bloody and inconclusive multi-year conflict is the paradigm of modern war.  The Iranians have produced a narrative of the war which celebrates their steadfastness, bravery, willingness to die, ability to accept fatalities unequalled since the brutal combat on the Eastern Front during World War II.  The narrative always concludes that the ability of Iranians to die in windrows and keep on fighting constitutes the strength of their nation and thus its ability to best the US or Israel or whoever.

The problem comes in that the analogy of the Iraq-Iran War is utterly, totally, and absolutely wrong.  The ground truth behind this evaluation is the simple fact that the war was not a modern war.  Rather it was a Medieval war fought with modern weapons.  This is a crucial distinction which renders the analogy fatally dangerous to the Iranian decision makers who rely upon it in making choices regarding the confrontation with the US and other Powers.

The Iraq-Iran War was Medieval in its essential nature.  There was no concept of strategy, operations, or tactics beyond that of hurling masses of poorly trained or completely untrained men in assaults on prepared positions.  In this respect the Iraq-Iran War was far below even the stereotyped and unsuccessful approaches to combat seen on the Western Front between November 1914 and early 1918.

Even the use of missiles during the so called "war of the cities" phase of the Iraq-Iran War did not differ from the use of trebuchets tossing corpses and incendiary payloads over the walls of fortified towns during Medieval campaigns.  There was no aspect of modern mobility, modern command, control, and communications, no correct coordination of movement and firepower.

In comparison, the battles of Crecy or Agincourt were modern.  At least these showed tactical and weapons employment features of a novel sort with the result the British won at low cost against a larger French force relying on outdated methods.

Ahmadinejad and company do not show any appreciation of the American way of war either in its classical sense as exhibited in World War II or even in Korea and Vietnam or in its more evolved form exhibited in both Iraq wars as well as in Afghanistan.  Ever since the mind altering experience of the War Between the States, the US has emphasized the expenditure of materiel over the sacrifice of American lives.

During World War II or Korea or even Vietnam, the US was willing and able to heave awesome amounts of lethal stuff down range if such would save American lives.  In these conflicts the US was relatively oblivious to collateral damage and civilian deaths--as the French in Normandy found out on and after 6 June 1944.  It was not that the US intentionally sought civilian collateral damage.  Rather, it was the technological limitations which precluded any true precision which might have spared lives and property.

The imperatives of changing international norms as well as realpolitik considerations in interventionary operations combined with a need to assure that every round fired had a maximum probability of scoring a first round kill to propel the development of ever more accurate weapons and munitions.  It is not that the US now wants to wage bloodless war, but the need to limit collateral damage while enhancing the potential of killing those in need of being killed have become preeminent.  The ideal weapon from the American perspective now is one which will kill the target first time, every time, without splattering any viscera on the "innocent" person standing at the target's shoulder.

The result is the capacity to inflict awesome devastation on a target.  Whatever must be hit will be hit.  And, if hit, will be obliterated (hopefully leaving enough DNA in the smear of protoplasm to allow identification).  Even hardened or mobile targets cannot escape engagement and obliteration.  A very great deal of money and brain power have been expended on assuring the ability to find, engage, and destroy even fleeting and intentionally elusive targets.  As much has been spent on developing means to penetrate hardened targets with non-nuclear munitions and pleasingly destructive effects.

Coupling this weapons and munitions approach with a highly evolved intelligence, command, control, and communication system gives the US a capacity to find, fix in place, and destroy targets which is hard to match and impossible to exceed.  This constellation along with the superb mobility and flexibility of US forces constitutes genuinely modern war.

While the Iranians may have progressed somewhat beyond the Tenth Century level of warfare, which constitutes their paradigmatic experience, there is no reason to assess their level of competence in modern war to be anywhere near that of the US or other civilized states.  As a result, any reasoning by analogy with the Iraq-Iran War will prove (literally) fatal to the Iranian regime.

Bad analogy brings bad results.  Or, should the Iranians insist on basing their calculus of defiance on their narrative, the results may as severe as the ending of Iran as a functioning state.

Oh, well, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of guys.

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