Make them give us battle.
By Paul J Cella Posted in War — Comments (107) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Gettysburg National Battlefield
Everyone has seen them. They are all over the Web. I mean those video clips of a brief encounter between a unit of Jihadists, often in the midst of conspiring to maim and massacre by treachery, and some fighting men of the United States. Often the video is of poor quality, or filtered through some night vision contraption. Invariably it is at once exhilarating and horrifying. It puts one in the mind of a grim lament like that of Robert E. Lee, “it is well that war is so terrible; we should grow too fond of it.” But the example serves to demonstrate a somewhat curious fact of this war: our enemy will not fight. He avoids battle like few adversaries we have come to grips with before.
So aside from my recommendations about how to approach Islam and Jihad as political matters, and acknowledging from the beginning my deficit of expertise on military matters, I say that one of our strategies in this war should be to maneuver our enemies into a real battle, or series of them. This, I suspect, was a considerable part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq, though it was not often very well articulated; and should it have worked — should, that is, the invasion have compelled the disparate elements of the Jihad to give us battle on any scale where defeat for either side would have been damaging — its value to us would have been manifest.
Read on.
Accomplishing this compulsion to battle will be an exceedingly difficult maneuver, to be sure. I cannot possibly hope to speculate on how it would be done as military matter, on the level of tactics, but I think the republic could be served by a discussion of how on the political level. Now, it cannot be doubted that a discussion such as this will have the distinctive character of a wartime discussion; and thus, that many of our countrymen, who believe there is no war on, will be alarmed and dismayed by it. This cannot be helped. If the citizens of a republic judge that war is being made against them, even if they cannot command a majority in assent to this opinion, they must be free to talk about it — even if this means a certain defiance of those who do not share it. Indeed, in my view what we have here is actually something approaching a solid majority: but one that, like so much in our politics, is oppressed by a kind of passive conspiracy by the elite. In any case, the questions, by means of which we could “get at” this conundrum, might look something like the following.
(1) How can we provoke the enemy to recklessness? How can we make him lose his reason? How can we drive him en masse into the field of battle, and keep him there? Once this is done, I think our military forces will be eminently capable of delivering him savage repulses, and pursuing these to resounding victories against him.
(2) How can we insure that this battle will be fought on his soil and not ours? Or, more precisely perhaps, how can we insure that any such battle, while fought elsewhere, will not have terrorist repercussions on our shores? It cannot fail to be part of our calculation that the enemy is here, amongst us; that not merely his fanatics and planners, his mercenaries and saboteurs, but also his propagandists and subversives, are prepared to leverage our domestic vulnerabilities, which are considerable, for the advance of the Jihad. But the purpose of securing a favorable ground for combat operations is an excellent one. And here, again, I think we come in contact with a piece of reasoning — again poorly articulated — behind the Iraq war. I’m not here entering into a discussion of that conflict, except to say (a) it hasn’t worked out as planned and (b) at any rate it hasn’t been accompanied by real vigilance domestically. Similarly, a lot people are now talking — as they should be — about what to do about Iran. Do they ever think about what Iran might be capable of in America? We cannot neglect an estimate of what sort of resources of mayhem, sedition and intimidation the Persian Jihadists might have here in the United States. We know, for instance, that Hezbollah is active; we have good reason to suspect it even wields political influence in some regions. This is a problem no patriot can ignore.
(3) How can we get a better handle on the enemy’s inherent mental vulnerabilities? How can we discover his points of psychological pressure, the advantages he presents to us by virtue of his own character? The means of answering this is obvious enough: let us recur to history. That sounds like a platitude, but it is an eminently practical measure. So far in this war, it has been for the most part philosophers and strategists (broadly-conceived) that have counseled us. It was a philosophical argument that led us to the Democracy Project, for instance. But history is what we really need. We need speeches delivered from the Oval Office and the floors of the houses of Congress; lectures in classrooms of the military academies; and a general climate of historical curiosity in the public square — all concerning the character and antiquity of the Jihad. We must educate ourselves, and come to better know our enemy. To do this effectively, we will also need another aspect of that measure of defiance mentioned above. The people of this republic must find in themselves a real fortitude in the teeth of the dreary orthodoxies of Tolerance and Secularism. We face a cruel, cunning and patient enemy; resisting him we require more mental toughness than we have thus far shown.
I think one thing that will be shown by this sketchy exercise of contemplation is what an oppression these orthodoxies are. Their effect has been, very simply, to prevent us from talking like the citizens of a free country at war. The one excellence that is universally said to be ours, is not allowed to operate upon the subject of our enemy. We talk so much about freedom; let us win some for ourselves and be rid of these paralyzing, pitiful pieces of yesterday’s pedantry. They are so manifestly innocent of reason and fact! Men are called racists based on their criticisms of a religion, or merely certain doctrines of a religion. Critical thinking, once thought the sine qua non of Liberalism, is abandoned as a matter of principle. Idiot historical comparisons become convention. If our philosophers cannot see that on this vital issue their orthodoxy of Tolerance stands in stark antagonism to freedom . . . well, we cannot help them. We must go on without them.
We have an enemy; his agents and soldiers are among us; his resources, though scarce in some categories, are hardly inconsiderable. In many ways his weaknesses are our strengths, and ours his. Thus, as one of our overwhelming strengths is military might, we must set our minds — that is, the minds of the sovereign people of the republic — upon the question of how we can force him to give us battle.
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Make them give us battle. 107 Comments (0 topical, 107 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
If something "should have worked" before, but did not in fact work, its not very wise to try the same strategy again. Moreover, its kinda silly to hope that the enemy will all line up in neat rows in a public square so we can drop a bomb on them. Their tactics are used specifically to avoid a full frontal battle. Trying to force them into a conventional war is a dream that will never be realized.
The phrase was not "should have worked," as in a helpless petulant cry of "It should have worked!" The phrase subjunctive or hypothetical. If this had worked as some expected it to would, it would have helped us.
The interpretation of my remarks as hoping "enemy will all line up in neat rows in a public square so we can drop a bomb on them" is almost insultingly stupid. Do you think the enemy can never be goaded into tactical and strategic error? Under no conceivable circumstances could we drive his soldiers into the field in a ill-prepared rage?
On top of this, your comment indicates that you missed completely the overall point of my post, which concerned the health of the public debate in America; and the preemptory tone you use indicates to me a eagerness to shut down whatever debate on this head might emerge. In short, your comment sounds like an irritated and ill-conceived effort of PC enforcement.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
Is that the strategy then? Let the insurgents take over towns and then go into battle them? Did allowing them to take over that town help or hurt the effort in Iraq? Sure many were killed, but it didn't win us any friends and probably made us look worse in the eyes of Iraqis who were then more likely to become or support insurgents.
The execution was pathetic.
ROE need to be relaxed and the cuffs taken off our soldiers' wrists.
The overall idea behind Fallujah was to teach the terrorists that they could not win and to show the civilians that we were stronger and their support of the terrorists would only prolong the death and terror.
Restrictive ROE only serve to tell our enemies that we are unwilling to do what is neccessary to win.
Note that I am not saying we ned to be as ruthless and barbaric as our enemies, but I am saying that we are far from ruthless enough.
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
You write:
“I say that one of our strategies in this war should be to maneuver our enemies into a real battle, or series of them.”
And
“How can we drive him en masse into the field of battle, and keep him there? Once this is done, I think our military forces will be eminently capable of delivering him savage repulses, and pursuing these to resounding victories against him.”
You later ask me: “Under no conceivable circumstances could we drive his soldiers into the field in a ill-prepared rage?”
Hoping that we can somehow use conventional military force to defeat jihadists the world over is exactly the type of thinking that needs to be pushed aside in favor of new solutions. There will of course be a military component to any comprehensive strategy (which will include economic, political, and sociological means as well), but it won’t be manifested in a conventional military battle with the goal of phsyically destroying the enemy. Such tactics are the exact overreaction that terrorists hope to provoke. They hope for this because they know it gives them a propoganda victory and spurs on their recruitment.
Wishing that the enemy would give up their advantages and meet the US head on to be slaughtered is a pipe dream. When there is no leader and little organization to a movement which spans the globe, , there is very little chance that there will ever be a single or a series of decisive battles. Even identifying the enemy is a problem since they look no different than the general population amongst whom they live. Even when individual jihadis are killed in battle, its likely that their loss is offset by the recruitment effects of military force which can’t help but hit civilians and that will be used later for PR to prove that the infidel west is anti-Islam.
Using conventional force sparks guerilla resistance and only amplifies the problem.
If a well-supported unit of Rangers seized and held a mosque in Falluja, do you think jihadists would fail to rise against this insult? With a well-devised plan on our part, do you think the Falluja rabble has the capacity to dislodge an entrenched American detachment? Or rather do you think, maybe, the world would be treated to a shocking (to our enemies) slaughter of jihadist berserkers?
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
If US forces took over a mosque, this "insult" would motivate Muslims all over the world into becoming anti-US terrorists. Leaders of Muslim nations wouldn't be able to coroporate with us at all. All the muslims soldiers we've enlisted to aid in our efforts would turn against us. Sure, you'd kill a coule people but at the end of the day you would only have made the problem a whole lot worse.
The force of your argument is to shut down the discussion. In your judgment, our "allies" and the "moderate" Muslims are so unfriendly and immoderate that a military maneuver in a city acknowledged by everyone to harbor our enemies, would be enough to turn them into enemies and adversaries. I distrust your judgment, but even if it true, are you not simply admitting to be larger point that we are oppressed already?
In effect, you warn that our enemy is so potent that a provocation will destroy us. We need lawyers at the hand of every infantry officer, lest his men antagonize those who sympathize with our enemy.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
It looks to me like he's participating in the discussion. You proposed an option; he discussed it.
If the discussion you want is to be had, it won't be a short and obvious one. There are obvious problems with pretty much all the obvious next steps. It may take a while for something viable to surface. In the meantime, those wanting a discussion, whatever their starting points, need to welcome viewpoints being expressed even if they disagree with them.
that resistance is futile is not very useful, in my view.
Maybe whats missing is a clear defnition of the problem. The solutions would follow more easily if we had one.
Smerd seems to be tacitly admitting that there exists a huge mass of Muslims who are teetering on the brink of become jihadi's themselves, if they see or hear about something which they can percieve to be insulting to their faith.
If true, that undermines the whole narrative about how the vast majority of Muslims are basically moderates, and that we just need to somehow isolate and destroy a few bad elements.
Nowhere in this post did anyone say anything remotely close to admitting that resistance is futile. Everyone that has posted so far seems to be arguing about finding the best strategy, and then pursuing it with vigor. Part of discussing strategy is pointing out the flaws in others proposals. Disagreeing with someone about one particular proposed solution in no way admits that there is no solution overall.
. . . by entering the debate with snark, glibness and derision.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I think your comments here can fairly be summarized as saying that anything which antagonizes Muslims is counter-productive.
Given the lengthy list of things which Muslims find provocative, this seems to be just another way of saying that anything we do is a mistake.
and in no way has said that "resistance is futile". Nor has he tried to "shut down the debate". Quite the opposite infact.
What he is pointing out is a very important point that many people seem to miss. There is a correct way to fight an insurgency and a wrong one. The wrong way makes things worse and makes the insurgency stronger.
Also, I'd like to point out that many times in this war we have drawn them out into conventional battles and won those battles and yet we still seem to be losing the war.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure that drawing them out into more "stand-up" battles isn't it.
perhaps he, or you, will explain to everyone else what the "correct way" is to fight an insurgency. Because all I'm hearing so far is that whatever we do, we can't annoy Muslims. That does not strike me as a recipe for success.
Attacking Afghanistan certainly antagonized a lot of Muslims, but that cost was worth the benefit. The elimination of open training camps was a great success which decreased the effectiveness and probably the number of trained Islamist terrorists.
Overall, the goal is to keep America safe. We have to keep that in mind first. If a tool or tactic decreases more terrorism than it creates, its worth using/doing. If it doesn't solve the problem and also makes the same problem bigger, its not worth doing. All I am trying to say is that you can't pursue a strategy to total military victory, wily-nily, without thinking about its secondary effects. I'm not going to take the time to google this, but even Rumsfeld has acknowledged that its a relavent question to ask if we are killing/capturing more terrorists than we are creating.
"In your judgment, our "allies" and the "moderate" Muslims are so unfriendly and immoderate that a military maneuver in a city acknowledged by everyone to harbor our enemies, would be enough to turn them into enemies and adversaries."
If it were part of some military maneuver it might only just make some angry. If it were a deliberate attempt to insult Muslims in order to provoked their rage, then you would indeed have a big problem.
I'm simply pointing out that we should seek to destroy the enemy without using tactics which will help their recruitment and increase their numbers, thereby making our fight harder. Admitting that a blunt military strategy is ineffective isn't admitting to being oppressed. It just means recognizes that there are certain challenges and complexities. We should indeed battle in a manner which won't make the enemy more attractive to people who are currently moderate.
I'm simply pointing out that we should seek to destroy the enemy without using tactics which will help their recruitment and increase their numbers
I'm pretty sure that nobody is arguing that we should use tactics which will increase the enemies numbers. Just that we should draw them out into the open.
Any tactic which will draw them out in the open in rage is a tactic that will increase their numbers. Using rangers to take over a mosque in order to piss people off enough to come out and fight will obviously piss off more people than those already holding the guns.
Anyone who comes out and fights in response to Rangers taking over a mosque is already on the other side, even if they are not holding a gun at present.
The logic of your position is that you agree with OBL that the presence of "crusaders" in Muslim lands is an unbearable provocation, and that we must ask ourselves before any act, "Will this irritate the Muslim world?"
Printing a caricature of Mohamad with a bomb in his turban pisses off a million plus people.
So your viewpoint almost guarantees inaction on our part.
The "arab street" (intended to be as generic as "they") is in strong need of a pradigm change on what is offensive. "They" need to be pulled out of the 7th century. "They" need a figurative Fat Boy dropped on them (or Mecca).
Printing a caricature of Mohamad with a bomb in his turban pisses off a million plus people. So your viewpoint almost guarantees inaction on our part.
Exactly.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Lincoln or Churchill sitting around, vetoing military maneuvers on the grounds that they might increase German or Confederate recruitment?
Lincoln, in fact, went through about five generals in 18 months with the purpose of finding one who would fight. In war, as Patton said, the idea is to make the other poor bastard die for his ... religion, in this case.
And of course, it is at least a plausible speculation that a ringing defeat for the Jihad will depress recruitment by demoralization. Confederate desertions skyrocketed after Vicksburg fell, despite the insult of the loss of the Father of Waters, the surrender of the garrison, the terrible insult of Sherman's tactics around Jackson, etc.
Moreover, if you believe "blunt military strategy is ineffective," why should you care about sizes of armies, recruitment, etc?
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Thats the point. Lincoln and Churchill were in real conventional wars where after one side is defeated militarily, that side surrenders by signing a document and then the war is over. Military force is the optimal and only strategy to win in these cases.
In the case of jihadists, there will never be a moment when they all stop fighting simultaneously. Its a much trickier situation. Sure if they massed and fought and then lost in a chyrstal clear defeat, they would be demoralized and it would be a grand victory for us. But its unlikely that this battle will ever take place, and its unlikely that even if we win that it will be such a clear cut victory in which everyone around the world acknowledges us as the winner.
This distinction between "conventional" and "guerilla" war is not so clear-cut. Lincoln's victory in the conventional war was undermined by the erection of the Jim Crow system, enforced by guerilla bands and terrorists. Lincoln himself was assassinated. Conventional war?
I said from the very beginning that forcing the enemy to give us battle will be "exceedingly difficult." I wish you would consider strategies that might reduce the difficulty, rather than exerting all your energy, not to say I am wrong that battle victories would be a good thing, but to say that they cannot be achieved.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
why are you talking about "battle" victories? this is completely beside the point of the problem. obviously there will be no "battle" victories in iraq. there is no military enemy. there are a few thousand terrorists and then sectarian death squads on both sides.
this war will not be won by our military. it can't be. the goal is to set up a self-sustaining government. the iraqis have to do that. they need to divide up the oil revenues. they need to decide that life is worth more than death.
i sincerely hope that the President doesn't share your view that we can win this militarily. if he does, then we might as well get out now.
my analysis is inclusive of Iraq only?
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
is the the jihadis have a much more sophisticated grasp of how to fight wars than the Confederates or the Nazis did, and that this makes them essentially undefeatable.
historicaly very few conventional armies have won against insurgencies or gorilla movements. So yes, in some ways the jihadists are harder to fight.
The problem with fighting an insurgency is that there usually aren't any clear military objectives to achieve and all to often the larger conventional power over-reacts in it's military response, killings civians and driving more people to join the insurgency.
A GORILLA ARMY
An insurgency which has popular support is very difficult to resist in the long run. But does that describe the Middle East? The answer to that question drives everything else.
Terrorist groups in general have a pretty poor track record of getting what they want. See the PLO, IRA, Basque seperatists, Tamil Tigers, etc. On the other hand, they tend to last a very long time and to be difficult to eliminate.
But a lot of the confusion on this topic stems from disagreement about who we're dealing with. If you accept that the "terrorists" are the proxy armies of states in the region, and I don't think that can be denied, then military action against those states seems like the logical course of action. Doesn't it?
they are undefeatable by military means alone, yes, but not undefeatable overall. I'd love for there to be a clear cut solution, but there isn't one.
Given that you say that there is no "clear-cut solution", what makes you think that there is any solution? In other words, why do you say that they are not undefeatable overall?
I don't think they are undefeatable and I hope and believe we can come up with a solution. But, it is entirely possible that they aren't defeatable if one means that it could be that if we want a free society and a modern existence, we may just have to accept periodic terrorist attacks which kill small numbers of people and disrupt our society and way of life.
I do supposse we COULD guarantee their defeat if we literally dropped nuclear bombs till every single last Muslim overseas is killed, and made the US some sort of police state to make sure the number of Muslims within the countries gets smaller and smaller till they dissappear in generations, but this will never happen.
If such a move, as Paul said, would be enough to tip them over to the other side, then they were Already on that other side.
It would only serve as evidence of my (if not anyone else's) greatest fear that Islam as a whole is the problem and not a handful of fanatics within Islam...
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
If Islam as a whole is the problem, then we've got 1 billion people worth of problem. 6 million of them living right here in the US.
Of course someone could look at all the millions of people that died in the name of Christianity and say the same about it. I'm just sayin..
It's a good time of the morning...little notice from the directors...I give you another day...at most!
That the silence and apparent support of so-called "moderate" Muslims for the supposed "extremists" suggests that we may not be dealing with a handful of extremists.
We must accept the possibility that the religion truly Is the problem and that there are very nearly a billion people worth of problem.
I truly hope and pray that such is not the case, and I fear what I will be called upon to do to protect me and mine if such proves to be the case, but I am watching.
There's an old saying that covers this: "Prepare for the worst. Pray for the best."
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
You would not see jihadists rise up. You would see a huge crowd of women and children organized by the imams storm the mosque hassling our troops. You would see journalists all over the "people's response" to this incursion. You would see pressure put on our government by the Saudi's (if a Sunni mosque) or by Sadr-through-Maliki (if a Shia mosque). Later, when all the propaganda has been wrung out of the scene, you would have jihadist sniper teams and IED layers setting up our troops in other areas of the country as payback. We would end up looking like the idiots we would be if we tried this.
I don't share your opinion of our impotence. The casualties on the Somali side in the Black Hawk Down episode were enormous, but it was the defeat for Americans that is remembered.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
the Maliki government order down barricades erected in Sadr City to assist in the capture of known criminals and terrorists because it offended Sadr. After that, I knew that we would back down in the face of religious and political pressure from the populace and/or government.
People need to keep in mind that there is a democratic goverment that actually runs that country now, and it's not us.
the most powerful military force on the face of the planet, and could even be considered down-right insulting in certain quarters.
The correct terminology is: "Over-Lawyered.™"
Change the "Rules of Engagement" to a position that will enable the U.S. to use that historically unprecedented power to achieve an overwhelming military victory.
We can consider winning their "hearts and minds" after we accept their "unconditional surrender."
In other words, we need to start "communicating" on their level. Send them a clear message that can be easily understood, even on the most rudimentary level.
- An "Americanized Statement of Intent" regarding "Convert, Submit or Die."
- a) Join, embrace and participate in a free and democratic Iraq.
- b) Tolerate the Iraqi government, but use the legal system and politcal process authorized by the Iraqi constitution to implement changes to said government.
- or,
- c) Die at the hands of the most powerful military on the face of the planet.
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“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
So. We start "communicating on their level". Is that you that is communicating? Is it me? Or is it our children.
Tim, my nephew and godson, is the one holding the weapon towards the back of the truck. You would be asking of him all the other great kids in this picture to act at the level of the animals butchering people in that place to satisfy our political goals.
What you suggest is what I pray never happens to these brave people. That they become the very thing we are fighting.
Please keep in mind that your considerations will have a very real effect in both directions. Is that the way we really want to win?
a freaking break.
If you can't address the argument don't cry like a little girl and post a family photo. Just leave with your dignity intact.
And really, your comment speaks volumes for your assessment of your nephew's moral character. For your sake I hope he doesn't see it.
the taking of a mosque. I addressed that. Maybe the big strong man that you are can take watching people's lives be shattered by the consequence of actions ordered upon them. I've heard and seen my whole life what war does to people and, yeah, I do worry for my nephew's soul because I am his GODFATHER and I take that seriously. So if that makes me a little girl in your eyes, I'm ok with that. [Genital].
Everybody stop and eat a sandwich, or something. Low blood sugar is clearly encouraging contraindicated posting behavior.
Moe
PS: This is not a specific comment; I have to attach it SOMEWHERE.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
in fact...I just had a salad.
But I have to ask...I've jumped on a couple times this week, and man, it seems like someone left the screen door open!!
The bugs are coming from everywhere....has this been an overly active week in this regard?
...of the new Congress (particularly since it's shaping up to be everything that we expected, and less) and our happy new rasberry-lemon sherbert swirl of a logo. They're ornery because this is where it all starts to go wrong for the netroots, and we're right here, waving at them. Almost a shame to gack 'em, really.
Almost.
Moe
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
because they don't even really hide it ...it's just salvo, salvo, then they're taken out.
oh well, just wondering.
I'm glad you can sleep at night knowing that your thinking is putting young men and women in uniform at risk. Sweet sleepy bears, bro
I am all for Rules of Engagement that a) are sufficient to achieve the objective and b) provide our fighters as much protection as possible in a zone of conflict as long as a) is met first. I understand and agree with my nephew's choice to join up and understand that there is a chance he will be wounded and/or killed. I am cool with that because he made the choice. But the poster I responded to seems to want a reciprocation in savagery as a part of the Rules. Maybe you agree with him. I don't and it worries me.
That we in the service know what level of barbarism we need to descend to to remind those who wish to do war with the USA just how terrible war against the USA is. Most of us had family teach the Germans and Japanese this very thing and are MORE than willing to teach it to animals worse than our grandfathers' enemies.
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
Wishing that the enemy would give up their advantages and meet the US head on to be slaughtered is a pipe dream.
That's not at all what he is arguing. The central point of the piece is that we as Americans do not have a good enough understanding of our enemies because we are not allowed, by political correctness and Western standards of viewing cultures different from our own, to think of them and speak of them in those terms. Therefore, we have been unable to devise a military strategy that successfully overcomes the enemy's advantages.
The author isn't wishing for the enemy to do anything. He is calling on us to fight the enemy in ways that will achieve victory over them. The first step in this process, is to think of them as the enemy. That way, instead of according them the respect we in the West give to different cultures, we can devise a strategy that will take advantage of those peculiarities of their religion, culture, etc., that will bring about victory.
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Develop alternatives to existing policies and keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable. Milton Friedman
who should we think of as the "enemy?" if you mean all iraqis, then we should just leave and let them kill each other. if you mean the sunnis, then we should just leave and let the shiites kill them. if you mean the insurgents, then you haven't said anything new. the problem is how do you tell an insurgent from an iraqi.
BTW, the ones shooting at us, kidnapping civilians and soldiers, laying IEDs, and detonating bombs in markets are the the enemy. The ones that aren't, aren't. Or are you arguing that all Iraqis are the enemy?
What's new in my comment is that we should actually think in terms of using the enemy's weaknesses against him. Whether that be cultural, religious, sociological, etc.
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Develop alternatives to existing policies and keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable. Milton Friedman
yes, obviously the people trying to kill our soldiers and marines are the enemy. but how do distinguish them from other iraqis AFTER the put the gun down and melt back into society. thats the problem. our men are being attacked from the shadows by insurgents who can then retreat back into the populace at large.
You wrote:
Hoping that we can somehow use conventional military force to defeat jihadists the world over is exactly the type of thinking that needs to be pushed aside in favor of new solutions.
I think that's rather obvious -- which is why we don't have Marines walking up and down the streets of Hamburg, London, Detroit, and all the other places that al-Qaida is known to reside.
To the extent that you hold a premise that we've elected to "use conventional military force to defeat jihadists the world over", you're mistaken. We've never said, much less done, such a thing.
...it won’t be manifested in a conventional military battle with the goal of phsyically destroying the enemy. Such tactics are the exact overreaction that terrorists hope to provoke. They hope for this because they know it gives them a propoganda victory and spurs on their recruitment.
Another near miss. I think we all need to come to the understanding that there is no way to engage the jihad without "giving them a propaganda victory."
There's a common meme out there that the war in Iraq has done wonders for al-Qaida -- that, as you say, they hoped for such a response from us to swell their numbers, etc. etc. This stretches all credulity. What, judging by their own words, gives you the idea that we're playing into their hands. They've cursed, and fought, the effort in Iraq from day one. They've lost literally thousands of trained soldiers trying to prevent the Iraqi government from standing.
As for their numbers, we don't have a clue as to what they are. But it does seem somewhat logical that an engagement of the jihad would bring otherwise idle jihadist sympathizers to arms. That's part and parcel to any war -- and I don't know why this one should be any different.
The notion that we can defeat jihad by way of attrition doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Wishing that the enemy would give up their advantages and meet the US head on to be slaughtered is a pipe dream.
This I agree with. But your answer to it (what is your answer to it?) seems a bit lame and unrealistic.
Using conventional force sparks guerilla resistance and only amplifies the problem.
Er, then why did you suggest that a comprehensive solution would require a military component? Is there some military component I don't know about that doesn't involve "conventional force"?
Conventional force is our strength and avoiding using it, while it would be nice if it could be effective, would be galactically stupid. The question really needs to be how, and against whom and to what ends, it can best be used.
that is what is happening in either Afghanistan or Somalia. In both those cases our enemies are willing to accept pitched battles.
The Brookings Iraq Index estimates that we kill about 2000 insurgents of various types per month. When one looks at Mosul and Falluja one has to conclude that whenever they can muster a force large enough to do battle, they give battle.
The challenge is converting the body count into something lasting.
Very true. They fight large battles when they can, but the positive effects don't last. It doesn't solve the problem because more people join up and they keep coming back. Making conventional battles the peg of the strategy just ensures that it will continue indefinitely.
When they do stand up in a line, we should of course mow them down, but its not a sufficient strategy to win.
Smerd: please show me where I recommended anything close to "making conventional battles the peg of the strategy" or even where I said it was a "sufficent strategy."
Respectfully, I request again that you read a little closer.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
The title and this line at the end do lead me to believe that you believe using military force to destroy the enemy physically should be one of the most important parts of the strategy. Perhaps you have other ideas, but this was the main thrust of the post.
" Thus, as one of our overwhelming strengths is military might, we must set our minds — that is, the minds of the sovereign people of the republic — upon the question of how we can force him to give us battle."
So ASIDE from MY RECOMMENDATIONS about how to approach Islam and Jihad as political matter . . .
I say that ONE OF OUR STRATEGIES in this war should be to maneuver our enemies into a real battle, or series of them.
Accomplishing this compulsion to battle will be an exceedingly difficult maneuver, to be sure.
In any case, the questions, by means of which we could “get at” this conundrum, might look something like the following.
We must educate ourselves, and come to better know our enemy.
I think one thing that will be shown by this SKETCHY EXERCISE OF CONTEMPLATION . . .
I did read the post and I do believe that the discussion in which I have participated revolves mostly around the efficacy of using military force to achive the military solution of destroying the enemy physically. Perhaps its not the only strategy you propose, perhaps you aren't claiming that its a sufficient strategy, but it does look to me to be the purpose more or less of the post. If it isn't why did you title the post so, and why did you end on that line? Sure you seek to think about how to exploit the enemies weaknesses and to change the way we talk and discuss and educate ourselves about the enemy, but most of this seems to be so that we can then draw them out to be defeated militarily. And even if it isn't your only point, it is still the main point of the post.
1. Most likely.
2. I don't know how. There are some decent ideas, but no one has come up with anything totally convincing yet. Hopefully someone will.
I believe the real, long-temr answer is to get many more Iraqis involved. I would send more TRAINERS that can work directly with the Iraqis and train them and their trainers.
There is a good argument that any 'surge' would just make more targets. From what I've heard and read about the troops in Iraq, there seems to be some agreement that additional coalition troops are not needed.
I would move us to a more remote area and work to lower our profile. Ultimately, it is up to them to make their government work.
This is NOT any cut and run plan; I think we should stay in Iraq for many years as an ally, not an active military operation. Lord knows we've done that in countless countries around the world.
The question here is if Maliki and the nascent government is up to the task. I don't know the answer but I do believe that Sadr should have been dealt with more than a year ago and Maliki seems somewhat stymied. A change there may be required.
sounds about right to me.
1. Lower our profile - less troops, not more
2. Close down the Green Zone and work through other bases
3. Work through and support the new goverment
4. Heavy emphasis on training iraqi police and army
And then just expect it to take a while, and don't expect that some big battle at some point is going to fix everything.
The jihadists simply aren't that stupid. I would agree with you vociferously if I thought it possible to engage them in a direct battle that our military is well-suited to fighting, and winning, quickly and decisively.
But the entire raison d'etre of a modern-day mujaheddin is, as you say, to specifically avoid this kind of engagement. They'd lose this kind of battle and they have long known it.
You have to remember that the jihadists and their forebears have experience getting their tails kicked by the IDF. Their tactics today are a direct result of such old conflicts as the Six Day War (or, as it's known by Muslims, al-Naksah - The Setback).
No, I think the Bush Administration had it more right than wrong when they decided that the only way, long term, to corral the radicals is to sufficiently motivate the governments of Muslim nations to stop tolerating (or, worse, aiding) these militants.
I think the better question to be asking is what we can do to bring that about. You said it yourself -- their strengths are our weaknesses and vice versa. This is far from accidental. Neither is it accidental that they avoid like the plague engaging us in any battles where our strengths and their weaknesses can be exploited.
Simply put, we need to drive an irreversible wedge between empowered and motivated moderates and the jihadists.
that your statement here is factually accurate in the least.
The Arabs accepted full flown war with Israel in 1973. During Peace in Galilee the PLO confronted the IDF in conventional formations. The Afghan guerillas fought in large formations which enabled the Soviets to nearly run them out of the country until US supplied Stingers removed the Soviet ability to attack and reinforce by air. In Afghanistan today the Taliban prefer to mass for attacks.
In the last go round in Lebanon, Hezbollah initially fought set piece battles and only after losing a lot of men did they revert to guerilla warfare.
In Iraq the insurgents fight it out whenever they can. In Somalia the Islamic militias duked it out with the Ethiopians until their forces were shattered, now they're talking about guerilla war.
The fact is that they aren't prone to guerilla war. They revert to guerilla war after defeat but whenever they build up forces they will fight.
...does it really make a difference? The point is: we can't really "beat" them at guerilla warfare and they know it. They gain absolutely nothing militarily by an IED or a suicide bomb or whatever. Every single action they take like this is all about the impacts on the publics in America, Britain, Iraq, and elsewhere.
I think the lesson of the fall of Afghanistan and the retreat to Tora Bora is illustrative here. So, too, is the token resistance put up by the old Iraqi military as we marched to Baghdad.
If they put up any resistance at all in a conventional conflict, it doesn't last. Because there's no hope for them and they know it. I think they're content to take to the hills, find nooks and crannies to hide out in, take on civilian garb, and begin blowing up cars for headlines.
I must ask why your instinct here is to enter the fray with a declaration of our impotence. I am just starting such a conversation as this.
Do you think the mujaheddin are so perfectly disciplined that they can never be goaded into error? There are no points of pyschological vulnerability? Come on, man, I can think of ways.
We have fought battles in this war before; and we need to find ways to fight more. It can be done. This enemy is not perfect; but he is aided immmensely by our intellectual quietism.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
It's just that they're exploiting our society's weak spot. It's not so much our military's weak spot -- although it does seem obvious that we have trouble with this sort of counter-insurgency and guerilla warfare.
The problem isn't our military -- but our voting public. This kind of warfare is effective because of what it does to political will. It just wears it down over time to the point where politicians are left with the Hobson's Choice of pressing ahead at their own political peril or accepting something far short of victory to save their own political skin.
Really, I hope that you're right and that we can somehow trick them into something that allows us to utilize our strength and exploit their weaknesses.
I just think it's unrealistic -- about like the ISG thing. It would be great if it could work. But it assumes behaviors from players like Iran that they've never even remotely shown in the past.
It behooves us to stay within the bounds of the possible, I think.
any trouble at all with points 1, 2, or 3. The mujahaidin aren't particularly proficient fighters (see our Iraq and Afghan casualty figures if in doubt), increasingly they've been accepting and giving battle on their own turf (the latest venue being Somalia), and when one looks at the speed with which Zarqawi's network was rolled up last year it is clear we have a grasp of their weaknesses.
What we are not doing, in my estimation, is converting the kinetic wins and the body count into tangible and sustainable political gains.
My speculation (again acknowledging that I am no military historian) is that your last comment could begun to be addressed by (1) making these repulses of the enemy more visible, by use of the international media, and (2) making them (and here, of course, is where our Phony War Liberals will howl) more plainly related to the Islamic religion.
Religion is their strength in many ways; but it can be made to be a grave weakness if we have only the mettle to do it.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I'm interested in hearing what you think the options are, and the issues related to those options. I realize you probably don't have a magic cure at hand, but I'd still be interested in what you think are the various ways it might be approached.
than what does work.
I believe this winning hearts and minds hooey is just that. At a certain level they have to fear us, respect us, and know that we're there for the long haul.
I think in both Iraq and Afghanistan we've lost all three of those factors and getting them back will be more painful now than having established our street cred in the beginning.
With the known known that I might get shredded.
I think the biggest problem our military has is that the vast majority of casualties (U.S. and Iraqi) come from IEDs, Suicide bombers and snipers.
It's tough to "fight" these guys cause they don't want to. They want to kill though.
I believe that anyone caught planning or conducting any of the above should be shot on site. Period.
Some of the people laying IEDs aren't "terrorist" as much as they are opportunists. They get paid a pretty fair amount for successfully implanting an IED for a terrorist (who also doesn't want to die for the Casue). And if caught, will probably get sent to Jail and sit there until their tribal leader gets them out (which happens to often).
By guaranteeing them an immediate death - I believe the number of IEDs would drop signifacantly.
Just my .02 cents.
But they've learned from our experiences in both Vietnam and Mogadishu, in particular. They also learned from the Afghan mujaheddin victory against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
They know that civilized societies simply don't accept a steady stream of casualties for very long -- even if those casualties are, relatively speaking, low in number. Some AQ figure even made light of this recently by saying that he and his army have something that the Americans don't have -- patience.
A lot's been made about Iraq lasting longer than WWII. Not as much has been made that the number of KIA is less than 1% of what it was in WWII. It's about 5% of what it was in Vietnam.
But, still, it seems obvious (by such things as GWB's approval rating, all sorts of political rhetoric, demands from Murtha etal to retreat, and the '06 elections) that war by attrition is an effective strategy against the American military machine.
The key to defeating the jihad, IMO, is by taking away their air supply -- and that is the friendly polity of the Muslim world.
Easier said than done, of course. But when you see the powerful Muslim nations and governments genuinely aligned against Islamism -- and vice versa -- that will be the beginning of the end. Because they could end this stuff tomorrow if they were so inclined.
Yes military victories are an important part of the fight, but they aren't the end goal. The end goal is political change that will cut off the roots of the jihadists, instead of just cutting them down everytime they grow up. You've written intelligently on that subject many times over.
I doubt that you mean political change. Social change, religious change, philosophical change, yes. But as long as people in the Muslim world think the way they do, no amount of political change will work. Not long term.
haven't added up to victory is that we have been unwilling ( not unable) to cut off their major financier and supplier by taking on Iran and to a lesser extant Syria. Without Iran providing financing, material and training as well as a protected corridor for reinforcements, the insurgency would soon die. We need to address Iran, if we are to win. We don't necessarily have to wage conventional war on Iran, but we at least need to a) consider arming and supplying dissident groups already within Iran and b) provide more troops to interdict the borders. If we cut off supplies and reinforcements, the job in Iraq will get easier.
These are questions of the warrior. I sincerely hope that our army/Marine leadership are fully engaged in answering these questions. I strongly hope that their answers to these questions are not in the public domain. I suspect, however, that our colonels are more concerned about everything other than a military victory. Unfortunately our exit strategy doesn't seem to even require a military victory, but a political/security one. That's why this kind of war gets so screwy...
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Alan Greenspan
I have some evidence, semi-public in nature, that the military has started to think strategically about the religious question.
This is a republic, however. I understand perfectly why military planners will keep their deliberations from public, but there is no reason why the citizens (many of whom are former military men) should not talk openly about it. Who knows? Maybe we will come up with some ideas the military can incorporate.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
that Germans were willing to die for the Fuhrer and the Japanese for their Emperor. So, why is it so different that the Islamists want to die for their Prophet?
It is interesting that because they want to die for a religious figure, there is some sort of sanctity in their objective. They all want(ed) to destroy our society and democracy. It makes no difference to me so long as they, indeed, die for their misguided cause. Better them than us.
Fuel and fund both the Shiites and Sunnis and watch them weaken and wound each other and take advantage later when they are very vulnerable.
sure kept the Islamofascists in their own neighborhood. The Afghans taking it to the Soviets sure kept the focus in that area.
Some of this seems like keeping them distracted by creating chaos in their neighborhood. In the absence (or reduction) of conflict in the Middle East, the Islamists get anxious and THEN want to EXPORT their ideology through terror.
The other side of the strategy is just through reproduction. Just outbreed Judeo/Christians by a significant factor, which is, and has been happening, and just be patient.
(2) How can we insure that this battle will be fought on his soil and not ours?
One obvious part to this is to keep the bad guys out and get rid of the ones that are here. We are not effective in doing that now, five and a half years after 9/11. We still have illegals flowing over our southern border. Here in Arizona it is not unusual to find prayer rugs left in the desert where the hordes march through.
We find resistance against profiling those that aim to kill us infidels. We know of radical Islamists that preach hate within their mosques and call for the overthrow of western societies. Yet, they use OUR freedoms of religion and speech to protect themselves.
They effectively use our media to inoculate themselves from scrutiny. They even go on the offensive and do this preemptively in order to change our attitudes and beliefs. Today, they are insisting for a SEPARATE prayer room in the Mpls airport after the case of the 'flying imams'. The cabbies are already refusing their role in public transportation by not allowing passengers carrying alcohol. And, the airport authorities are trying to work it out!!!
Some courts are already dabbling in Sharia law for cases that involve only Muslims. Just read Mark Steyn's book, "America Alone" to get an idea where this is going.
We had better take care of this business at home. The politically correct BS must end! I am convinced they are trying to make 9/11 a very forgettable event with a geometric progression. Much like the first WTC attack was largely a faded memory in 9/10/2001 America.
My position has long been that the administration's inattention to the domestic threat (and the inattention of the administration's supporters) discredits their seriousness on the foreign threat.
The Flying Imams, in my judgment, should be charged with sedition or deported.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I believe we must fight both sides of this two front war. One is on the battlefield; the other is a cultural and political war battled, largely, in the media, court rooms, and legislatures. Ultimately, in the hearts and minds of our citizens and their representatives.
Ultimately, our military could easily crush Islamic Facism, but our electorate isn't angry enough and we lack the will.
If a country like China had our military prowess, Iraq would be secure within a week, because they don't have to fight with one arm behind their back.
Unfortunately, I think it's going to take something like a small nuclear attack by an Islamic terrorist for the U.S. to really go after Islamic facism on a global scale.
The U.S. would not have achieved complete victory in WWII had the Japanese not bombed Pearl harbor.
For example, instead of trying to work with the political players in Baghdad to get them to stop killing our troops, we would just carpet bomb them into submission. CNN broadcasting pictures of civilian collateral damage would be ignored. The terrorist would know that hiding behind women and children will only get their women and children killed.
They would have to fight us in a conventional sense, and they would lose, badly.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. "
William F. Buckley, Jr.
We should drop leaflets saying:
Anyone interested in martyrdom, meet in Baghdad at noon on Saturday. P.S. Anyone not interested in martyrdom, don't be in Baghdad at noon on Saturday...
Win - win for everyone. ;)
(Would that it were that simple.)
Looking down-thread from my original comment, I find a litany of statements that seem to suggest I advocate transforming the young men and women of the U.S. military into "savages."
“You would be asking of him all the other great kids in this picture to act at the level of the animals butchering people in that place to satisfy our political goals.”
“What you suggest is what I pray never happens to these brave people. That they become the very thing we are fighting.”
“But the poster I responded to seems to want a reciprocation in savagery as a part of the Rules. Maybe you agree with him. I don't and it worries me.”
Upon re-examination of my original comment, I fail to see how advocating changes in the "Rules of Engagement" in an effort to untie the hands of our fighting forces equates to "encouraging savagery." To draw that correlation from my comment suggests a lack of confidence in the moral integrity of those young men and women and in the U.S. military itself.
“So. We start "communicating on their level".”
Exactly. The message we should be sending to the Iraqis and the insurgents is quite simple and clearly spelled-out in my “Statement of Intent.”
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“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
The ruthlessness advocvated by those of us wishing to change the ROE is: If it shoots at you, kill it. If you catch it setting up an IED, kill it. If you take fire from a Mosque, level it... and more along those lines.
We are Not advocating the wholesale slaughter of known non-belligerants; which, by the way, is exactly the kind of ROE being carried out by our enemies...
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
You suggested a Rules of Engagement change after I conjectured that the jihadists could use women and children to dislodge our troops from a mosque. How else do you think I would take what you proposed? I am glad that you are not advocating attacking women and children as a permissible Rule of Engagement.
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"Tradition is the democracy of the dead. It refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around"
-G.K. Chesterton