America's long war, which began on Oct. 7, 2001, when US bombs and missiles started falling on Afghanistan, has become the longest in this country's history. The eighth anniversary of the conflict beckons, with no end in sight.
The counterinsurgency campaign proposed in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's strategic assessment will prolong the war for an additional five or 10 years. The war's most ardent proponents insist that President Obama has no choice: It's either fight on or invite another 9/11.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to a global counterinsurgency campaign. Instead of fighting an endless hot war in a vain effort to eliminate the jihadist threat, the United States should wage a cold war to keep the threat at bay. Such a strategy worked before. It can work again...
More at The Washington Post.
Comments
The tone of Prof. Bacevich's article implies that the courses of action he advocates are not being done at present. I think we are probably trying as hard as we can right now to effectuate two of the courses of action advocated, decapitation and disrupting the money supply. We can only do so much and probably could only do so much in these two areas for the reasons outlined by Ken and Tim. Beyond that is the call to (allow me to paraphrase)-perfect ourselves. So to me the article advocates doing things we are already doing combined with eliminating manifestations of the human condition amongst ourselves, which as Ken said is "'mission impossible'".
I did not find the article persuasive.
Bacevich is right to say that we ought to win the War on Terror in ways similar to how we won the Cold War, but his specifics are wrong in several fundamental ways:
1) We didn't use decapitation of enemy leaders to win the Cold War; the US never assassinated Soviet leaders (unless Bacevich knows something we don't about the demise of Andropov, Gromyko, and Chernenko).
2) The Cold War was primarily a struggle between two high-tech brutes (the USA & USSR). In such a contest, denying high-tech to the Soviets was helpful. However, the War on Terror is a struggle between a high-tech brute and low-tech seers. Denial of high-tech to low-tech seers is not very helpful.
3) A serious campaign of economic warfare against Islamo-Fascism would be great, but it would consist of a whole lot more than just sanctions and tracking international money flows. It would consist of the de-nationalization of oil and the repeal of drug prohibition. Those two measures would eliminate almost all the funding for Islamo-Fascist terrorism.
4) The co-operation of other countries with the US in winning the Cold War is greatly exagerrated by Bacevich. The US had to drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, into co-operation against the Soviets.
5) Yet another effective step we took to win the Cold War was to support the internal opponents of the enemy regimes, such as Solidarity in Poland. However, Bacevich misses the opportunity to advocate US support for the Iranian opposition, just to name the most obvious current example.
Disingenuous at best:<blockquote>"After years of exertions, $1 trillion expended and more than 5,000 American troops lost, U.S. forces have yet to win a decisive victory. The high-tech American way of war developed during the 1990s (once celebrated in phrases such as "shock and awe" and "speed kills") stands thoroughly discredited. "</blockquote>for an intelligent person with military experience to expect 'decisive victory' in operations such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq. An acceptable outcome may be obtained but there will be no decisive victory -- or defeat...
Add the allegation that the American way of war stands discredited. It is not at all discredited but its <b><i>limitations</i></b> have been shown and that is almost certainly a good thing -- those limitations could have been disclosed under far worse conditions...
I'll give the author due credit for slamming "shock and awe." Hopefully, the Pentagon person who came up with that ludicrous gem is long gone.
However, when Professor Bacevich turns to strategy, his case seems to crumble. He advocates decapitation in spite of considerable evidence that the ability of the opposition to replace key persons is at least adequate for their purposes. While we can certainly continue the search for HVT, it is no solution to the insulation of <i>"... Americans from the fallout."</i>
For decapitation to work, pursuit of the really high value persons in whatever nation they are located has to be undertaken, that requires strategic raid capability, which we do not have but given the political will, could develop. We could have developed that after Eagle Claw in 1980 but opted to not do so -- lack of political will.
Such decapitation efforts in other nations can be accomplished by those nations in lieu of our strikes. that entails total cooperation on the effort which is unlikely to be forthcoming in a number of cases, so either we do it or it will not be done. While a majority of the American people will likely support such an effort, whether the Congress will do so is highly questionable. Hmm. Whether DoD will do so is open to question...
Aside from believing that a lack of political will on our part will hamper any significant and truly effective decapitation campaign, MikeF's post correctly illustrates that sometimes, allowing the incompetents to remain in position is a better option than would be their removal...
The proposal to exercise the principle of 'containment' by securing our borders is essentially scary. This nation is far too large and diverse and our borders are too lengthy and too porous for much if any success with that approach. Efforts to do so will merely make life unpleasant with no commensurate successes in the security arena; such an effort is more likely to breed a dangerous complacency than to do much real good. We have already partly destroyed the US Airline industry and made air travel an annoyance for little reason at great cost and for small if any benefit.
The money angle is being pursued so that at least is correct.
On the subject of competing with fundamentalist Islam it is suggested that we modify:<blockquote>"...the way we live -- attending to pressing issues of poverty, injustice, exploitation of women and the global environmental crisis -- we might through our example induce the people of the Islamic world to consider modifying the way they live. Here lies the best chance of easing the differences that divide us."</blockquote>Color me unduly cynical but efforts to do those sorts of things have been ongoing for all of my approaching 80 years of life on this planet with a notable lack of success. The morally defensible aspect cited may be correct, as <i>possibly</i> can the "sustainable" tag -- however, with respect to plausible, I'm quite dubious. That proposal sounds nice and is impossible to refute as an ideal. Practically, the difficulties in accomplishing those goals will take generations if indeed they can be accomplished at all. My experience to date added to reasonable appreciation of history leads me to believe that is indeed 'mission impossible.'
I totally agree that a different strategy is desirable, even necessary. I also acknowledge that the current and any added military campaigns with large bodies of Troops are not productive and are ill advised. However, I do not believe this proposal will do the job -- not least because we did not really "beat the Soviets." We simply outspent them. We aren't going to beat the current opponents either, nor are we likely to outspend them because our and their shopping patterns are quite different. They have no infrastructure or population to protect -- we do. They have no overweening bureaucracy to deal with; we do...
Further, attempting to compete in the suggested venues will put us in direct conflict with their religious values. As Professor Bacevich said:<blockquote>"Changing the way they live -- where "they" are the people of the Islamic world -- qualifies as mission impossible..."</blockquote> If 'they' cannot be changed, then he must be suggesting that 'we' can change. I suspect that 'we' are no more enthusiastic about changing than are 'they.' He continues:<blockquote>"... The Long War is a losing proposition; it will break the bank and break the force.</blockquote>That could be be but is not necessarily true
The American ways of war -- and there are really three main types -- should be the guiding factors in a new strategy. We do large wars pretty well and have a good record in them. However, they are terribly expensive and destructive thus should be avoided where possible and we generally do that. That methodology is also not at all appropriate for the minor threat posed.
We also do Small Wars really well. They are lengthy, but low key and offer a great return on investment. The Philippine involvement is a current and excellent example. OTOH, there are mid size wars; wars of limited objectives; of constrained force -- we do not do those at all well, we just don't do 'constrain' well. Nor do the bulk of the US Armed Forces do FID all that well. Thus, seems to me that we should eschew large wars and midsize wars to the extent possible, recognize (and recall in the future) that we do <u>not</u> do limited objective wars or FID at all well and opt for what works. No sense in playing to the opponents strengths.
What's required is simply a number of Small Wars -- we do those well. That entails continued improvement of intelligence capability, far better and stronger diplomatic efforts to include an enhanced US Aid and US Information Agency and limited military involvement. It does mean a possible long series of small wars or even a 'Long War' but not on the terms the good Professor implied. Let's do it on our terms, not theirs.
It would be interesting to get Dr David Ucko's thoughts on the Bacevich argument for a better American Security and Foreign policy in the 21st Century. David is one of the leading experts on Counterinsurgency Warfare and has written a highly regarded book just recently released on the subject. On SWJ over the past couple of days David has pointed out in line with Kilcullen's argument on the utility of Coin that it should be used only on very special occasions.
So why not adjust American Policy along the lines that Bacevich suggests, yet keep the capability to do population centric coin, but only use it when vital national interests demand?
gian
I believe the widely held misperception of this Rumsfeld quoute from the article strikes to the root of the problem:
"We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter."
What Secretary Rumsfeld overlooks here, is that we had been implementing a comprehensive campaign across the Middle East throughout the Cold War to in effect "change the way they live" (or more accurately, the way they govern) to exert the controls around the periphery required to contain the Soviets.
It was our reasonable decision to keep those controls in place following the Cold War (afterall, we had "won", and besides, we had things pretty much the way we wanted them to best support US national interests from the lens of our Cold War perspective) that fueled the many nationalist movements that have grown since then, and gave rise to AQ and the regional UW campaign that they are executing to leverage these many disparate movements.
So, what we really needed to do in not to change the way we live, nor to change the way they live, but instead to merely help facilitate reasonable processess of self-determination to gradually and peacefully undo the many governmental manipulations that we had emplaced over the years. After all, when a hot war ends, you stop bombing. When a Cold war ends though, it appears you just leave your wartime measures in place.
So, while I agree that a hot war to force the populaces of the region to simply submit to a sustainment of a heavily US influenced status quo is not the answer; I would offer that any "cold war" type approach be heavily focused on a controlled backing off of our previous Cold War manipulations.
A study from COL Joe Felter and the USMA CTC compliments Professor Bacevich's argument.
In Cracks in the Foundation: Leadership Schisms in al-Qaeda (1989-2006), after studying numerous correspondances from AQ and affliliates, they concluded,
"The continuing failure of the Islamic State of Iraq is emblematic of a larger theme
of this report: al-Qa`ida is terrible at state building. As long as Bin Ladin and Zawahiri
are at the helm, their inability to organize will dash any hopes they have for creating an
Islamist state. And judging from the documentary evidence, it does not seem that state building is more than a slogan in their eyes. Rather, they rely on local grievances and
instability to market their brand worldwide (2007, p.23)."
Bacevich's argument along with others at SWJ to find alternative ways to deter irregular threat outside of perpetual occupation should be considered.
v/r
Mike