Iraq

As the U.S., NATO, and the UN move forward toward the 2014 ISAF responsible troop withdrawal from Afghanistan; strategists, policy makers, and warfighters should ponder the past twelve years.  What critical lessons have we learned since the attacks of 9-11?   Often in warfare and business, the team that can adapt to the new reality fastest wins the next battle.  This piece seeks to better grasp the new reality.

In an attempt to spark discussion and gain insights from a broader audience, we have provided twelve lessons learned while seeking thirteen, a baker’s dozen.  As you read below, consider what lessons have been left off, which should be consolidated, and which should be dropped as an incorrect lesson.  The lessons proposed below are meant to be contentious, worthy of critical thinking and debate. 

After teaching Afghanistan-Pakistan Fellows for two years at the National Defense University, this is an attempt to bring the seminar discussions from senior military and civilian officers sent to Fort McNair to reflect on their multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.  This is their product, and it has been a privilege to engage “Socratically” on a conflict that has dominated our generation.  We look forward to reading proposals for Number 13 rounding out the Baker’s Dozen..

The Proposed Post 9-11 Strategic Lessons Learned.

1.  The U.S. invasion of Iraq enabled the Taliban to regroup in Pakistan and avoid defeat.
2. The U.S. government as a whole failed to adequately plan for Phase 3-5 of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq resulting in policy-operations-infrastructure-resourcing mismatches that stalled momentum and drained public confidence.
3. The U.S. failed to adequately predict actions of other states acting in their own interest resulting in failed policies.  Examples include:  Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
4. Improvised Explosive Devices are the weapon of choice of the modern guerilla.
5. DoD assumed greater capability from the State Department and USAID than should have been expected in a combat environment, exposing the Achilles heel of the Clear, Hold, Build and Transfer counterinsurgency model.  Similarly, State is shackled by too restrictive security regulations.
6. Other nations funded just enough support to allow the U.S. to over extend and slowly bleed down their lone super power lead.
7. U.S. Policy planners failed to adequately plan and mitigate for the reality that you cannot defeat an insurgency if the insurgents have a safe haven in a short duration conflict.
8. CERP funds helped reduce military casualties, but often resulted in a strategic loss of legitimacy for the host nation and the overall U.S. Whole of Government effort.
9. The U.S.  Policy planners used large military footprint operations that delegitimized the local leaders strengthening the insurgents’ position.
10. Focusing large numbers of U.S. forces in a few countries to fight the war on terror is a poor strategy because of the large number of ungoverned areas that will harbor terrorists.  The ends do not justify the means, nor the costs of the means.
11. By taking rapid action, the U.S. forced al Qaeda to fight on their own soil, preventing further attacks on the U.S. that would have had extreme economic global consequences.
12. The toll of multiple repeat deployments will have long-term impacts on the Armed Forces, particularly in DoD and the Veterans Administration as the departments struggle to get ahead of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder impacts on our service members. 

Note:  The statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.    

The relatively recent New York Times article on President Obama’s “Kill List” (and other similar articles here and here along with the strike on Al-Qaeda’s former second-in-command) highlights not just a moral conundrum for the commander-in-chief but a strategy that if enacted by itself may cause more harm than good.  What’s worse, the United States has learned that this approach is self-defeating at the operational level in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  A “kill list” is little different than a “body count” strategy—kill enough of them, and the threat goes away.  However, as noted in the article, the kill list which includes individuals from a number of states (including the United States) never gets shorter, the names and faces are simply replaced. 

More recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military forces recognized that such kinetic or direct action meant little without more robust political, economic, and local security development efforts.  For specific purposes, drone strikes are tactically useful.  They can remove key individuals from the tactical, operational, and planning roles they filled which weakens the overall capabilities of the adversary.  But, like a “body count” strategy, success cannot be measured by the number of individuals killed—direct strikes must be part of a comprehensive approach to be truly effective in counterinsurgency operations. As recent gains have demonstrated, achieving the overall goals of defeating an insurgency requires that kinetic operations support the more mundane but ultimately more important political and economic operations along with the development of local security capabilities. That is the best way to achieve stability and security.  Make no mistake, kinetic operations are a key part of an overall successful operation.  But, they are just that -- a part of an overall successful operation. 

Using drone strikes in countries in which we do not have the same level of stability and support activities as we have in Iraq and Afghanistan is where the dilemma lies.  The assumption, though, is that the benefit of killing a key individual outweighs the animosity generated within the local population.  We cannot forget that there is always some degree of animosity generated from these operations.  Guilty as well as innocent people are killed.  Sovereignty is violated.  Honor is trampled.  In both Iraq and Afghanistan, difficult decisions have been made on the benefits of kinetic operations versus the negative repercussions generated.  Winning the battle cannot—and should not—be traded for winning the war.

The working “guess” in conducting drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and other countries is that the benefits to national security policy outweigh the negative feelings and animosity generated by such strikes.  But is this correct?  Can kinetic operations without political, economic, and local security development operations be more effective on a strategic level than on the operational and tactical levels?  And really how dangerous is this indignation and ire that is generated towards the United States?  Drawing the causal link between a drone strike in Pakistan and an attempted bombing in the United States is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.  A man whose cousin was killed in an airstrike five years ago may not become the next terrorist mastermind, but he may be much less likely to tell foreign or local security forces that such a person is living in the same area.   To paraphrase Mao Zedong—who compared insurgents to fish and the population that supported them to water—even if our actions might not be generating more fish, they are still generating more water.     

The number of Al Qaeda members killed by such activities, though, is hard to ignore.  According to Bill Roggio in his blog Long War Journal, “2,300 leaders and operatives from Taliban, Al Qaeda, and allied extremist groups [have been] killed and 138 civilians [have been] killed” in Pakistan in 300 drone strikes since 2006.  Any civilian casualty is unacceptable, but removing a couple of thousand individuals who could potentially do harm to Americans and further destabilize the Afghan government seems to be a step forward in achieving our strategic goals.  If Mr. Roggio’s numbers are accurate, this is strong evidence in support of drone strikes. 

But even given these numbers, I am not sure how kinetic operations without the other non-kinetic activities would be more effective at the strategic level. We may believe that a comparatively small number of drone strikes in Yemen versus a large number of drone strikes in Afghanistan generate relatively less blowback, but in today’s internet and strategic communication reality this is not necessarily the case.  One drone strike magnified through the internet a thousand-fold may be just as detrimental to our overall goals as a hundred drone strikes in an analog world.  Detractors may say that such strategic communication really does not matter, even though we give lip service to its importance; removing terrorists from the battlefield matters above all else.  Such may be true.  Even if we wanted to support kinetic operations with political and economic operations, the scale would probably make such actions impossible given the lives, money, and time spent just in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We must make a frank assessment of the degree to which these strikes support our overall strategic goals when they are conducted without the full implementation of other necessary activities.    

So where does that leave us?  Stuck between bad options, it seems.  Politics demands that we “do something” to fight terrorist organizations, but that “something” may harm our overall goals.  Drone strikes may be part of an answer, but they are not the answer.