Civil War, Redux
What a misnomer, for no type of war could be less so.
The U.S. is definitely fighting in a civil war in 2006 Iraq, but the problem is that they are employing some of the mindset and tactics from their own Civil War, and worse, they've adopted those of the losing side.
General Robert E. Lee--like the U.S. Army in Iraq--was trying to maintain his humanity in an environmental paradigm which had shifted after the entrance of U.S. Grant and his Generals, Sherman and Sheridan. When Lee famously said, "It is well that war is so terrible--lest we should grow too fond of it," he was expressing the chivalric view of warfare. It followed rules; you allowed the enemy to regroup for the next engagement. After every defeat, the U.S. Army was permitted to slink off and reconsolidate. Lee was becoming a dinosaur.
Total War, as practiced by Gen. Grant and company, was the new approach, defined by absolute destruction of all enemy infrastructure and support pipelines in order to crush his will and ability to fight.
Military and political wars can only be won if the enemy's will to fight is destroyed. This implies death and destruction of a magnitude that is incompatible with purple thumbs. U.S. forces are in Iraq either to destroy or to help. Both are not achievable concommitantly. You can't destroy cities while claiming to be nation-builders.
Robert E. Lee's tactical battles were masterpieces (Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, etc.), but he never exploited his successes. Because of this, they were meaningless. Winning battles doesn't equate to winning wars.
In addition, Lee was up against a U.S. military that was willing to absorb tremendous losses. The U.S. military spokesmen today love to say, "we've won every battle in Iraq." Perhaps, but we should be mindful of Lee.
Lee also became fixated on the defense of Richmond (as we are on Fallujah and Baghdad). After Lee's Gettysburg venture, The Army of Northern Virginia reverted immediately to the physical protection of Richmond. The strategic objective of the Southern command was the protection of Richmond, and all the battles after Gettysburg were simply jockeying to protect or capture the enemy's capital. The strategic thinking was that the capture and defense of Richmond would somehow win the war.
The key foreign policy objective of the Lincoln administration was to keep foreign powers from intervening in the U.S. Civil War. The U.S. should afford the same courtesy to Iraq and Afganistan.
Jim and Lisa
The U.S. is definitely fighting in a civil war in 2006 Iraq, but the problem is that they are employing some of the mindset and tactics from their own Civil War, and worse, they've adopted those of the losing side.
General Robert E. Lee--like the U.S. Army in Iraq--was trying to maintain his humanity in an environmental paradigm which had shifted after the entrance of U.S. Grant and his Generals, Sherman and Sheridan. When Lee famously said, "It is well that war is so terrible--lest we should grow too fond of it," he was expressing the chivalric view of warfare. It followed rules; you allowed the enemy to regroup for the next engagement. After every defeat, the U.S. Army was permitted to slink off and reconsolidate. Lee was becoming a dinosaur.
Total War, as practiced by Gen. Grant and company, was the new approach, defined by absolute destruction of all enemy infrastructure and support pipelines in order to crush his will and ability to fight.
Military and political wars can only be won if the enemy's will to fight is destroyed. This implies death and destruction of a magnitude that is incompatible with purple thumbs. U.S. forces are in Iraq either to destroy or to help. Both are not achievable concommitantly. You can't destroy cities while claiming to be nation-builders.
Robert E. Lee's tactical battles were masterpieces (Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, etc.), but he never exploited his successes. Because of this, they were meaningless. Winning battles doesn't equate to winning wars.
In addition, Lee was up against a U.S. military that was willing to absorb tremendous losses. The U.S. military spokesmen today love to say, "we've won every battle in Iraq." Perhaps, but we should be mindful of Lee.
Lee also became fixated on the defense of Richmond (as we are on Fallujah and Baghdad). After Lee's Gettysburg venture, The Army of Northern Virginia reverted immediately to the physical protection of Richmond. The strategic objective of the Southern command was the protection of Richmond, and all the battles after Gettysburg were simply jockeying to protect or capture the enemy's capital. The strategic thinking was that the capture and defense of Richmond would somehow win the war.
Lee's General's were brilliant, as well, but they were hamstrung by their ruinous singlemindedness of objective. They were, in effect, turned from brilliant manuever tacticians into a stationary force.
The protection of Baghdad will not ensure "mission accomplished." Not losing skirmishes and battles is meaningless. We can't win in Iraq unless we decimate them to a man, and we're unwilling and unable to do that. Unlike Grant, we can't destroy their society, their infrastructure, or their fighters. So what can we achieve? We are instead the Robert E. Lee's of this war.The key foreign policy objective of the Lincoln administration was to keep foreign powers from intervening in the U.S. Civil War. The U.S. should afford the same courtesy to Iraq and Afganistan.
Jim and Lisa
posted by rangeragainstwar at 10:27 PM
6 Comments:
I think it was Clausewitz who said that all defensive positions not supported by a dynamic active force will sooner or lated be surrounded and either bypassed or besieged. Not a precise quote, but something like it.
A grim thought: The "Big Base" idea is a very bad idea if the endgame gets ugly in Iraq. Think evacuation of Saigon in jumps, with active hostile terrain below sniping with cheap surface-to-air missiles. Not a pleasant scenery for the helicopter-dudes. Is there any evac-drill for such megabases at all?
Martin,
Our recent U.S. planning is pie-in-the-sky. I would like to think there are worst case scenario contingency plans. Somehow, I doubt this. I hope I'm wrong.
Nice post. Excellent use of a parallel out of left field that works beautifully. You've captured the essence of the problem and illustrated the futility of our game.
Martin has his Clausewitz about right, but ISTM the odds of a nasty endgame are slim at least so far as casualties are concerned. It does, however, seem almost inevitable that at some point the big-hearted American taxpayer is going to donate some high-priced equipment that's left behind. Bright spot: great Internet infrastructure for the Iraqis. But who will take over the fast food concessions?
At some point, we will declare victory and leave. Iraq will follow its destiny.
You do good work.
Publius,
I am always out in left field--it's lonely out there, but someone has to take it! Thanks for your positive comments, and for your readership.
Ranger
Great post.
If you don't mind, I will hang with you in left field for awhile.
As I read your post - the movie Fog of War came to mind.
Particularly when McNamarra was recounting the bombing missions in Japan - using incendiary bombs because of the predominance of wooden structures in Japan.
I am sure you saw the film. The particular part that came to mind referenced similar sized major U.S. cities and then listed the percentage of the city destroyed.
The bombings destroyed something like the equivalent of 55% of Nashville and 45% of Akron and on and on for about 20 cities.
And yet, you had No Capitulation. Only after this, plus all of the other heavy duty conventional warfare and two nukes did you get capitulation.
As you well know from your 'Nam experience - the kill ratio was well in favor of the U.S. troops - but capitulation was hard to come by.
Seems to me the first question that needs to be asked is "are we going for capitulation - and if so, how likely is it that we will achieve it?"
Enemies who are willing to take on disproportionate losses (for nationalistic, religious or other motivations) are very difficult to bring to capitulation.
If the answer is "no - we are not going for capitulation" then we are either out to contain or to punish.
Re: Containment - there is a paper written by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt "Can Saddam Be Contained? History Says Yes"
IMHO - That Should Have Been The Mission.
Seems to me that this was just an attempt at a high profile ass kicking. The fact that the "ass kickee" was not attached to 9/11 was not lost on the administration. I think they were hoping for the "Owww ... Look at what happens when Uncle Sam gets pissed on goes 'on tilt' ... we better behave ... he does not always act rationally when he is angry" effect.
That should not have been a mission AND I'm not even sure if the objective of THAT mission was accomplished.
What a shame.
KW,
I don't believe the U.S. had any obligation to fulfill any mission in the area.
I was being cynically sarcastic re. the bombings; reductio ad absurdum. Historically, I believe aerial campaigns have done nothing but steel an enemy's will to resist. It's not nice to piss off mother naure.
As for the RVN reference and kill ratios, I do not advocate body counts, but if you notice, figures of hostile deaths are conspicuously missing from our news reports. My assumption is that we have a very unfavorable kill ratio in Iraq and Afghanistan; esp. in Iraq, maybe in Afghanistan.
It's difficult to ascertain what we're trying to achieve, since I've never seen any clearly stated mission orders reflecting national policy.
As for your ref. to ass-kicking, it appears the U.S. has become a one-legged man in this effort.
Thanks for your comments.
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