Together We Stand Alone
Keith Nightingale
Today, we wander and dither before the faceless beast that calls itself ISIS. We should heed our history from a leader that understood the hearts of his people. Read Churchill's words and hope that our leader's can understand what he said.
“You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”
Comments
Even if you assume "Victory" at all cost, it is only the beginning ...
"The persistent danger of catastrophic success
While the military campaign against Da’esh is starting to move ahead smartly, the civilian side of the effort is not keeping pace. This is deeply problematic because, as I warned over a year ago, even decisive military success against Da’esh is likely to prove ephemeral if there is no plan (nor any effort to implement such a plan) to create a political context where tactical military victories can be translated into enduring, political achievements. Indeed, the situation could actually be worse under those circumstances because we will have removed the common threat of Da’esh, which is one of the few forces currently holding various Iraqi groups together."
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2016/03/28-military-campaig…
So, once ISIS collapses and all those various parties don't have a common enemy, what do you think will happen? Don't expect the Sunni, Shia, Kurds, and Turks to sit around a campfire singing Kumbayah. What is our Phase IV/V plan if we conduct an all-out campaign against ISIS?
Any military campaign should set the conditions for a post-conflict political success. A campaign conducted by the territorial occupants meets that criteria better than an all-out campaign conducted by the U.S. Military.
War is not a "feel good about ourselves" activity. We engage in War for political ends, not to satisfy our righteous indignation.
My use of the Churchill speech was focused on developing a desired end state (ISIS is no longer a threat) and then communicating the will to do so-which Churchill was a master at portraying. To further flame the fire, I would add Scipio's orders to his legions before attacking Carthage;
Lay waste to their villages. Cause their women and children to wail with grief. Plow it all to dust and sow it with salt.
That is Commander's intent. Or we could revert to LeMay's comment that war is all about killing. If you kill enough of the enemy, he quits fighting.
ISIS is more complicated than killing-its a manifestation of poor local conditions, suppression of religious practices and the residue of demonizing. We will have to develop a strategy with both a carrot and a stick but we have to have the will and focus to actually "do it" and not dither into meaningless rants absent force and will.
Too easy. You can't borrow Churchill's words (at least not these words) and then pull your punch.
<blockquote>“You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us....
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”</blockquote>
For Churchill in 1940, all tools were appropriate to the situation...make deals with the Americans, make deals with the Russians, spend the treasury dry...if he'd had nuclear weapons, he'd have used them.
I understand what you're saying -- it's not the tools, it's the *will* -- call it a war, and stick with it until the end. But will depends on results, and results depends on how far we're willing to go.
<blockquote>I am advocating that we muster all appropriate tools and destroy ISIS in toto....</blockquote>
"Destroy ISIS in toto...." Down to the last gunman. Down to the last radical imam. Down to the last mourning mother, raising her next child to be a radical? Pursue them into Muslim enclaves in friendly countries? What *are* the appropriate tools? Blow up the radical mosques? Burn the radical texts? Economic warfare against supporting countries -- friends or not -- until the funding stops? You're talking about not only eradication of a nascent caliphate or a terrorist group -- you're talking about eradication of an *idea*...because we've already found out, as long as the idea survives, it'll spawn a child, just like AQIM spawned ISIS. It's what Sean Connery asked in The Untouchables: How far are you willing to go? Last time we went that far, it *did* take nuclear weapons.
The question we really need to ask is: what's the appropriate level of risk we can stand until radical Islam consumes itself? That might be a long time, so it's not a trivial question. But we put up with other, higher-cost risks for sake of convenience or ideology...this isn't so different in the long view. Then we need to decide whether keeping things down to that level of risk requires us going to war at all. Or do we run a long strategy of containment, using finances and information to keep the enemy's friction level high until he simply burns out?
Which?
Chiming in to clarify/verify etc what I (the Colonel) meant to say. Yes-this is asymmetric warfare conditions. I do not advocate nuclear weapons or levee en masse-either tools would be irrelevant for such a situation. I am advocating that we muster all appropriate tools and destroy ISIS in toto-hence my use of the Churchill speech. This is the new nature of war writ large and we ought to recognize it and deal with it. We are dithering about skirting the issue, dancing around terminology and identification and apparently loath what needs to be done-akin to the conditions Churchill inherited when he made this speech.
I have a very simplistic view of the issue not bounded by sociopolitical definitions. ISIS wishes to do our citizens and civilization great harm. They are a demonstrably capable threat to do that to some portion of our population as San Bernardino showed. The fact that they are not a nation (they actually claim they are-caliphate) and are not Nazi Germany is in my mind, irrelevant. We are in an asymmetric war requiring different rules and expectations of "victory" but the necessity to protect our population remains as it did for Churchill's era.
POTUS, in his role of CIC, has a constitutional requirement to protect our population by reducing the capability of ISIS. He does that through the application of force in a myriad of ways. Land, sea and air is appropriate.
I see no difference between the underlying point of Churchill's comment and its appropriateness for today's conditions. He was at war and we are also tho by a different form. The fact that many believe we are not at "war," I find somewhat disturbing. We are trying to make complex that which is very simple.
I don't see how you came up with the belief that "COL Nightingale, when referring to the current war, does not, I believe, suggest such extreme things as a levee en mass -- and/or a full mobilization of all the elements of national power ..." That looks like exactly what he is recommending.
I believe that he would say that any "limited war" is a failure a priori - hence my total skepticism.
As far as "wishing away" problems, I believe the good Colonel, and all of his ilk, are wishing away the phase IV Occupation and the Phase V Transition to a Stable Civilian Government. It is in those two phases that I see the Army doing NOTHING to learn from its mistakes. If we don’t have a plan for what comes after, then maybe you should limit your involvement to support, and not take the lead. This is especially true when, if you did not put troops on the ground there, the threat to Americans is less than or equal to your odds of winning the lottery.
Curmudgeon:
COL Nightingale, when referring to the current war, does not, I believe, suggest such extreme things as a levee en mass -- and/or a full mobilization of all the elements of national power -- these, as he might suggest in a "total" war and as per our nation's very survival.
Rather COL Nightingale, I believe, and as per his "asymmetric war" suggestion above, understands that the war that we are currently embarked upon is (for the exceptionally more powerful U.S./the West at least) a "limited" war. Thus, a war within which "limited" means are employed to achieve "limited" ends. (These such limited ends, today, specifically being the transformation of other states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines.)
The problem with these such "asymmetric wars," of course, is that for one's much weaker opponent, these such conflicts are, indeed, seen as "total" wars for "total" ends. (Specifically, and re: the "transformation" context offered in the paragraph immediately above, the survival of the much weaker opponent's civilization/preferred way of life, etc.)
In such "asymmetric wars," and re: such things as motivation, adaptability and "staying power," the advantage often goes to the much weaker opponent, to wit: the guy who actually is doing "total" war, and the guy who actually does believe that he is fighting for "survival."
Bottom line:
Asymmetric wars, much like total wars, are (a) facts of life and, indeed, (b) "wars." They always have been and they always will be.
We cannot simply wish them away.
You are correct however, I believe, to suggest that it is great folly for the much more powerful entity (for example, the U.S./the West today) to:
a. See and/or confuse limited war with total war. And to, accordingly, imprudently and improperly
b. Employ means/methods -- reserved for total war -- in (1) an asymmetric war setting/context and for (2) limited war purposes.
Bill,
No, that is not the wrong tree. It is exactly what I am referring to, although you might be trying to make the same point.
There is a continuum that stretches from “Peace” (tranquil, cooperative, and mutually beneficial relationships with other nations) and “War” (an all-out battle, waged with every element of national power, to destroy other nations) as the author describes it. In-between there are thousands, if not hundreds-of-thousands other options. “War” is reserved for existential threats because only a threat to survival justifies a levee en masse and a full mobilization of all the elements of national power.
Now does that mean that military forces cannot be used in something less than war? No, obviously they can. But the type of all-out war the author is advocating is not justified for this level threat. It is a recipe for expensive disaster.
On a side note - for clarity, we should only refer to "War" in the sense I just used it. Because calling other things War muddies the conseptual water creating concepts like "the War on Terrorism."
Curmudgeon:
If I might barge in:
Might both you -- and COL Nightingale -- be barking up the wrong tree here, to wit: the "war for the purpose of overcoming existential threats/existential enemies only" tree?
Herein to suggest that, in the New/Reverse Cold War of today and re: the U.S./the West's contemporary expansionist designs (much as was the case in the Old Cold War of yesterday and re: the Soviets/the communists' expansionist designs back then), one's opponents (then as now) are not limited to existential enemies/existential threats only but, indeed, may be any threat/any entity that simply stands in one's way.
In this light (when one is on an expansionist bent, one's opponents are seen in more than just existential terms) to see why:
a. The Soviets/the communists, in the Old Cold War of yesterday (the Soviets/the communists then being on an expansionist bent), might wage war -- by land, sea and air -- against, for example, various Islamic/Islamist opponents?
And why, accordingly,
b. The U.S./the West, in our contemporary New/Reverse Cold War (the U.S./the West now being on an expansionist bent) might also wage war -- by land, sea and air -- against these very same opponents today?
Thus, to see "war" today -- as in the past -- in more "classic" terms(???).
Thus, not so much "war" from the perspective of achieving "survival" and overcoming one's "existential" enemies only.
But, rather, "war" also seen as a means/method for overcoming those that stand in the way -- of one achieving other, less critical, political objectives?
(These other, less critical political objectives, however, for effect and for the procurement of necessary resources, often needing to be couched/presented in more-"existential threat"/more-"existential enemy" terms?)
COL Nightingale, the comparison is wrong on so many levels, but I will only address the most salient. ISIS is not an existential threat the same way Nazi Germany was to England. The “Islamic State” will never invade the U.S. and never replace our government with a Caliphate. Sure, they will cause a terror attack here and cut off a head there, but so does the Haqqani network, Boko Haram, or any number of other terrorist organization who are also not as existential threat to the United States. So, the obvious question is, “Why do you think our policy must be to wage war by land, sea, and air against ISIS?”
One will note (see my comment below) that -- by embracing the idea of a New/Reverse Cold War (the U.S./the West today doing "expansion;" the Rest today doing "containment"/"roll back," etc.) -- I am able to identify and present our contemporary enemies, our contemporary battles, our current war and our current strategy (and that of our opponents), NOT in such unconnected, disconnected and/or piecemeal terms as we often see today. (For example, the singling out of the radical Islamists -- and/or the terrorist methods that they use.)
Rather, by using a New/Reverse Cold War thesis, I am able to identify that the confrontations that we are engaged in today (to achieve the "expansion" of our way of life, etc.), the enemies that we meet in these such confrontations (those hoping to thwart our such expansionist designs), the war that we are thus engaged in today (a new/reverse "cold war") and the strategies that both we and our enemies have adopted (see "expansion" and "containment," etc., in the paragraph immediately above) these are, in fact and in truth, all intimately related. (Much as was the case in the Old Cold War.)
In this regard note, that in the Old Cold War of yesterday, and re: the Soviets/the communists "expansionist" designs then, we did not see -- as random and/or as disconnected -- the various resistance efforts of various entities. (For example: [a] the resistance efforts of the U.S./the West and [b] the resistance efforts of the conservative elements of various other civilizations, states and societies.) In stark contrast, we saw all of these such resistance efforts as being related to a common opposition to the Soviets/the communist attempts to transform other states and societies more along communist political, economic and social lines.
How is it then, in the New/Reverse Cold War today, that we have come to see resistance efforts of other civilizations, of other states and other societies, and of, especially, the conservative elements within same -- to our determination to transform other states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines -- as somehow being random and/or disconnected? In the Old Cold War of yesterday -- and as per the New/Reverse Cold War of today -- this such thinking must be seen as folly.
Thus, to "know the enemy" (today, those that would resist "westernization"), and to, thus, "know the war that one is embarked upon" (today, accordingly, a New/Reverse Cold War), one must, indeed, "know oneself" (the entity that is determined to transform other states and societies more along, in our case today, modern western political, economic and social lines).
In our present-day case (the New/Reverse Cold War identified above), the improper singling out and/or piecemealing of the enemy approach (think, the idea of the radical Islamist standing alone); this does not allow us to accomplish these such critically important missions (to wit: the "knowing of the enemy," the "knowing of the war that one is embarked upon" and, most important, the "knowing of oneself").
COL Nightingale ("Keith" below?) states:
"We are at war but our leadership is not willing to admit it. It is a war that is different than our historical model but war nonetheless. We need to wake up and smell the poison."
Although we may, before, have not engaged (a) on this side of (b) this type of war, we -- via our familiarity with and understanding of the Old Cold War of yesterday -- certainly understand its dynamics. Let me explain:
In the Old Cold War of yesterday, the Soviets/the communists (themselves believing in their version of "universal values," etc.), sought to transform other states and societies more along their unusual and unique political, economic and social lines. Herein, they ran into certain state and non-state actor opponents who were (a) desperately fearful of -- and/or exceptionally repelled by -- such a thought and who, accordingly, (b) organized themselves, and acted, in such a manner as to ensure that these such transformations -- more along the alien and profane lines of communism -- would not be achieved.
In the New/Reverse Cold War of today, the U.S./the West (ourselves believing in our version of "universal values," etc.), seeks to transform other states and societies more along our unusual and unique political, economic and social lines. Herein, running into certain state and non-state actor opponents who are desperately fearful of -- and/or exceptionally repelled by -- such a thought and who have, accordingly, organized themselves and acted in such a manner so as to ensure that these such transformations -- in this case more along modern western political, economic and social lines -- will not be achieved.
(Herein to note, specifically, that both the Soviets/the communists in the Old Cold War of yesterday -- much like the U.S./the West in the New/Reverse Cold War of today -- had/have, for example, to contend with the exact same opponents, for example, with [a] Islamist terrorists who were/are [b] bent on using various means and methods to ensure that they and their people [c] will not be "converted" along alien and profane [think, for example, "secular"] lines; neither the Soviets/the communists such alien and profane/secular lines, nor the U.S./the West such alien and profane/secular lines.)
Given the similarities of the Soviet/the communists' such expansionist undertaking and their opponents and these such opponents' methods back then -- this, as compared with the U.S./the Wests' contemporary expansionist efforts and our opponents and these such opponents' methods today -- then might one suggest that we are, indeed, intimately familiar with "the type of war that we are embarked upon."
This being a "cold war;" wherein, much like with the Soviets/the communists back-in-the-day, the U.S./the West now encounters state (in our case today, for example, Russia, China and Iran) and non-state actors (in both our and the Soviet's case, radical Islamists) bent on thwarting a great nation's/a great civilizations' expansionist designs.
Bottom line, however, is that:
a. While we know this kind/this type of war exceptionally well.
b. We simply have not, before, found ourselves on this side of it?
<blockquote>Today, we wander and dither before the faceless beast that calls itself ISIS.</blockquote>
And therein lies the problem. Churchill's enemy had a face. He was identifiable. We knew where he lived, and knew he'd stand and fight to keep it. Victory was easy to define: his leaders dead or imprisoned, and his warmaking power surrendered or destroyed, and the ideology that fueled him discredited and outlawed from within. Defeat was defined the same way -- to be snuffed out and recast in the enemy's mold.
We waged war against AQ...parts of AQ broke off and became AQIM, so we waged war against AQIM...parts of that broke off and became ISIS. The face of our enemy is indistinct. He claims no homeland - stamp him out in one place, and he freely moves to another. We kill and imprison battlefield leaders, destroy his modest warmaking power, but those leaders who tend the flame of ideology that fuel replacements are deemed untouchable, protected by those we claim as friends. Both victory and defeat -- for us -- remain abstractions, since in spite of the enemy's bluster and ability to sting us now and then, he doesn't have the power to threaten our existence, or even to really make *our* lives miserable.
Churchill, motivated by national survival, harnessed the resources of the nation and made deals with the devil in a bid for victory. Our leaders, motivated by job security, avoided asking their donors for any sacrifice at all.
What's more likely to happen is that pols will rush to mosques to show solidarity with Muslims. Someone will make a bit of cash selling "Je suis Bruxelles" pins and we'll get another rendition of "Imagine". As is tradition after an outrage troops and cops will wander around public places for a few weeks until everyone becomes bored.
Meanwhile the bureaucracies will continue to work out how to move more Muslims into Europe. Whether they will be allowed to do this by the increasingly large parts of the public who have had enough is the question.