The Beauty Of Asymmetrical War

Last night in his announcement of his intended draw down of American forces in Afghanistan, President Obama underscored the beauty, the appeal of asymmetrical war for those who put their strategic fortunes in its ample basket.  Stripped of its camouflage, cover, and concealment the president's words conveyed the simple appeal of asymmetrical war--it works.

Asymmetrical war worked in Afghanistan. That is obvious.  The US has lost.  And announced that defeat in the verbiage of declaring victory.  The president made all the expected genuflections before the alter of economic necessity.  He took the position that now was the time for "nation-building" here in the US.  But, under this convenient shelter, the reality remains.  The reality is blunt.  The US, We the People, the government which purports to represent us and seek to protect our national interests abroad, has lost the political will to continue the war.

This, my friends, is the goal in all asymmetrical wars.  Defeat the numerically and technologically superior enemy by progressively exhausting his political will to continue.  Taliban, the Haqqani network, even the not-quite-pathetic remnants of al-Qaeda as well as their supporters and sponsors in Pakistan have succeeded in so enervating the political will of the US that we are tossing in the sponge even as we teeter on the edge of military success.

The announcement does nothing to advance the progress of the very tentative talks with Taliban representatives.  History in both the Korean and Vietnamese wars shows that diplomacy of talking depends for progress let alone success upon the diplomacy of the gun.  The battlefield and negotiating table are connected head, shoulder, and hip.  Only the continued demonstration of political will in combat serves to convince the talkers at the table that they had best make the best deal possible as quickly as possible lest they lose everything on the bullet raked fields of battle.

Given that the only campaign of vital interest to President Obama is Campaign 2012, his decision to undercut the efforts of the past two years in Afghanistan and declare the losses of dollars (replaceable) and hundreds of lives (irreplaceable) to be written off in fact if not in rhetoric was to be expected.  He would have announced an even faster pull out, such as that demanded by his progressive base, if that move would not have simultaneously cost him potential votes among the rest of the electorate.  As it was, his decision was informed far more by the polls showing the escalating war weariness among We the People than the expert advice of the commanders on the ground.

Ten years ago the thought that the US would suffer one more defeat in an asymmetrical war was almost unthinkable.  Within the military there was a widespread belief that the phrase "no more Vietnams" meant or at least implied that the US would never again engage in an intervention or, if we did, it would be of the very limited sort typified by the operations in Kosovo.  Overall, the men in uniform thought that the so-called Powell Doctrine would prevail.  No significant military commitment absent an overwhelming force and full domestic support.

The small number of people both in and out of uniform who had spent the decades of the Eighties and Nineties studying asymmetrical war under its several different names--unconventional war, interventionary operations, limited war, counterinsurgency--were not so optimistic.  The end of the cold war had liberated a number of pressures which would result in small, nasty wars some of which would put American interests in peril.  At the same time the effects of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the ongoing Arab-Israeli war served to promote the growth of violent political Islam.  The net result was the conclusion that the US would be in an asymmetrical conflict with an Islamist adversary within the next ten years--and, neither the military nor the civilian government would be ready to fight that inevitable war.

The past ten years have shown, as the Geek adumbrated in yesterday's post, the power of asymmetrical war in a way both dramatic and unmistakable.  Now that the power of that sort of war has been underscored by President Obama's message of American defeat, asymmetrical conflict will be more common around the world at the same time as the US will be decreasingly willing to take up the challenge.

Now, like the coach sez, "let's get back to basics."

One basic about asymmetrical war is that it is nothing new.  Over the sanguine centuries of warfare--defined as the centrally directed, organized application of violence to a political goal by a state, a pretender to statehood or a non-state actor--asymmetrical wars have been as numerous as peer-to-peer conflicts.  Insurgencies, both offensive (revolutionary) and defensive (separatist,) have been and continue to be asymmetrical in nature.  All peacekeeping or peace imposition (stability) operations are inherently asymmetrical.  The increasing use of proxies, the growth in sponsored transnational terrorism, the rise of narco-warfare, all of these constitute sub-sets of asymmetrical wars.  All will be common in the future for reasons to be considered in later posts.

A second basic about asymmetrical war is that it is identical to conventional peer-to-peer conflicts in one essential respect.  The intent is to bring about a better state of peace by bending the enemy to your political will.  The difference, a very critical one, between the peer-to-peer war and its asymmetrical kin is found in the means of bending the enemy to your will.  The side initiating the asymmetrical conflict seeks to attack and progressively reduce the target's political will and social cohesiveness by imposing costs which are politically and economically unacceptable while remaining tolerable to the attacker.

Here is the takeaway, the nitty-gritty which was not understood ten years ago but is blindingly apparent today: The goal of al-Qaeda and similar entities was to inflict such politically and economically unacceptable costs on the US employing means which capitalized on strengths inherent to Muslims such as to compel the US to accede to a set of political demands.  Based upon the American responses to earlier attacks, the expectation that the attacks of 9/11 would be sufficient to force the US to bend to Arab political will was not lunatic in nature.

The weak and ineffective responses by the US to the series of terror strikes on American targets both overseas and domestically convinced Osama bin Laden and others (including some holding positions of authority in Pakistani agencies) that the proposed 9/11 attacks would be effective at low risk for retaliation.  While the Clinton administration was correct to have responded to the truck bomb attack on the World Trade Center as a law enforcement matter, its limp wristed reactions to later attacks, Khobar Towers, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the water borne hit on the USS Cole were not only too little, too late, they were de facto admissions of impotency.  Each demonstrated the power resident in asymmetry.  It was only logical to anticipate the same sort of non-linearity when nineteen good Muslims converted commercial aircraft into manned cruise missiles.

Bin Laden and company blew it.  They had misjudged the American character.  They didn't understand the Pearl Harbor syndrome and its potency in the collective American mind.  Instead of the expected flight of easily evaded cruise missiles, the Mighty Men of the Great Sheik got a reasonable imitation of a military full court press.

Now comes one of the most, perhaps the most, thoroughly delicious ironies known to the Geek (a devoted collector of historical ironies.)  The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Neocon Ninny administration blew their phase of the asymmetrical war as much or more than bin Laden blew his.  They failed to understand what previous leaders had discovered.  In the counter strike period of an asymmetrical war, one uses overwhelming force quickly and decisively.  The superior force must be employed so as to bring the speedy and complete destruction of the inferior.

The archaic, politically impolite but quite accurate term for this counter strike is "punitive expedition."  The goal is to demonstrate political will as well as military supremacy by obliterating the enemy who mounted the attack while "punishing" what and whomsoever supported, facilitated, or gave safe haven to the attacker.  The purpose of the exercise is not judicial in nature.

One is not interested in bringing an alleged offender before the bar of justice, but to eliminate him.  With respect to those who aid, abet, and protect the enemy, the purpose is to inflict an unacceptable level of economic, social, and political damage upon him.  The superior force uses his capacities to squash the offensive but inferior one in a manner akin to the Monty Python giant foot descending irresistibly from the clouds.

The response of the attacked but superior target is quick, brutal, and decisive.  The word "brutal" may be offensive to today's hyper-sensitive ears but in the final analysis it is a far more humane approach than would be the ineffective efforts at "nation-building" embarked upon by the clueless bunch in the Bush/Cheney White House and continued until last night by the successor Obama administration.

Afghanistan has been termed the "graveyard of empires" not because the empires lacked the means to successfully defeat and occupy the land and people of the region but rather because the "empires", British, Russian, and American, have lost their political will in the face of the rugged physical and, even more, the spiky human terrain of the place.  All, and, most particularly, the American, efforts have foundered because the invader has lacked the political will necessary or the correct strategic and operational concepts to prevail.

The takeaway here is simple.  When entering an asymmetrical war, the US must not only employ sufficient means quickly and firmly, it must limit its goals to those which can be achieved by purely military means.  These goals are few and easily defined.  Military force can topple a regime, but it cannot build one.  It can impose a peace but it cannot create stability.  It can punish a malefactor but it cannot rehabilitate one.  It can back the diplomacy of talk, but it cannot replace it.  Most importantly, military force can terminate hostilities, but it cannot resolve the underlying conflict which resulted in the outbreak of hostilities.

Whether any of us like the idea or not, there will be future challenges in the area of asymmetrical war.  The specter of transnational terror has not left the world.  Nor has the threat posed by violent political Islam.  Even if peace breaks out in Afghanistan, there are plenty of other locations where asymmetrical attacks might be planned and mounted.  There is Yemen.  There is Somalia.  There is Sudan.  There is Pakistan.  Any or all of these might become necessary targets of an American counter strike.  So also might a number of other failed or failing states.

There is more to be learned from a defeat resolutely and honestly studied than a victory celebrated.  Now that the president has announced an American defeat (or, if it makes you feel better, an incomplete success) in Afghanistan, the time has come to take a very long, very hard, and very honest look at what was done wrong--and right--in Afghanistan.  We must be prepared to do the job right the next time out, for there will be a next time regardless of the wishes of any of us.

Or, there is an alternative.  We can build a very high and very thick wall around the US and pretend the rest of the world isn't out there.

Challenges, Challenges And Even More Challenges

The foreign challenges are coming to President Obama thicker and faster than Joe Biden's cracked crystal ball forecast during the election campaign. Obama is not enjoying the six months without a major challenge which Verbose Joe predicted.

It goes almost without saying that the international community of wolves is circling the American wagon as it sits in the global desert with the mules dead or dying and the wheels threatening to crack off. Of course this is to be expected.

If there is anything every ruling elite--friend and foe alike--enjoys, it is the prospect of kicking the corpse of Uncle Sam. Joy at American weakness and distress is and has been for beaucoup years a feature of international politics. This time the long knives are sharper and the grins of anticipation more vulpine than usual as a direct result of the ill-advised arrogance of George W. Bush's focus on unilateralism.

George W. had the hubris. Now governments and leaders from countries great and small see themselves as a species of nemesis.

It has been a mort of years since the US appeared both so powerless and so challenged on the world stage. The last time the wolfpack formed was during the years of the Ford and Carter administrations.

The US, shaken by the debacle of the War in Vietnam and the fallout of the Great Watergate Caper, was also rocked by a combination of inflation and flat economic growth. The lackluster administrations of two less than dynamic presidents stood by watching with evident helplessness as countries and conditions hostile to our national and strategic interests prevailed, expanded and developed around the world from Latin America to Africa, to Asia, and to the Mideast and the Persian Gulf.

To paraphrase the lyrics of one form of the "Bug Out Boogie" from the Korean War, "Hear the patter of tiny feet/That's the USA in full retreat."

Tongue-tied, knee-knocking and naval-gazing, We the People and our government watched the wolves dine at our expense and worried not about the ultimate costs. There were even those among us--academics, pundits and others of the High Minded caste--who argued that the world was better off without our active participation. We were just too dirty for our filth not to rub off on the pure innocence of the ayatollahs, commissars and tin-plated dictators who were running rampant.

Within the elites of our allies in Western Europe there was much nodding of agreeing heads. The smiles of joy in our suffering were discretely concealed behind lofty talk of multi-polar politics and the end of the American "hegemony." The Japanese went further than that. They went out not only to buy as much of the US as possible, at least one major figure went so far as to allege that we deserved our diplomatic and economic ruination because the Americans were a mixed race, mongrel people.

Now the scene is replaying with some difference in detail.

The major features are unchanged. The US is undergoing severe economic problems. (The Geek is a historian so he will pass on the key question of whether the assorted expenditure programs undertaken and proposed will ameliorate or exacerbate the underlying problem.) As a result of this, every foreign policy test must be viewed through the distorting lens of domestic worry over the economy as well as the magnifying glass created by the enormous debt which the US must foist off on foreign investors.

The unnecessarily prolonged war in Afghanistan and its apparent failure to date has served to severely undercut the potential deterrent effect of US military capacities. The undercutting has in no way been alleviated by the mixed (to put it kindly) results today in Iraq.

Regardless of what the High Minded and Lofty Thinking might wish to be the case, a credible capacity to coerce is a foundation of effective diplomacy. As the knowledgeable realpolitiker Joe Stalin knew when he famously inquired when advised that the Catholic Church opposed Soviet ambitions in Eastern Europe, "How many divisions does the Pope have?"

It will take more, much more than a new strategy for Afghanistan,no matter how correctly focused, or tough talk on Face the Nation to convince states hostile to our interests that they should take our diplomatic demarches seriously. From the perspective of hostile capitals such as Tehran, Pyongyang, Beijing or even Moscow, the hoary characterisation once offered by Chairman Mao regarding the US is accurate today. (That characterisation should you not remember it was "paper tiger.")

The utter absence of any perceived will and capacity on the part of the US to effectively coerce is seen quite blatantly with the North Koreans. While supported in its diplomacy by Japan and South Korea (and in a semi-hemi-demi way by China and Russia), the US effort to abate the North Korean nuclear program including its proliferation component and long-range missile ancillary has been a notable failure.

The Hermit Kingdom of the North has been successfully rattling Uncle Sam's cage off and on for over a decade. The rattling has become increasingly intense of late. The up-coming "satellite" launch is one facet of this. Another is the seizure of two Asian descent American women journalists near the vague border on the Tuman River separating China and North Korea.

The best that the US can offer now as the countdown clock ticks and interrogators of the NKPA intelligence operation question the two women is silence on the second matter and the position advanced by SecDef Gates that more economic sanctions rather than shooting down the "illegal" missile should it get off the ground is the preferred option. Admittedly the Hermit Kingdom has proven itself remarkably impervious to outside pressures or inducements, but that is still no justification for ruling out the shoot-down option.

However, the route of going to the UN Security Council for a specific authorisation to abate the missile as an action compatible with previous UNSC actions is not much better than a mud road. The probability of gaining (or cozening) support from the other Permanent Members is nil. For this the US can thank the misuse of Security Council procedures by the Bush administration with respect to Iraq.

The success of North Korea in cocking a snoot at the US is an encouragement for Tehran. As if the mullahocracy needed any. The sanction regime has proven painful to people in Iran but bootless as regards the Iranian nuclear effort.

US posturing over the Iranian support of Hamas and Hezbollah has been even less effective. Our close ally, the UK, has gone right ahead and started diplomatic conversations with Hezbollah in Lebanon arguing with the usual British bland face that there is a meaningful distinction between the military (terrorist according to the US, EU and UN) and political portions of Hezbollah.

This do-it-my-way approach simply reflects the position taken by assorted European governments regarding the sanctions against Iran. Economic considerations trump the sanction regime. Anyway, what can the US do about it?

Americans historically have evinced an irrational desire to be loved throughout the world. We have fretted and engaged in mental masturbation when our desire for affection is unrequited, or, worse, rejected. For some reason even intelligent, well-educated Americans seem to believe that nation-states should be like individual people equipped with the same emotional suite and capacity for empathy of an individual. We speak of "friends" in the international context in a way identical to that with which we talk of our friends next door or at work.

Get a grip! Nation-states do not have emotions of the human sort even though they are comprised of and run by people. Although when warped international politics can become all too personal, by and large the slogan "the personal is the political" is as wrong in foreign affairs as a cat barking.

States have interests. Diplomacy works in one of two ways. It finds coinciding interests which can be developed, widened or exchanged. Or, it uses coercion. At root all diplomatic coercion depends for its success on the existence of a credible will and capacity to employ military force as the ultimate argument.

Appeals to past relations, to loyalty, even to shared domestic values are not useful tools in diplomacy. For the US to succeed in safe guarding its national and strategic interests, it is essential that we abandon any notion of personal feelings, love or hatred.

Instead, even in the present economic crisis (or perhaps it is more accurate to say, because of the current global economic mess) the US needs to do several things. We must do them fast. Before the wolves and sharks of the globe strike.

Define and achieve a consensus among the politically articulate as to the nature and extent of US national and strategic interests. Pursue those interests coherently employing all the instruments of national power. Remember that coercion is a legitimate part of a coherent strategy. Remember that coercion of all sorts rests upon the existence of a believable will to employ a demonstrably competent military force.

On What Planet Does Salon.com Live?

Mark Benjamin, the Washington correspondent for Salon is quite evidently disturbed, bordering on distraught about the support given by Democratic presidential candidates generally for an increase in the size of US ground combat forces. Writing today he asks rhetorically if this means the army is preparing for more wars of the Iraq/Afghanistan type. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/09/27/bigger_army/index.html?source=newsletter

The Geek has an answer. It's short. Simple. The answer is. "Yes."

Benjamin references the new joint Army/Marine Corps Field Manual on counterinsurgency with, at least, faint alarm. Specifically bothering him is that the new manual acknowledges the fundamental reality which separates counterinsurgency from wars between organized forces using conventional tactics and equipment such as World War II, the Korean War, or the several wars between Israel and the Arab states.

"What's the difference?" You ask.

As the Geek has written before it is both simple and all important. Counterinsurgency, in common with all other stability oriented operations such as peacekeeping, has as its focus demobilizing actual or potential support from the insurgents and remobilizing it to the side countering the gunslingers.

In sharp contrast, conventional military operations focus on destroying the enemy's forces in the field as well as its material capacity to wage war.

To make it simpler. Conventional war has as its goal killing people and breaking things. Stability operations, including counterinsurgency, seek to kill less, break as little as possible, and win on the battlefield of the mind.

Correct counterinsurgency doctrine seeks a Sun Tzu victory. It seeks to convince. It seeks to demoralize the enemy--not kill him. Sure, killing is necessary. But, correct doctrine insists on killing only those who need killing and not anyone who happens to be in the impact zone.

The new doctrine is available commercially and should be read by anyone who wants to be informed on the type of war the US is most likely to be waging in the next several years. If read carefully, a person should not be alarmed but rather gratified.

The Geek has read it and is gratified by what he read.

Throughout the Nineties, the Geek along with others wrote, lectured, and hectored on two topics. The first was the necessity of a proper counterinsurgency doctrine since the needs of counterinsurgency were almost precisely opposite to the requirements for conventional war. The second point harped on was that the most likely type of war for the US in the upcoming decades was that generally called stability operations including peacekeeping and counterinsurgency.

To say the military resisted the message is to put it mildly. The task of convincing the services to accept that there were two antipodal types of war and that they would be tasked with fighting the kind they least enjoyed considering was not unlike selling the mullahocracy in Tehran on the necessity of becoming Southern Baptists.

Now, between the forces of argument over more than a decade and several years of floundering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ground forces can take legitimate satisfaction in finally having created a doctrine that is not a recipe for defeat. Thumbs up from the Geek.

Why is Mr Benjamin so disturbed? Intuitively the Geek would think that a man of the left would be pleased that the American military has chucked its addiction to shooting, moving, and communicating so as to find, fix, and destroy the enemy. He should be happy that the military sees a creative and effective alternative to killing its way to victory over a landscape of blasted ruins.

He's not. He's fretting instead. Fretting over the fact that the world is not a pleasant place filled with peace, love, unicorns, and other nice warm, soft fuzzies.

He's bothered because the army might be larger tomorrow than it is today.

The Geek replies, "It damn well better be larger--and smarter. Stability operations will continue as an urgent, necessary requirement for US capabilities. Democratic candidates as well as Republican seem to recognise this harsh reality."

Stability operations generally and counterinsurgency in particular, as the Geek has written before, are of necessity quite manpower heavy in their requirements. As the Geekmo has pointed out ad nauseum, if the US had placed enough boots on the ground initially in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the wars would have been quashed before they grew.

Mr Benjamin just doesn't get it. (Perhaps he should read the Geek's earlier posts on the subject. They ain't half-bad, if he does say so himself.)

Perhaps Mr Benjamin is worried that should the ground forces of the US gain sufficient manpower to actually implement the new doctrine successfully there will be rooms full of senior officers, all licking their lips with eager anticipation as they stare at maps with one eye and at CNN with the other eye seeking a country to "stabilize" or a regime to change.

Get a grip, Mr Benjamin.

As a (presumed) seasoned observer of Washington, Mr Benjamin ought to know that the military does not decide what country to invade or what regime to change. Only the civilians do that. The Commander Guy and his coterie. Not the military.

Having enough boots to put on the ground and possessing a less incompetent doctrine for placing the boots should provide future administrations of either party with a more effective mechanism not only for making our diplomacy more credible but for conducting stability operations at a lower cost in lives, treasure, and time.

What is so darn scary about that?

Perhaps Mr Benjamin would be more comfortable with an American military so berift of intellectual and manpower resources like that which after much huffing, puffing, planning and rehearsing brought the world the five star production, Debacle at Desert One. Maybe he is so gripless that he is happy with a Pentagon so devoid of ideas and capacities that we could respond to al-Qaeda outrages only by flinging megabuck Tomahawks at empty mud huts.

Now, that is scary.

Sure We Can Blow Up Iran--Then What?

A couple of days ago a pair of British deep thinkers with much academic knowledge of war as a theoretical consideration but no practical experience with the realities of breaking things and killing people issued a think tank report considering how the US could destroy not only Iran's nuclear facilities but the country's infrastructure and government as well. The paper can be read at http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf.

Like all too many "defense intellectuals." the authors have a skewed view of the nature of war. The combination of tunnel vision and inexperience with either the real or historical character of war--the feel of fear, the taste of blood, the stench of death, and the dust of destruction--turns the dropping of bombs and the firing of missiles into a dry exercise of limited imagination.

The Geek rather believes that the tone of this article must resemble the briefing papers given to Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush prior to the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Why does the Geek think that?

Because the paper which was released to the mainstream and alternative media on 28 August 07 focuses on what the US military services can do with the ordnance and delivery systems now in the region. It considers weapons' effects, numbers of sorties required, and similar technical data. To the Geek, that approach resembles what the main focus of the briefings to the Commander Guy and his Commanderettes must have been.

What we can do to blow things up. There is absolutely no doubt about the American capacity to deliver highly effective, non-nuclear munitions in great amounts. There is equally little doubt that the American systems have a high order of accuracy along with their high order lethality and destructiveness.

So what? The Geek asks.

Delivering ordnance is the easy part. It was the easy part of the Iraq invasion. The hard part always comes later. The real tough part of war comes just after the last echoes of the last smart-bomb blast or cruise missile impact fades.

The authors of the study resemble the architects of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in another important way as well. As the record of the past five years years in Afghanistan and four plus years in Iraq show, Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush never considered the day after. They and those who advised and supported them never considered what would happen after we defeated the conventional opposing forces in the field. Never thought about the day after we declared victory.

The authors of the study apparently share the view of the current administration that as the dust clouds settle and flies cover the corpses, the shocked and awed survivors of the smashing attack will rise up as one and overthrow the mullahocracy so as to embrace freedom, democracy, religious pluralism, and free enterprise.

That's sure the way it went in Iraq, wasn't it? And Afghanistan, right?

The study substantially ignores not only the day after the dust clears. It casually waves off the spectrum of retaliatory options available to the Iranian government and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps foreign duty component, the al-Quds Force. Considering the sizable number of Islamists in Europe (see http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/08/2eb4b9a1-4e04-420e-bfb3-2aad70344baa.html for a current appraisal) the possibility--no--the probability of Iranian controlled or affiliated sleeper terrorist cells is high, very high.

Nor is it all that much lower in the United States. Despite the best efforts of American intelligence and law enforcement efforts, only a person not well rooted in reality could pretend that there are no undetected black hats among us.

A further wrinkle not considered by the deep thinking dudes in England is the probable effect upon opinion throughout Islamic countries of an American attack upon Iran. Even the most carefully planned and executed attack would kill large numbers of Iranians, most of them civilians. Far lesser body counts inflicted upon Muslims by US or other Western forces have inflamed zeal, fear, and hatred among Islamic peoples. When the impact of satellite, almost-real-time imagery is considered on top of the current wide-spread anxiety and animus felt toward the US as the chief "crusader" country, the likelihood of terrorist attacks becomes a bang on certainty.

Another failure of the report which was probably shared by the optimistic folks in the Pentagon and White House is its assumption that the US attack would be one hundred percent successful. The assumption apparently is that we would know where every target was to the millimeter, and we would hit everything we aimed at.

Get a grip!

As the experience in the invasion of Iraq demonstrates (as does that of Afghanistan), we did not know where every important target was located. Also, we didn't hit what we aimed at all the time. Regardless of technology, it is still possible to miss what you're aiming at. Similarly, it is possible not to know where ever single important target might be.

What's the upshot?

The study's authors are out to lunch. Anyone who follows the same line of thinking is equally out to lunch.

Here's what we can do. We can break much, even most, of Iran's economic infrastructure, military installations, nuclear facilities, and government centers.

Here's what we cannot do. We cannot invade and occupy Iran on the ground. We don't have the forces to do that. (The JCS is of the view that maintaining our current level of 160,000 in Iraq is too much of a strain.) We cannot adequately predict, not effectively counter the range of potential responses by Iranian sponsored and other terrorists. We cannot predict nor control the global diplomatic damage that might result from the US attack even if some major actors such as the UK and France support our action. We cannot be sure that our attack will neutralize all the targets, even the most urgent ones.

Then, there is one more little matter of what we cannot do. We cannot surround the attack with a warm, fuzzy blanket of public opinion molding, so that the Iranians who live in the country wide impact area will love us as the debris falls around their heads.

The laddybucks behind the study (again, the Geek supposes, not unlike the Rumsfield-Cheney-Bush boys) are ignorant of history. As World War II shows beyond any shadow of a doubt, when people are bombed, they support their own government more, not less. Morale does not collapse. Political will does not evaporate. In England, in Germany, in Japan, the will to resist along with hatred of the bomber grew as the bombs fell.

The strategic masterminds of the current administration (including those who were in office back in 2002) and the academic warriors of the study are evidently ignorant of the greatest single principle of war. Pressure consolidates political will long before it shatters it.

Get a grip on the history of war even if you don't experience the real deal up close and personal. If you do that you are less likely, far less likely, to make the sort of blunders illustrated in this Iran study or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

How Do We Know If We're Winning?

Or, to err on the side of accuracy, how do we know if we're not losing in Iraq?

Back in the Vietnam War the single best indicator seemed to be the number of actions initiated by the enemy. There is no doubt that it was a better wet finger in the wind than the body counts so loved by the media (and increasingly by ill advised military commanders.) The problem was one of interpretation.

Was the decrease in enemy initiated actions due to our successful efforts?

Or, was it a deliberate choice by the enemy, perhaps as a prelude to a major offensive?

In 1967 and very early 1968 the two shop of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, and CIA disagreed. The military spooks concluded that the lessening of enemy initiated actions was the result of our successes on the ground. This is what the public, Congress, and the White House wanted to hear when our commander, General William Westmoreland, reported in person to the nation.

The civilian spooks thought it was a deliberate enemy effort, a preparation for a very large set of attacks. This is not what the public, Congress, or the White House wanted to hear. So, it wasn't mentioned.

The truth came shortly after Westmoreland's optimistic reading of the intelligence tea leaves. It was called the Tet Offensive, and it knocked American confidence in victory straight out of the ring.

Because conflict between interpretations of intelligence information is endemic to the process, the problem today in Iraq is the same as it was in Vietnam. Different agencies see the same information differently.

As a result, the best single hot wash metric developed in Vietnam is useless in Iraq. The milestone concept is even worse. It seeks to establish measurements of the irrelevant that are even more subject to purely subjective interpretation than the enemy initiated actions approach.

What does that leave?

There are two very good indicators. At least they are indicators which the Geek has always found reliable. They are the indicators that he has been using in assessing Iraq.

The first is the amount of reliable tactical intelligence furnished by indigenous civilians. How many caches do they lead our forces to? How many insurgents do the locals drop a dime on? These are critical indicators as civilians caught in the tide of insurgency want to be left out of the crossfire. As a result they only cooperate when it is both safe and in their own best interests to do so.

Working from a number of open sources, the Geek has seen a very encouraging trend. In the last ninety days the amount of high quality tactical intelligence from local civilians has increased by several orders of magnitude. Some have been real life savers such as pointing out where the roadside mines have been emplaced. Others have resulted in the capture or death of hostile cadre members.

The second indicator used by the Geek is the number of refugees. This weather vane is not as encouraging as the first. The number of refugees both seeking sanctuary in neighboring countries and searching for safety within Iraq is large, very large, alarmingly large.

On the up-side, the flow seems to have been slowing the past two or three weeks. If this trend continues for another four or six weeks, the Geek will almost feel a sigh of relief. When people vote with their feet you can believe the election.

Finally, the Geek still takes a hard look at the number of enemy initiated actions, which in Iraq includes not only suicide and vehicle bombers but the ever popular and ever-so-lethal roadside mine. Because the insurgents in Iraq do not fight as "conventional" irregular forces but prefer the single man operation, such as the bomber or the stand-off system such as the mine, it is a lot harder to get a grip on trends.

Even when a sense of the trend is gained, no hasty judgments can be made. A ramping down of enemy initiated actions must persist for at least four months to have any value whatsoever.

The bottom line?

One indicator is looking good, even very good since the surge forces came on-line. The locals are of ever greater assistance.

One indicator is neutral. The number of refugees may, repeat may, be stabilizing.

The third indicator is not yet relevant.

However, there are some other reasonably encouraging hints. The Iraqi security forces are carrying more and more of their end of the log and they are doing it with greater skill. The Americans are showing a greater willingness and ability to work with local defense force volunteers, particularly the tribals, even though this makes the Iraqi government nervous.

(Hint to American decider guys. Take a good look at the Quang Ngai Special Platoon program and the Marine Combined Action Platoon program in Vietnam. Limit your study to the earlier years of both, before they were pumped up to unmanageable size.)

There are even some faint signs that at least some of the insurgents may be becoming too dependent on Iran. This is sign of desperation. As the old Iraqi saying goes: A man always thinks the fruits of his own fields are the best.

There you have it. The Geek's critique and alternatives. Remember that the Geek never believes he is an expert. He'll leave that honor to academics and journalists and politicians, to all the people who are comfortable making false claims.

Who Is Their Dealer?

If the report on Free Market News Network and Wired Blog http://blog.wired.com is correct, everything the Geek has suspected about the "planning" capacities of the Bush Pentagon and White House concerning the day after defeating the conventional forces in Iraq is true.

The gripless group in the Defense Department ranging from SecDef Rumsfield through his toadies such as Wolfewitz and Doug Feith (my personal favorite for Stupid Guy of the Century award) and apparently including the uniformed service chiefs really, really, but really believed that once we had "taken down" the regime, all we would have to do is a little bit of tidying up before withdrawing a few months later.

What in hell was wrong with these people??

Were they really that terminally out to lunch? Hadn't they read the intelligence estimates? If not; why not? Did they get calluses on their lips from reading something longer than a press release? Didn't understand the big words like "insurgency?"

Whatever the reason, including untreated megalomania, the "commander guy" and his merry crew of willfully gripless associates took the US, the Iraqis and the world over the edge of the wrong war in the wrong place with the wrong enemy at the wrong time.

As the great survivor and diplomat, Talleyrand, once said to Napoleon, "It is worse than a crime. It is a blunder." The Geek seconds that sentiment.

It was a blunder for two reasons.

Number one: It was avoidable. Nobody needed to read one of those Burn Before Reading high security documents. All anyone had to do was glance, that's right, glance at a basic text of Iraqi history. Just the last century or two would be enough. You don't have to go back to Ur, although that wouldn't have hurt. (Shame on the Geek. He should remember the problem with blistered lips from too much reading.)

It would have helped to go back over the news files for the period of the economic sanctions and the Oil For Food program. The journalists at least got a grip on the pervasive corruption and internal fractionation which infested Iraq after the First Gulf War.

Putting the looted empty shell reality of Iraq into the context of the lack of social or political coherence would have shown anyone with an IQ in more than single digits that "taking down" the regime would be an open invitation for armed political unrest. That's the polite term for the multi-party insurgency we have on our collective hands right now.

The second reason the Geek calls the decision to invade Iraq without adequate consideration of its aftermath both a crime and a blunder is simply this. Now that we are in the US cannot, repeat cannot afford the consequences both short and long term of leaving before we and our Iraqi clients have secured a better state of peace.

Simply satisfying our emotions as Bill Richardson, Governor of my home state and Democratic Presidential wannabe, would have us do by quickly packing up and departing being sure to "leave no troops behind" is a self-destructive answer for reasons previously outlined.

Staying without a good, useful, historically rooted plan isn't the answer either. That will result in more deaths, more physical casualties and far more psychiatric casualties in this, the most dangerous and stressful war ever fought by Americans.

There are some answers. Some solutions for the mess handed us by the gripless, brain dead worthies the Geek has mentioned. Some are being worked out in the field right now by Americans with both brains and guts.

More on that later.

Not Losing In Iraq

Not all wars are created equal. For the United States at least, some are far more important than others.

The US involvement in the Vietnamese War was one we could afford to lose. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it was a good thing that we lost. I certainly don't think it was no big deal that more than 60,000 Americans were killed there for no positive outcome. I don't believe that our defeat brought about a better state of peace for the South Vietnamese, no matter how well that segment of the population has been doing in recent years.

But, get a grip on this: We could accept the defeat in Vietnam without any long term consequences to our role and status in the world.

True, after our self-inflicted defeat (hang on to that concept, I'll be returning to it later) the US turned introspective, lost our grip on the Cold War dynamic, allowed our military to become a hollow shell, and took some heavy hits economically. Nonetheless, the defeat didn't matter in the long run.

At least not to our position of leadership in the world.

The defeat did have long term consequences here at home. That's the first reality on which a firm grip must be taken.

The second grip necessitating reality is simply that the war in Iraq is one that we can not afford to lose. A defeat in Iraq carries with it the very strong possibility, even the near-certainty of long term consequences.

I'm not hyperventilating here. A defeat in Iraq may quite well cause a tectonic shift in global politics. A defeat would diminish the status and influence of the United States globally. A defeat under whatsoever guise will affect every aspect of international life from the cost of gas to the capacity of the United States to operate as a peacemaker and honest broker. It could even conceivably result in the something we have dreaded but avoided for sixty years.

The use of nuclear weapons.

I am willing to bet my most prized externally visible attribute--my hair--that the administration never realized that it was taking our country into a war that couldn't, strictly speaking, be won, but could very easily be lost. I'll bet hair that it never considered what the worst case outcome--defeat--would mean to the US.

Not only did the administration delude the nation with badly polluted intelligence, it ignored good intelligence which pointed out the many, many dangers we would face in Iraq after the false dawn of "victory."

Worse, the administration deluded itself. Apparently the White House and the Defense Department (at least the top side civilian component) committed the blunder of believing its own propaganda.

They believed that the Iraqis would greet us as liberators.

They believed that Iraq was a fully functional state.

They believed Iran would be cowed into submissive, or at least passive, status as an on looker.

They believed Sunni and Shi'ite would lie down together as lamb and lion.

What in hell were these folks smoking, snorting or running up?

You don't need access to Tippy Top Secret Burn Before Reading intelligence reports to know beyond even an unreasonable doubt that each and every one of these beliefs was utterly, catastrophically, gloriously wrong. Wrong as grilled watermelon.

So wrong that any person holding them with a straight face must either be a politician or someone not at all oriented as to time, place and reality. (Or perhaps both.)

On the basis of these delusions the US went into Iraq as we had Afghanistan with too few troops on the ground. On the basis of these delusions we sacked the Iraqi armed forces, government bureaucracies, police forces. We kicked all alleged Baathists out of state owned enterprises and public utilities.

We didn't do anything that stupid after the defeat of Germany. Where we did, it was temporary. We quickly realized that nothing would run without the participation of former Nazis.

To be successful, pragmatism must often trump emotions and zeal, or even a sense of justice. Unpleasant, but true. Get a grip.

As a result of these actions (and others too numerous to reference right now) all based on the delusions listed, we were behind the power curve before President Bush stood in front of the infamous 'Mission Accomplished" banner.

The delusions, the stupid policy regarding "de-Baathification" and the deficiency of boots on the ground have been step one on the road to self-inflicted defeat.

Step two has been our attempt to square an impossible circle: Train an effective Iraqi army and internal security force while fully engaged in a counter insurgent campaign.

Step three has been our attempt to engage in the hazy idea called "nation building" while facing a multi-party shooting war.

The results to date of these steps along the way of defeat have been obvious.
The initiative lies with the insurgents.
The Iranians have been handed a low cost, high payoff way of nibbling the US to death.
The Islamists have received a shot of growth hormone.
The Iraqis have been turned from being major actors in their own country to the role of target and by-stander.

"OK," you say. "Now what?"

Glad you asked.

Take a firm grip on this prickly reality. To not lose the United States must invest more, perhaps a lot more, lives.

Take a firm grip on this equally sticky reality. To not lose the United States must be willing to invest a lot more time, years certainly.

We will not lose in Iraq if and only if we accept that the current butcher's bill will grow a lot bigger and we will all grow a lot older before we can declare that we have avoided defeat.

These dirty truths are dictated by historical experience. This kind of war, insurgency, in all its many forms and details, is at root a contest of political wills. The political will of the insurgent versus the political will of the counter insurgent. Bombs, bullets, shells, dead bodies and ruined buildings alike are simply means by which the strength of the opposing political wills are tested.

A test of political will is a test of patience. A test of a people's capacity to accept death. A test of a people's ability to tolerate apparent lack of success. A test of a people's willingness to keep on keeping on, to make a long slog up hill in a driving rain with no end in sight.

Ultimately, this is the test We the People failed in Vietnam. It is the test We the People cannot fail in Iraq unless we are ready, willing and able to consent to a diminished role in the world and all that implies for us socially, economically and psychologically.

History shows the nature of the insurgent-counter insurgent war. It is unpleasant, to say the least.

History also shows that means exist by which the war can be shortened, the top of the mountain made more visible through the sleeting rain. It shows ways in which the load on the back can be made lighter.

The History Geek's lessons from our (vast) experience with insurgency as well as the experience of others, in short form:
Send more troops. Not aircraft, not ships, not artillery and tanks. Troops. On the ground.
Train the Iraqis behind a protective shield. All combat training is essentially on-the-job, but don't take it to unnecessary extremes.
Use our military and police for training, not private contractors.
Send the private security and training personnel home. In the long run this fighting on the cheap approach beloved by Cheney is counterproductive. It's like giving Ex-lax to a person with the runs.
Quit looking for a high-tech fix. As we found out in Vietnam, there's a low-tech counter for every high-tech capacity.
Develop a believable capacity to leave. Essential to pressure whatever regime is in power in Baghdad.
Make the Iraqi citizens more effective stakeholders in their own security. In the past we developed many workable tactics to bring this about. It was one of the bright, unreported stories out of our Vietnam failure.
Focus on the human terrain. The often derided battle for the "hearts and minds" of the uncommitted majority is the battle that counts most in avoiding defeat.
Don't invite Iran to openly enter the war. The single greates mistake we made in the Vietnam War was inviting the North to come on in.

Unconvinced? OK. The History Geek will take these points, and some others not listed and expand on them in later posts.

There's Still A Chance Not to Lose in Iraq

But, not losing won't be easy. Notice, I wrote, "not losing." I didn't write that there is still a chance to win in Iraq. That was intentional.

There is one simple reason why the US cannot "win" in Iraq. The reason is that we have never realistically defined victory.

Worse, we never had a set of well defined, concrete goals which were relevant to both our capabilities and interests on the one hand and the realities on the ground in Iraq on the other. Without goals, it is impossible to define victory in any way other than a collection of hazy, soft, warm fuzzy generalities.

Wait one, History Geek! You say. We had one goal. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Sure did. We had that concrete, limited goal and we accomplished it. So what?

Don't get me wrong. I have thought Saddam Hussein was a bad idea since before he came to power. Back when he was just one seemingly undistinguished figure on the reviewing stand, it was apparent to a few of us that he was the dude with the finger on the trigger.

So, I've always been in favor of removing his genes from the pool. We've done that. Good for us. Still, the question remains: So what?

We ended up occupying a country which closely resembled one of those companies taken over by the Mafia. An empty shell behind a glossy facade. A gutted wreck of what once had been a going concern.

While Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfewitz and Feith were gripless about this fundamental reality, the intelligence community had the real deal tightly in its grasp. This is one gargantuan policy blunder that can't be off-loaded on the usual battered child--CIA. They had a grip.

Not only did the Agency understand the empty hulk behind the propaganda facade, it also well understood what was most likely to happen on the day after the US declared victory. The men and women in the shadows had a grip on this: The solid nitrogenous waste would hit the air impeller.

That's right. The shit would hit the fan--on steroids.

Osama bin Ladin, his followers, his imitators, even the wannabes would get a shot of growth hormone that would surpass our capacities to counter. The mullahs and ayatollahs and imams in Tehran would get the opportunity of a lifetime to export their "revolution."

Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfewitz, Feith and their associates didn't want to get the message. And they didn't.

The President, George W., says he got the message but as the "commander guy," the "guy who makes the decisions." he decided that the benefits outweighed the risks.

What the hell kind of scale was he using?

Well, ignoring unpleasant intelligence is not an impeachable offense. If it had been the nation would have seen John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, ceremoniously kicked out of the Oval Office after proper rituals in the House and Senate.

So, there we were one day after victory, with stupid grins on our collective faces and our thumbs in an anatomically improbable location wondering, "What the hell now?"

The short answer comes in several parts. Watch wolfish grins grow on Iranian faces. Stand around as new jihadists blew themselves, assorted Iraqi civilians and our troops into small, bloody protoplasm flakes. Hire and fire one pro counsel and commander after another. Shove more troops into harm's way. Try different tactics. Surge. Rediscover the Iraq Study Group.

It all adds up to one word. Lose.

That's the short answer. Lose.

Roll it around in your mouth. Spell it. L. O. S. E. Sounds good? Feels good? Is good for the United States? Is good for the world? Good for the Iraqis maybe?

No. To all of the above, No!

It may be good for those who wish political advantage or to those pursuing personal interest. (Hear that, Ms Clinton, Ms Pelosi, Mr Obama, Mr Edwards, Mr Gulliani?) But, to those who have a grip on the longer term interests of the United States and the world, the word "lose" sounds frightening, horrifying, revolting.

We may not be able to win, but we can still not lose.

It won't be easy because not losing in Iraq (and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan) is much more difficult than not losing was in Vietnam. Iraq is a much tougher proposition than Vietnam ever was.

And, never forget, we lost in Vietnam. More than a decade, more than 60,000 American lives, billions of dollars almost beyond count, great and long lasting public support and still we lost.

The Iraq war and the War in Vietnam resemble one another in some essential respects. Iraq is and Vietnam was a combination of internal insurgency and external aggression. In South Vietnam we faced insurgents--the Viet Cong--and an external aggressor, North Vietnam.

In Iraq we face both insurgents and an external aggressor, Iran. At the moment Iran is playing a covert game just as the North Vietnamese did initially. But, that can change. Bad moves on our part can make sure it does.

The Iraq war and the War in Vietnam differ from one another in at least one critical way.

The Vietnamese fought a conventional guerrilla war. They used standard weapons and tactics. They presented more or less conventional targets that could be and were effectively engaged from time to time by our ground forces both conventional and special.

The Iraqi opponents do not use conventional guerrilla warfare weapons and tactics. They rarely present targets that can be effectively engaged by our forces. Unlike the Vietnamese enemies, the Iraqi opponents prefer the suicide bomber, the roadside bomb, the sniper.

These tactics, particularly the one involving a single suicidal individual with a vehicle full of explosives or even a C4 laden vest, are very, very difficult to counter. Most of the usual American advantages of technology are rendered useless.

You can see the same dynamic at work in Palestine. The Israeli military is far from incompetent. Time after time it has shown its definite superiority in all forms of conventional war including operations against organized guerrilla units. Despite this the IDF is less than effective in countering or deterring the suicide bomber or the barrage of more-or-less homemade rockets.

It's not that they haven't tried. The Israelis have tried nearly every coercive approach imaginable during the forty years they have been occupying all or some of the territory gained in the Six Day War.

Can we hope to do better? Can we hope not to lose?

Sure. It means getting a grip on historical experience. Our own and that of others such as the Israelis and the British. It means taking risks. It means taking a firm grip on some very unpleasant realities.

It means more Americans must die.

Does this mean that History Geek has the key to wisdom that has eluded others, those in high places? No. It means the key is there for all of us to use.

The key which will come here soon.

John Edwards Is Out To Lunch--Or Worse!

Originally, I was going to take a look at how the US could still succeed in the Iraq adventure, but John Edwards, former Senator from North Carolina and current Democratic presidential wannabe, got in the way of my plan. I swear that he is either the most gripless politician in the US today or he is lost in the zone. Either the Twilight Zone or O-zone, I'm not sure.

In either event, he's become my bete noir. Worse, Edwards' latest lunacy has driven me to the desperate position of having to agree with a White House staffer. Specifically, Peter Wehner a deputy assistant to the president and director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives who wrote a ditty on Edwards' idiocy in Real Clear Politics http//www.realclearpolitics.com/article/2007/05/edwards_view_is_wrong_and_dang.html.

In his speech two days ago to the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the ex-senator and nearly perpetual candidate showed that he didn't have a grip on several important realities. What's at stake in Iraq for the US. What's been happening in Iraq. What alternatives are available beside de facto defeat for the US in Iraq. And, finally, logic.

In case you missed the numerous reports of the speech in the MSM, here are the highlights. Withdraw 40 or 50 thousand troops immediately. Withdraw the rest some time in the next year. However, the US should station enough forces in the region to "prevent genocide," to assure that the "civil war" doesn't "spill over" and to make certain that Iraq doesn't "become a safe haven for al-Qaeda."

He also termed the war on terrorism not so much a policy as a "bumper sticker."

Leaving aside the gratuitous insult which I presume is meant to be some sort of crowd pleaser, but which actually demonstrates his awesome ability to conflate two separate albeit mutually reinforcing considerations, the main points of his proposal deserves a response.

First, I have to put some blue sky between myself and Wehner. He obviously believes that our invasion of Iraq was a good idea, a very good idea. I don't. It was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

Now back to Edwards and getting a grip on reality.

Wars are much easier to start than to end. The easiest way to end a war is to quit. To give up. It's a hell of a lot harder to end a war by bringing into existence that elusive critter--a better state of peace.

We never should have started the war. There was no basis for it. The intelligence used to support the decision to invade was polluted at best, fabricated at worst.

The most knowledgeable observers and analysts understood that there was no community of interest whatsoever between al-Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime. There never was. There never could be given the Islamist base of "the Base." Nor were there any weapons of mass destruction. In short, as everyone but the most gripless members of the red meat eating far right must understand perfectly: There was no reason to invade.

That having been said, several central realities remain. We invaded. We have occupied. We have removed Saddam. We have installed a government. A constitution, no matter how incomplete and imperfect has gone into operation with our approval and support. We have killed beaucoup Iraqis. We have seen nearly 3,500 of our uniformed citizens killed.

We started the war. We have to finish it. Finish it by bringing about a better state of peace, not by quitting as Edwards would have us.

Why?

Set aside for the moment the fact that quitting consigns our dead to the trash heap of casual, meaningless losses. Forget if you can, that these Americans were killed in our collective service, whether or not we approve of the war.

Look at the realities. Get a grip on the realpolitik of the war.

Realpolitik factor number one: If we lose, the Iranians win. At the least, Tehran and the mullahs who run it will become the regional hegemonic power.

Realpolitik factor number two: If we split out, the affiliates of al-Qaeda will be emboldened and empowered. The events of 9/11 might well pale in comparison to what will happen then. But, there's more. Much more.

Realpolitik factor number three: If we leave, there is a good to excellent chance that Iraq will become the latest failed state. It will be like Somalia on steroids. No small time sideshow like Sierra Leone. No bloody little affair like Rwanda.

No. It will be a major, major main attraction. Compared to the hurricane which will certainly occur when Iraq collapses, the decade of interventionary wars, genocide and diplomatic posturing over the corpse of Yugoslavia will be a belch. Iran's forces both open and covert will cross the border to "protect" the Shia majority. Turkey will have "no option" except to occupy the Kurdish region to "guard" it's interests, to "defend" against a widening of its own Kurdish insurgency. The Sunni minority will appeal to Saudi Arabia or Syria or both for "assistance" against the "oppressor."

Get the picture?

Oh, consider this. Not all Shi'ites by a long shot approve of the mullahs in Tehran. After all, Shia Iraqis are Arabs. Shia Iranians are not. Another add-on: There are other groups in Iraq, not just Shia and Sunni Arabs, not just Kurds. There are other groups as well. Recall that Iraq is not an organic nation-state, but an artificial creation of western diplomats at the end of World War I and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.

Looks great doesn't it? Blood enough to satisfy the most eager viewer of slasher flicks and car chase movies.

Is that sort of mess really in the American best interests, Mr Edwards? (If you have any doubts have one of your staff go check the latest gasoline prices.'

Also, Mr Edwards, since you proposed that we leave enough troops somewhere unspecified in the region to prevent genocide and civil war spill-over, how many men will it take to go back to Iraq after its collapse and impose order? Did you think that one through before you shot off your mouth in New York?

Second guess doesn't count.

Neither did you think about the options open to the US now other than defeat. That's obvious. Wehner has some. I don't agree with all of them.

I have some others that the smart guys at the White House haven't come up with yet. Mine are drawn from history, not from the combination of political considerations and strategic desperation which I see as the sub-text for Wehner's concepts.

Mine will have to wait for a later post. The nest post, I hope. It depends on whether or not Edwards or some other vacuum head hacks me off.

Let the Tribesmen Handle It and Leave Iraqi Government Alone

A Covenant With Death or A Contract With Defeat, Pt 4.


In Afghanistan the reality of the human terrain on which we and our allies are fighting about which we must get a grip is simple and basic. There is no single, Afghan people. Not now. Not ever.

The Afghans are deeply divided. Divided by language. Divided by culture. Divided by history. They've never been unified. Not even when under extreme pressure from the outside. The British and Russians discovered this a century and a half ago when they fought over Afghanistan, invaded it, even occupied parts of it. Each side of the Great Game could find or buy partisans willing to sell out their fellow Afghans for power or gold.

Even during the Soviet occupation, not all Afghans resisted. Those who resisted were bitterly divided into more than a half dozen different groups. Originally, the Taliban was one of the--as our people called them--Seven Dwarfs. The Taliban was a late comer, a wannabe resistance group which had only one advantage. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency supported it.

The Taliban never got a firm grip on power. Even without the "shock and awe" efforts of the US, Taliban would have collapsed to internal opposition. All we did was hasten the process, give the Taliban a reason to regroup with greater cohesion and bounce the rubble which was and is Afghanistan a little higher.

In the past few months under the leadership? of the late and quite unlamented Mullah Dadullah the Taliban changed its tactics from rather conventional guerrilla war which was getting them nowhere slowly to one which was bringing about their defeat.

The change?

For reasons that died with him, Mullah Dadullah instituted a campaign of suicide bombings directed against the Afghan civilian population and kidnappings/murders directed against Afghans who cooperated with the foreign forces or the journalists covering the war.

The upshot of Dadullah's new approach was quick in coming. The uncommitted majority of the population, the mass of Afghans who simply wanted to be left alone to get on with their lives and perhaps benefit from the nationbuilding efforts of the US and NATO turned increasingly against the Taliban. Intelligence (and media) reports showed this clearly.

At this point all the US and the other outsiders had to do was step back and step down. Sure, the nationbuilding and people-to-people programs had to continue as did local security efforts. But, offensive combat except in the few areas near the Pakistani border where Taliban fighters and supplies infiltrated could be stopped without loss of momentum.

Afghan villagers have guns. Always have. Always will. They know how to use them. Every invader has discovered this fact. Afghan civilians like civilians everywhere don't enjoy being blown up, shot up or extorted.

All we had to do was look the other way as the locals abated nuisances. Oh, we could clean up afterwards, if necessary. Even provide intelligence concerning an incoming Taliban threat so as to enhance the local response. We might even have done something that worked quite well for a while in South Vietnam, embed an American infantry squad with the local defense volunteers.

We didn't do any of these things. Instead we have come close to snatching defeat away from the Taliban.

How'd we manage this?

Aircraft. Fast moving, high tech planes with big damn bombs and fast firing cannon. We like air power. We believe (rightly) that air delivered firepower saves lives on the ground. The lives of our troops. And, it does. I'm typing today because a Marine zoomie or two saved my butt once upon a time

There's a downside to air power, though. It kills everyone in its way. Black hat. Civilian. Makes no difference. Our use of air power killed Afghan civilians. Destroyed their homes. Plowed their crops into oblivion.

This hacked off the civilians. They don't understand "regrettable mistakes." All they understood was the dead bodies of family, neighbors, friends. Not surprisingly this resulted in the Afghan legislature showing annoyance. Annoyance which hurts the cause of defeating the Taliban.

What should we do now?

Accept the Covenant With Death. This means that for some time to come our troops will be at a slightly greater risk, but we must send the fighter-bombers home. At the same time we have to trust the Afghan's more.

They've got the guns. They have their homes, their lives, their families' lives at stake. They have a reason or two to eliminate the Taliban. Cooperate with them. Assist them to do their job of protecting their lives and property better.

Sure, the new central government won't like this approach. It means that over time it will be at greater risk from its own citizens. But, that's the way it has always been in Afghanistan. No government has gone to its collective bed at night in full security. It may not be a system that we Americans would like, but it is one with which the Afghans have been comfortable for a long, long time. (Anyway, why should a tax collector sleep the sleep of the just?)

Can you believe it? Now there is talk around Washington, particularly in Congress that it may be time for regime change in Baghdad. Change the regime that we invaded to change the regime to.

Wait one! I've seen this part of the movie before. In South Vietnam, time after time between November 1963 and a decade later. Man! I can't take it. It'll have to wait for a later post.

How To Decide: Covenant Or Contract

A Covenant With Death or A Contract With Defeat, Pt. 3

Why are wars fought? Really that’s a no-brainer. Wars are fought to achieve a better form of peace.

The next question isn’t any harder. A better state of peace, from which combatant’s perspective? There is only one historically accurate answer. It depends on who wins the war.

This dynamic is equally true whether the war is a conventional interstate war or an insurgency. The contestants don’t agree, don’t come close to agreeing on what constitutes a better state of peace.

From the perspective of the United States a better state of peace would exist when the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Baathist regime of Saddam in Iraq were ended. Of course, Sheik Omar and Saddam Hussein didn’t agree, even though there were some Afghanis and Iraqis who no doubt believed that the US had the right attitude.

Regime change is properly the concern of those under the domination of the government who object to the status quo and want to effect a change. When the change is prompted by an outside power, the correct term is either "aggression" or "invasion" regardless of whatever fig leaf of crypto-legality such as "preemptive self-defense," or a UN Resolution might be delicately held over the genitalia of policy.

The United States (or any other outside power for that matter) would have been within historical precedent, if not legality, had it sought to foster or facilitate an offensive insurgency. An offensive insurgency, you ask? That’s the polite term for revolution, an internal war where the overthrow of the existing political, social and economic order is sought. The classic examples are the French, Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions.

It’s not that we didn’t try, at least in Iraq. The problem came when the US government failed to get a grip on one easily ignored but absolutely critical fact. The best an outsider can hope to do is effect the course of an insurgency on the margins, to advance it slightly, to retard it a bit, to turn its course ever so slightly. There was a second central fact USG didn’t grasp either. The insurgent you support must show a genuine capacity to win even without your help.

Was that a skeptical snort I heard?

Consider our War of Independence. True that war was a defensive insurgency, where the goal was simply to establish a no-go zone for a remote government without any goal of tossing the current regime out, but the principles are identical to those applying to the offensive variety.

Despite excellent diplomatic representation in Paris by the overwhelmingly popular and influential Ben Franklin, the French held off until the Continental Army had defeated the British at Saratoga, an act that proved the Americans might win without assistance. This took much of the risk out of aiding the insurgents.

Risk to the French was further reduced by inventing the concept of "plausible deniability" nearly two centuries before the Eisenhower Administration coined the term. This was done by furnishing material aid through a dummy private company. (For those of you who play Trivial Pursuit, if it still exists, the name of the front corporation was Hortelez and Company.) In addition, French Army officers were encouraged to take leave and visit the scenic American colonies.

Regarding both Afghanistan and Iraq, the US did not wait to see if a domestic insurgent group with a genuine capacity to win against the two regimes existed. In Afghanistan the probability of a successful insurgency was set back considerably when Osama bin Laden performed a service for the Taliban chief, Sheik Omar, by arranging the hit on the only credible, militarily effective opposition leader. The situation in Iraq was different.

In Iraq there was no internal figure capable of mounting a successful insurgency. There were no giants, only dwarfs. The current administration seized upon one of the dwarfs, perhaps the smallest of the lot and decided he would be our man in Iraq. Our man, Chalibi, hadn’t lived in Iraq since Jimmy Carter resided in the White House, but he looked good in a suit and had a fine line of patter which was believable to those who knew nothing about Iraq and Iraqis.

Leaving poor personnel decisions to the side, the reality was stark. The best opportunity the US had enjoyed for fostering and aiding an offensive insurgency came and went in the first few weeks after the first war in 1991. For reasons that will give mounds of dissertation materials for future generations of history PhDs, the H.W. Bush Administration declined to take the chance.
A decade or so later that left only one apparent choice: invasion.

The goal of the invasion was, above all else, removing Saddam Hussein and his regime. The definition of victory which follows from the goal must have been the capture or death of Saddam and his senior lieutenants. The theory of victory was derived from the military mottos quoted earlier: Shoot, move, communicate in order to Find! Fix! Destroy!

With Saddam and his henchmen safely under the ground or behind bars, presumably the Iraqis, good democrats one and all, imbued with the spirit of pluralism and free enterprise, would rise up gratefully and create a new government acceptable to the US. Dream on, Mr Vice President. Only in your wildest hopes, SecDef Rumsfield. Keep on hallucinating, Mr Wolfewitz, Mr Feith. Maybe in your favorite video games, Mr President. Trouble is, this is the real world.

Afghanistan without the presence of a dynamic, charismatic figure of proven military and inter-tribal diplomatic skills presented an almost identical problem. Defeating the Taliban forces in the field was difficult enough. (A fair argument that the US and its allies didn’t defeat the Taliban can be made, but not here, not now.)

Time to get a grip on the realities of the human terrain. Only then can an assessment be made regarding whether we should sign a covenant with death or bite on the contract with defeat.

Sign the Covenant or Take the Contract

A Covenant With Death and A Contract With Defeat

The US military has some nice buzz-word sets for use in conventional war. First there's, "Shoot, move, communicate!" This cap-busting, running around and talking has a goal. It's the second buzz phrase: Find! Fix! Destroy!

Kind of gives you shivers of excitement, doesn't it?

With superior surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering technologies find the enemy wherever he might be. Using superior air and ground mobility and air delivered firepower, make the enemy stand and fight. And, then, when he does--squash him like a grape with overwhelming firepower!

Now, that must really give the stay-at-home commander guy a real thrill between the legs.

Trouble is that these phrases don't matter in counterinsurgency. They have to be replaced by one which history dictates. One we Americans don't like--even though we won our independence using it. The new phrase is this: Presence, patience, persistence.

What do they mean, these words, presence, patience and persistence?

Presence means the counterinsurgent has to be there, on the ground, up close and personal. Not up above zipping through the sky. Not out there somewhere in the ocean. Right there in and among the humans which constitute the terrain where the war will be fought, won or lost.

Patience means being willing and able to spend all the time necessary. Waste time perhaps. Certainly to expend time without knowing if victory is coming measurably closer or not for this is a war without phase lines, lacking physical objectives. It is a war won or lost by intangibles, the gaining or losing of support, the increase or decrease of the will to keep on keeping on. Fought on human terrain, waged in human perceptions and beliefs, where time and patience like the slow wearing of water on granite takes its toll, either achieving success or acknowledging defeat.

Finally consider persistence. It is the twin of patience implying the capacity and the ability to keep eyes on the prize even if the prize is not all that might be desired. Insurgencies rarely end with a decisive victory, a peace treaty a triumphant parade. Hostilities, the shooting, bombing and killing subside, peter out, perhaps even stop formally with some form of armistice, but the struggle for political authority will go on. It may take years, even generations for the conflict finally to be resolved.

For example, when did the American War of Independence, a defensive insurgency using both conventional and guerrilla forces end? With the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown? The Peace of Paris? Or the Treaty of Ghent in 1815? Or the War Between the States, an unsuccessful (if you're Dixie bred and born) defensive insurgency. Was it the surrender of General Lee? Perhaps the surrender a few weeks later of Joe Johnson's well equipped and highly motivated potential guerrilla army in the mountains of North Carolina? Or was it with the end of Reconstruction over a decade later? (For bonus points, when was the North-South conflict resolved? Has it?)

The combination of presence, patience and persistence implies another area where one must get a grip. Counterinsurgency is a manpower heavy kind of war. It takes boots on the ground, and a lot of them. One hundred fifty thousand men would not be too many for Afghanistan. Four hundred thousand would not be extreme for Iraq.

That many men and women means a lot more targets for the black hats. More targets means more body bags (excuse me, the correct term is "human remains pouches".) It also means a lot more money, a lot more economic, social and political dislocation on the home front. Put the emphasis on "political" because that's the 900 pound gorilla.

The fear of political repercussions drove Lyndon Johnson with the full support of both parties in Congress to decide that the Vietnam War would be fought by draftees and not reservists and National Guardsmen. After all, the "kids" had always grumbled, but gone to war before. And, more importantly, the "kids" unlike the older Reservists, or Guardsmen didn't have wives, children, jobs, ties in the community. Hell, they didn't even have the vote yet. Of course, history records that LBJ et al were wrong as a soup sandwich about the consequences of the draft coupled with a long, long and seemingly inconclusive war.

The architects of the current wars thought that technology could effectively replace boots on the ground. They believed (wrongly as it has been turning out) that aircraft, ROVs, more lethal munitions than used in any previous war and the information handling systems at our disposal would allow us to fight a lean and mean war with minimal manpower.

They also must have thought that by limiting our boots on the ground, they would limit the body bags arriving at Dover AFB. Yes. And, No.

The planners in the bowels of the Pentagon and over at the White House failed to get a grip on another historical reality of war, particularly insurgent war. At some point in every war, it is the dead, not the living who dictate policy.

That's right. The dead dictate policy. In the back of commander guys' brains, in the back of many minds in politics and the media is the uneasy thought. "Can we admit these Americans died in vain, for nothing?"

So where's the problem? We had over 60,000 die for nothing at all in Vietnam. So far barely more than a twentieth of that have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The answer is simply that Vietnam on the one hand and Afghanistan and Iraq on the other do not share the same global political context. We could experience a defeat in Southeast Asia without any real, long lasting diminishment of our role in the world. A better state of peace did not depend upon our winning in Vietnam.

(This reality was predicted in 1964 by Sherman Kent the Director of National Estimates at CIA in a memo to the President. Kent told Johnson that it wouldn't harm our strategic interests in the slightest if "South Vietnam is taken over by the Communists." Strange to today's ears, but sometimes CIA gets it right.)

Right now, or at least in the next few months we the people have to decide if we are willing to sign the covenant with death, the death of more good men and women or will we accept the offered contract with defeat. To make the choice we have to get a grip on what the consequences will be, how either choice will effect a better state of peace than existed prior to the twin invasions.

That will come in Part 3.

A Covenant With Death and A Contract With Defeat

A Covenant With Death and A Contract With Defeat, Pt 1

When a person joins the military he or she signs a covenant with death. True, the recruiter doesn't mention it and few people ever think of it until it's way too late.

It's not pleasant to think about or acknowledge the covenant that has been signed. I sure didn't enjoy the idea whenever it flashed across my consciousness. No matter how hard I tried to ban it, the thought always came back: You know, they really are trying to kill me.

The covenant doesn't care about race, religion, gender, or sexual preferences. Death follows the ultimate of don't ask-don't tell policies. While the covenant particularly applies to infantrymen, it applies to all military occupation specialties. In a war without fronts like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the covenant applies to everyone no matter how REMF the person might be. The mine, the roadside bomb, the odd rocket or mortar shell, the ambush invite everyone to die.

In an even lesser known (or acknowledged) codicil to the covenant, the individual agrees that he or she might be taken prisoner, kidnapped, snatched by the black hats. The individual might be held for years in conditions making the worst of medieval dungeons look like five star spas in comparision. (Of course, the black hats may simply get flatly medieval on your body and mind as well.)

If the covenant applied with impartiality to the draftee forces which did the heavy lifting in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, it applies all the more rigorously today in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now we have an "all volunteer force." whether the Regulars, the Reserves or the National Guard. Each and every member of each and every component signed unread the Covenant With Death, including the Capture Codicil.

This is where we, the American people as well as the troops in or going to the Twin Wars must get a grip. A grip on reality. The reality of war. The reality of counterinsurgency. The reality of being an occupying power.

As an occupying power we are engaged in war. It is a war of a particular and peculiar sort, counterinsurgency. This is a war fought by its own unique rules and methods. It is as different from conventional wars such as World War II or even the first few days of the Invasion of Iraq as NFL football from soccer.

Methods and tactics, hardware and doctrine that can bring a quick and decisive victory in a conventional war will result in a long, slow and certain defeat when used in counterinsurgency.

In conventional war saving friendly lives has the highest priority. In conventional war saving time counts for much for not only does that save lives, it assures the political will of the nation remains strong and committed.

In conventional war the use of firepower, preferably highly mobile firepower commanded and controlled by a flexible communication system allows a force concentrate its effort and obliterate the enemy. Firepower kills. Killing brings victory.

The US has long focused on refining its doctrine, tactics, organization and equipment to provide the most flexible, mobile and lethal military forces. We have suceeded brilliantly as the successes against the Iraqi conventional forces in two wars showed.

So what?

So this. It is massively irrelevant. Period. When Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfewitz, Feith and company planned our wars, particularly the one in Iraq, they focused (with I have often imagined lip-licking, gonand-grabbing adolescent anticipation) on "shock and awe."

Shock and awe. No doubt, the US military machine in full noise-making, thing-breaking, body-killing splendor can shock and awe anyone who watches and doesn't die in the process. I suppose they imagined that the survivors whether in Afghanistan or Iraq would be shocked and awed into gibbering thanks for the liberation with arms outstretched to embrace pluralistic democracy, liberal institutions and free enterprise.

What the hell were they smoking?

In both countries the insurgency started before the US press stopped cheering our victory.

Now the real war started. The war we weren't ready to fight. The war, perhaps, our highest officials never thought we'd have to fight.

Here we were, the NFL champs all suited up, playbook in hand. Right off we hit a problem. The other guys, the insurgents, were playing soccer--on a rugby field.

What's wrong with those insurgents? Don't they read the papers? We had won! We held the capitals. We held the cities. Their leaders were dead or on the run. Their conventional forces were routed. Hey! By all the standards of conventional war, the Afghans and Iraqis had been stripped naked, defenseless, their necks under the heels of our boots.

The better state of peace for which all wars are fought (at least in principle) was ours to dictate. Theirs to gratefully accept.

The reality on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq was easy, very easy to predict on the basis of history. The long, mixed experience with both insurgency and counterinsurgency extending from our War of Indpendence through the War Between the States to the Vietnam War.

Some folks, a minority of folks, would welcome our presence and the new order brought in my the US and its allies. Some folks, again a minority, would oppose us and our new order. Most people would simply want to get on with their lives according to their culturally conditioned expectations, hopes and fears. The majority view was simple: leave me alone; let me live in peace; color me a major non-participant.

Take a hard grip on this basic fact. The majority of the population, any population whether caught up in purely internal political violence or the aftermath of invasion and occupation (I refuse to use the euphamism, regime change.) want only to sit it out.

This uncommitted majority become a large part of the human terrain on which the new war, the war of insurgent and counterinsurgent will be fought out.

There is another part of the human terrain where the war will be fought. This part is the civilian population of the invading countries. Once again, there is a three part division. Some folks will be supportive, even wildly supportive of the invasion. A smaller percentage will be opposed, even wildly so, of the invasion. Many, perhaps most, will sit somewhere in the middle, not wanting the home team to lose, but not being sure they're comfortable with the role of occupier.

Get a firm grip on this second fact. The population of the invading country is a critical component, even the most critical area of the human terrain where the war is fought. (I use the singular, because the focus now is on the US and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.)

Now for the third fact. It comes from history too. From the history of every insurgency in our experience. You can read it's emerging reality every day on-line.

The third fact? Simple. The side which can accept casualties and expend time will defeat the side which seeks to limit casualties and save time.

To put it another way. If the United States cannot accept the Covenant With Death, it has signed a Contract with Defeat.