"The whole idea of war has changed forever."
An interview with Lt. General Peter Chiarelli
By AcademicElephant Posted in War — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, was interviewed by Ray Suarez for the Jim Lehrer News Hour on Thursday. Mr. Suarez' questions read to me almost like parody--i.e. the American public is tired of the war, violence is escalating, our troops are "frustrated." But even when confronted with these talking points, the General had some pretty interesting things to say. Of particular note, I thought, was his assertion that some long-term public works projects in Baghdad were about to be completed--things like the sewer system which had been allowed to deteriorate under Saddam and took a long time to repair. When these services come back on line, General Chiarelli said, he expects the security situation in the capitol to improve materially--it's an example of the "non-kinetic" forces that his troops need to employ to stabilize Iraq. He noted that this is a new business for him--he's used to more kinetic forces--but that military strategy has evolved over the last three years, and in his opinion, despite the resilience of the enemy the situation is on the upswing. According to DoD numbers, sectarian violence is starting to decline for the first time since the bombing of the Golden Mosque in February. Economic conditions are improving. Overall, the General sounded pretty upbeat to me.
Perhaps the most interesting moment came at the conclusion of the interview, when Mr. Suarez asked about the new Army field manual, with its detailed guidelines on how to conduct encounters with the enemy. As General Chiarelli had pointed out earlier in the interview, the conflict in Iraq, and by extension the larger Global War on Terror, "is a different war than the United States has ever fought." We have to completely rethink our strategies. The battlefield has no boundaries and the enemy no fixed numbers, leading to a fusion of enemies and civilians that raises a whole new set of challenges for our more traditional military that the revised field manual attempts to address. The General was not prepared to discuss its efficacy, but he did say that in his opinion, "the whole idea of war has changed forever."
The whole interview is very much worth a read for a sober and realistic but overall optimistic assessment of the situation on the ground in Iraq from an extremely well-informed source.
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"The whole idea of war has changed forever." 13 Comments (0 topical, 13 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
This may be the first war in which civilans are the primary target. The Romans first defeated the Cartheginian army then laid waste to Carthage. Armies were always the first target even though in the process civilians could and did suffer.
The religion of peace has changed that, with the elimination of boundries being one consequence. What we have to do is wake up to that fact, hard to do when many are more concerned with how the prisoners are being treated than the barbarities perpetrated by the terrorists.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Saturation bombing was a key weapon in WWII. Many cities - and not just the two that were nuked - were totally devastated.
How casualties were distributed between civilian and military varied a lot from country to country. It varied according to how long the country was in the war, and how close it was to the fighting.
London was bombed for years, yet the RAF dropped more bombs on Hamburg over six weeks in 1945 than the Luftwaffe dropped on London in the whole six years of the war. This was followed by devastating firestorms.
For many British soldiers, the big fear was not being killed (though, of course, it depended where you were) but hearing from the Ministry of Defence that your civilian family had been killed at home.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
when one considers that during the wars preceding the Enlightenment that it was common to punish the enemy's population by quartering troops on them, the holding of towns/citizens. During medieval times and earlier little differentiation was made between combatants and noncombatants. Even in our own Civil War, when Sherman promised to "make Georgia howl" he wasn't talking about the Confederate army in Georgia. Likewise, when Sheridan reported that "a crow flying over the Shenandoah Valley would have to carry its own provisions" it was obvious that the civilian population was the target.
in another thread the other night for pointing this out. Many historians would point to "Total War" as carried out in the Anaconda Plan as the origin of modern war that viewed the productive capacity, i.e., civilians, as every bit as legitimate targets as uniformed troops. Sherman and Sheridan rightly saw that the only thing keeping PACS troops in the field was food and manufactures from Georgia and the Shenandoah valley. Since it was very tough sledding to take on the PACS when it was behind breastworks, they attacked the supply chain and the PACS's morale by plundering the civilian areas in the rear.
Total War was certainly our philosophy in the 20th Century when we were facing industrialized nation states. Where it comes off track in today's world is there are not industrial or agricultural targets in the areas where the terrorists lurk; the people are the targets and one cannot distinguish between combatant and civilian. Now I'll admit to not having very delicate sensibilities on this subject; if your country is at war or is allowing war making from its soil, you are at war. If a failed state like Lebanon allows an entity like Hezbollah to operate on its soil, Lebanon is at war, and every square inch of it and whatever might be standing on it is a legitimate target. A civilized people would not target a school or hospital qua school or hospital, but if it was being used as a munitions dump or firebase or had a missle battery in the parking lot, I'm not troubled by making it a smoking hole.
I talked to my youngest the other night; he's ramping up for a turn in Afganistan or Iraq this winter and is training heavily on entering structures. I must say I'd much prefer his role to be going to check the pile of rubble that used to be a structure to see if anything is still moving.
In Vino Veritas
Google Arthur "Bomber" Harris first. Then Dresden, then Tokyo, March 1945. Then try Warsaw, Poland, September, 1939, then Coventry, England, 1940. Then go back to the Spanish Civil War. Death is the currency of war as a general rule. Unlike in civilian life, he who has the most-loses.
With all due respect to LTG Chiarelli, the written history of warfare is over 3000 years old. There is very little new in our current situation. It may be new to him or to our current leaders but it is not new in the history of the world.
On the prinicple that a big square is still a square; adding indudtrialization or digital capability to warfare does not change its fundamental nature, only the specific techniques and the scale on which they are applied.
Posts above this have done a pretty good job of talking about the deliberate targeting of "non-combatants" throughout history but I suspect that what is troubling LTG Chiarelli now is the integration of political and military factors down to fairly low levels of the organization. In the last century Americans usually coordinated political and military actions at the very highest levels. Although, even then, there were exceptions.
Right now I am reading some books about the French and Indian War. The complex integration of poliitcal and military calculations and actions among more than half dozen major groups (Iroquois, Delaware, Shawnee, Great Lakes tribes, French government, French colonists, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, British Army)each with their own aims and interests and each with individuals, bands and associations that also have their own agendas...seems very much like what is going on in Iraq. Complete with bribes, double dealing, multiparty negotiations, and the inability of leaders to control their own side. Not to mention that all sides deliberately attacked what today we would regard as "non-combatants" and the Anglo/British coalition even attemtped to use germ warfare by passing smallpox infected blankets to the Indians besieging FT. Pitt (this is from a letter by the commander of the FT. to Colonel Boquet). Keep in mind that also like our current situation, North America was only one theater in a world wide conflict.
My research indicates that this type of war is more the norm througout history and not the exception. As one Vietnames General put in a book I read a long time ago and cannot recall now: "Talking and fighting, fighting and talking that is how we Vietnamese have always fought."
I will read the interview, but for me, the pronouncement that this is a "new kind of war" is a marker that usually tells me to ignore whatever follows.
I'll be curious to know what you think after reading the interview--my sense is that Chiarelli was talking about how we as modern Americans think of war rather than in a broader historical sense, but you make a good point and if it were possible, I would very much like to hear what he would have to say in response to your comment.
"I'm kind of old-fashioned. I like to engage my brain before my mouth." Donald Rumsfeld
I think my marker remains valid.
Here is the actual quote, which was in response to a question about the new Counterinsurgency Manual.
"But it's part of this constant evolution, as -- as we adjust our way of -- of fighting to this new way of war, a way of war that I -- I don't think will be something that we just see here in Iraq.
I -- I think the whole idea of war has changed forever."
Look, a three star is obviously doing something right and I will stipulate he is smarter, tougher, better organized, better trained, more experienced and better looking than I am. But his remark is simply historically incorrect.
Unfortunately throughout the interview he gives the impression that he is in a state of mild shock that he has to do all these "non-kinetic" things.
Geez, he is a Cav Officer, didn't he ever watch John Wayne movies? In any one of the Ford/Wayne movies Wayne's character has to negotiate with a foreign power, enter a foreign country illegally to negotiate with an Indian Band, settle domestic disputes, handle indigineous force augmentations to his unit (Apache Scouts), negotiate with potentially friendly Indians, oversee the integration of members of former enemy soldiers into his own unit (ex CSA troops), cooperate with other governmental agencies (the Indian Agents), attend to family support matters and suppress the production and distribution of illegal substances. And while the the movies are overly romanticized and they leave out the mind bending boredom, prostitutes, alchoholism and most of the corruption, they pretty fairly represent the 'guts' of our frontier Army.
Which brings me back to my point. Who ran Europe after WWII? We did. Even during the War, I believe two whole infantry divisions had to be pulled out of the line to suppress a cholera epidemic. We had to establish military governments or restablish civilian ones. we had to restablish essential services in most areas.
In China Burma India theater it was even "worse". Stillwell was dealing with at least two factions of Chinese (Nationalist and Communist) who would rather be fighting each other than the Japanese, rampant corruption, a British ally that had very different war aims in this theater than we did, he was being backstabbed by the old China Hands in the state department all the while facing the single largest component of the Japanese Army and Air Force. He was also performing one of the single biggest engineering jobs ever done to that point in building of the Ledo and Burma Roads and rebuilding much of the Chinese Army from scratch.
What did we end up doing in Vietnam? Building wells, and schools and roads and harbors and rebuilding the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. We integrated advisors not only in to the ARVN but the regional forces (home guard village defence units)as well. We ran Phoenix program to weed out the insurgent infrastructure. We suggested and subsized a "Land to the Tiller" program to give the average person a stake in the war. Soldiers in our Army became adopted members of stone age tribes in order to get them to fight the Communists. Since he was commisioned in 1972 this is something LTG Chiarelli shoud know. Lewis Sorley's book about Creighton Abrams (also an armor officer with no formal training in countersinsurgency) A Better War, does a good job of explaining what this means at the theater level.
In probably half a dozen smaller theaters we did very similiar things...Haiti (several times), Dominican Republic, Panama (several times), Nicaragua (several times), El Salvador. Geez the Army basically ran a small country (The Canal Zone)and a large country (The Phillipines) for decades. Heck it was an Army General, Leonard Woods that figured out how to beat malaria.
LTG Chiarelli is correct to the extent that there were no CORPS level ARTEP collective tasks called "build a government and run a country" or "suppress a multiparty insurgency".
Strategically we tried to avoid it. We knew how difficult it would be and we didn't want to tie large numbers of troops down in an occupation force.
We thought at first that Iraqi's would just continue to run things and that we would get lots of assistance from our allies and the ngo community to fill the gaps. When that didn't work, then we thought that State would handle it. But when push came to shove and we looked around, the only guys around were Army and Marines and KBR. So, it does not seem we prepared for it or thought about it much ahead of time...but to say that this is some new thing in history...is just wrong.
Beyond that we had recognized these facts by late 2004 or so. If you can find the briefing by Col HR McMasters on his operations in Talafa (sic?) he demonstrates an excellent grasp of countinsurgency tactics including the "kinetic" and "non-kinetic" activities. Which means that as he was preparing to take over as MNC Commander, LTG Chiarelli and his staff should have been thoroughly briefed on the "non-kinetic" nature of the campaign.
Which is another point. Our Army has an excellent doctrine concerning Combat Power. We say it is made up of Firepower, Maneuver, Protection and Leadership effects that operate in combination to achieve our goals. So instead of making up buzz words like "kinetic" and "non-kinetic"; What we should be talking about is that in some phases of war we will achieve our goals primarily through the application of Firepower and Maneuver effects on enemy forces. But, in other phases our Combat Power will primarily come from Leadership Effects generated by our forces, the Iraqi government, the Iraqi Armed Forces and directed at the Iraqi people. Maneuver and Protection (which includes housing, rations, medical care etc etc)Effects will be supporting efforts to the Leadership. Firepower Effects will primarily prevent interference with Leadership or facilitate its delivery.
Now even though the General may not have read a lot of history, he has two or three folks on his staff who have, that is their job. The go to a special school for it (School of Advanced Military Studies SAMS) and they should have told him this stuff.
Ok, if anyone is still reading, I am done now.
The French & Indian War (as it is called in the US) or Seven Years' War (in the UK) was the first truly global war, and created the dominance of the Anglosphere which has been challenged, but never truly broken, several times since.
The great comedy book "1066 and all that" analysed history in terms of who was "Top Country". I am sure we Annglophones benefit from the fact that two Anglosphere countries in a row have been "Top Country", more or less continuously for 250 years.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
We have been trained to think of the Geneva Convention as some kind of inviolable holy writ. It has (by
But is the Geneva Convention a suicide pact? It appears that the liberals are determined to cling to it regardless of the consequences ("no better than our enemies!", etc.). It may be that the Convention is our undoing.
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The Presidency is a position more easily critiqued than attained.
Its so sweet to agree with one's friends how one will act if they get into a war. But when one is at war with a fromer friend, the emphasis is on the words "former" and "enemy" and "winning"
Of course, people that can enter into such agrements, are unlikely to have wars against each other
as if
"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh
We also need to recognize that the enemy will change his attack to circumvent our defenses, and so a defense is bound to fail. Ultimately we have to recognize the thought is as good as the deed, and kill on threat rather than wait for the blood to flow.