strategy

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.    

Dave Maxwell points out an excellent read for Labor Day from Christopher Bassford entitled "Tip-Toe through the Trinity or the Strange Persistence of Trinitarian Warfare."  From the conclusion:

Much of the criticism of Clausewitz essentially boils down to a complaint that he never stated his entire theory in a way we could all grasp by reading a single pithy sentence—at most, a pithy paragraph. Nonetheless, the 300-word Section 28 of Book 1, Chapter 1, of On War is an amazingly compressed summation of reality. Clausewitz’s Trinity is all-inclusive and universal, comprising the subjective and the objective; the unilateral and multilateral; the intellectual, the emotional, and the physical components that comprise the phenomenon of war in any human construct. Indeed, through the subtraction of a few adjectives that narrow its scope to war, it is easily expanded to encompass all of human experience. It is thus a profoundly realistic concept. Understanding it as the central, connecting idea in Clausewitzian theory will help us to order the often confusing welter of his ideas and to apply them, in a useful, comparative manner, both to the history of the world we live in and to its present realities. Most important, its realism will help us steer clear of the worst tendencies of theory and of ideology, of “pure reason” and logic, and of pure emotion.

Washington is abuzz over the presumed political pandering behind the White House¹s fostering the image of the Commander in Chief as the final arbiter of which among our terrorist enemies abroad is or is not a legitimate target for U.S. drone strikes. While regrettably self-serving if true, the outrage misses the more important point: the President's limited time is better spent on strategy than on tactics.

Simply stated, civilian control of the U.S. military is a foundational concept of our democracy, but it doesn't mean the President needs to pull the trigger himself.  It is inescapable that briefs getting to the President are short, often consensus-driven, and lack some details because they have been filtered and reviewed by dozens of people.  That is fine for delivering information to support strategic decisions, but insufficient for tactical go/no-go decisions that require both a deeper background in military and intelligence affairs and appreciation of subtle differences within snippets of intelligence reports than any President could or should have.  We must protect the kinds of tactical and operationally sensitive information otherwise not written down because it could compromise sources and expose tradecraft and relationships with foreign intelligence services. Also, the President need not personally weigh the personality of the field officer filing the report or institutional rivalries that shade conclusions this way or that. Unless the target is Bin Laden himself, isn¹t it better that the President be setting policy, delegating to trusted professionals, and spending his time working to resolve other major issues?

Three related concerns also arise:

First, even if he had all the details he doesn’t have decades of on-the-ground experience in intelligence to rely upon in making tactical-level life and death decisions. We live in a harsh and changing world, one where a decision today to use a drone kills a man without trial or appeal. In a world where a couple dozen people can kill three thousand and cost billions in damage and decades of war, such summary executions may have become necessary.  As a realist I can accept that because the other option is to let these terrorists kill untold hundreds or thousands of innocent lives. But it is not appropriate for the President to be seen as picking specific names and setting the conditions under which specific strikes occur; he is neither qualified nor sufficiently protected to be doing such tactical tasks.

Second, we cannot afford a President overly-wedded to any specific decision nor forget the need to protect the Oval Office from repercussions following inevitable mistakes, collateral damages, killing a source by accident, or potentially politically-motivated International Criminal Court (ICC) actions.

Third, any executive must build out his team, empower subordinates, and rely on others with more experience, perspective, and time to spend making the tactical decisions and doing the legwork. President

Lincoln famously got involved in the Civil War by hiring and firing generals but he didn't point the cannons himself or set the time of a given battle; he set forth orders and held subordinates accountable because the President’s role is in to craft strategy with the execution done via duly appointed subordinates. Taking away these decisions isolates a leader from developing trusted aides who can act in his stead ­ a critical force multiplier needed for any complex operation, and doubly so for a White House.

For these reasons and more the President should set policy and let someone else make the call.  This could be the head of the Special Operations Command, Director of National Intelligence, or a special panel convened for making such decisions.

Meanwhile, the President should focus on serious strategic issues like the impacts of the current laws requiring ‘sequestration’ cuts of another $500 billion from the national security budget, strengthening ties with NATO and other allies, and addressing frictions on issues like Syria, re-supply lines thru Pakistan to Afghanistan, and the rise of China as a true naval power.

In a rough and tumble world sometimes realism dictates a certain amount of plausible deniability. The President would do well to remember that and leave the sorting of specific targets to those under his command and acting in due regard to his specific guidance. The intelligence and military professionals at senior levels have spent decades developing their instincts and either they are up to the job or they should be replaced with people who are. Either way, the President needs to operate strategically and set policy by focusing on the big picture.