Technology Does Not Trump Strategy
In a recent reply to one of Ranger's comments on the futility of the Army's Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP's), the man spent a page arguing for the trucks, and that they mitigate casualties. We were going to pass it over as the usual bit of hooah, until the last page.
The man conceded to allow Ranger to print his words, without attribution:
"But an MRAP is not a strategy. One might ask, what is the strategy and could money have been better spent paying bribes (clearly working in Anbar) or building power plants or water systems or schools or clinics? Fact is could building any of these be better for the world whether they occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq or the good old US of A? Probably.
It should be noted that hydroelectric dams built by the USA in the 1950s still provide power in Afghanistan. Would low head hydro plants sprinkled into isolated villages which give them electricity for irrigation and tv’s expose them to a planet of other people and ideas serve a useful purpose? How about using TV to teach people to read Sesame Street style? Think that’s dumb – well with an illiteracy rate through the roof in Afghanistan and Taliban throwing acid in kids faces – maybe not. I’ll bet there are a fair number of adults who would like to learn to read if they could do it in the privacy of their own home.
A COIN operation is not one of blowing up a man’s house, killing his family and then offering to build him a new one.
MRAPs cost $1.5 million. Could a special forces unit with Afghan troops put $1.5 million to use in a village? I’ll bet so. Could $1.5 million spent on bridges in the US serve a useful purpose – you betcha. How about an energy strategy that reduces our dependence on foreign oil? Yup we’ve heard that one before, but still it is a strategy that makes more sense than driving aimlessly around the desert looking for Charlie err Hajji, err Omar. Whatever, you get the idea.
It is worth noting that the common thread between Vietnam and our current unpleasantness is us – the USA. It isn’t that Vietnamese are like Afghans. It’s more like our own corrosive presence, our technique or lack thereof, are common threads between these conflicts.
Equipment is not a strategy.
Tactics are not a strategy.
We have no strategy.
That in a nutshell is the problem.
. . .
Labels: mine resistant ambusuh protected vehicles, MRAPs, technology no substitute for strategy
posted by Lisa at 5:37 PM
10 Comments:
Yep.
I wish I had something better to add, but really, yep.
My only thought would be:
"If we HAD a strategy, what could it be?"
We're fighting ideas: the ideas that Islam is for Muslims, the idea that Western notions of education, equal justice under law, nationalism, separation of church and state are evil and wrong. The idea that there should be a Jewish state on the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The idea that it's OK for Western and foreign powers to occupy and state-build in Islamic states if the Westerners really, REALLY have the best interests of the Muslims living there in mind.
How do you invent a "strategy" that convinces hardcore Islamic fundamentalists that all the above are good things?
These people may be tribesmen living in the 10th Century but they're not fools. Building them dams, schools and madrassis - if you're building these things to "buy" their loyalty - will work about as well as you'd think it would. How well did the bridges, roads and schools the British built in the American colonies work to keep the colonists loyal to the British crown, back in the day?
ISTM that the problem here isn't that we have no strategy, but that any "strategy" that is designed to further American political influence on the peoples, "states" and non-state actors in the Middle East and southwest Asia is designed to run up against the fact that their interests and our interests are not similar and, in many cases, are hostile.
The only way such a "strategy" can be successfully accomplished is by bloodyhanded conquest. In which many more young men, like the author's son, ill have to die.
I wish I had a more lighthearted and happy assessment, but I don't. War is all hell, as Bill Sherman said, and you cannot refine it. The only way to "win" this game of central Asian empires is not to play.
FDChief sez many valid and valuable things.
But this - The only way to "win" this game of central Asian empires is not to play - is the absolute best.
Will adding another 30,000+ troopers to the mix in Afghanistan really matter? Would adding 300,000+ more? Even at 3,000,000+ we would still be hard pressed to fundamentally change the underlying dynamic in that region, namely, this is OUR home and foreigners STAY OUT.
SP
FDChief,
I know that I'm preaching to the choir but your comments clearly outline the fallacious COIN policy of the US.We lack legitimacy and meaning but fail to realize this truth.
I'm presently reading Jeremiah Dentons book and NOWHERE does he question the US right to bomb NV into submission BECAUSE it was the right thing to do.We fight for freedom but denied the NV the basic self determination concept of liberty.Strange brew.The same construct of righteousness is the basis of coin policy.
The US wants to control the area so the ethereal other not do so when in fact NOBODY can control that tiger .
jim
SP,
I always ask -what do you win and what do you lose in any scenario.
War must be for survival issues and not evening entertainment and diversion from the reality issues that hound our society.
jim
Jim: I'll be the first to say that the rulers of North Vietnam were some baaaaaad people. What they did to the marvins just for doing what they believed they were doing themselves - fighting for their homes and families - make them some pretty miserable excuses for human beings.
But how we would have made that "better" - how we DID make anything better - by bombing the living shit out of them escapes me.
Every nation, every people, deserves their own chance to make their own history and their own destiny. Chances are if and the French hadn't intervened the Northerners would have won the vote after liberation from the French. The resulting communist government would probably have been ugly; a Hungary, or a Yugoslavia. But chances are that the dead and imprisoned and tortured and maimed would have run in the thousands or tens of thousands instead of millions.
And VN would probably be about what it is today.
We like to think that our way is not just the best way but the ONLY way. We're not gods or heroes; we're just people. We got our chance to be free and powerful. We need to get it that every other nation and people needs to have that chance without heavily armed Uncle Sammy leaning on their shoulders...
that total lack of strategy was one of the main problems in vietnam, and is currently on display all over the mideast and south central asia.
nothing was gained by lbj and nixon. everything that came out of paris was exactly what would have been given to truman and eisenhower without a fucking fight in the first place. had truman not turned u.s. surplus over to the french they would have been unable to ever reoccupy vietnam in the first place. left to their own devices we have no idea what the eventual system put in place nationwide would have been. remember, the vietnamese had spent nearly 20 years out in the jungle eating bugs and snakes trying to figure out how to fight a modern mechanized japanese occupation with bamboo sticks and batshit bombs. they probably would have been able to work things out amongst themselves if they had merely been given some breathing room. they were all of them disinclined to be reoccupied and colonized by the french, they were mistrusting of the americans because they felt macarthur's bypassing of indochina was a crime against them.
left alone, who knows what would have happened. we will never know because we did not leave them alone.
one thing that is certain, after 15 more years of the "american war" (which is what the vietnamese call our interventions) the folks of the north were almost insanely implacable in their victory.
so, after 15 years of pretty horrendous slaughter. we gained absolutely nothing except to drive our opponents insane with rage and hatred.
now, here we are again, doing the same stupid fucking shit.
when angelena jolie adopted her vietnamese child i remarked to a friend:
i bet in thirty years time she'll adopt an iraqi kid and make all the same fucking mistakes.
sometimes, the very best strategy is to leave people the fuck alone. deal with them if you can, but above all, leave them the fuck alone.
folks hate meddling.
that last was me yo. used the computer after a nephew without checking to see what i was signed on as.
Jake,
Nice to hear from a new reader.
If A Jolie adopts anyone I hope it'll be moi.
Pls remember that the stated goals of WW2 as per the Atlantic Charter was the end of colonialism. Now the really cute part of US support of the French was that the Fr. cooperated in a Quisling manner with the Japanese and the Ho Chi boys supported the OSS pilot exfiltration and e&e nets.Now that's some ball of wax.
jim
Jim,
remember that the stated goals of WW2 as per the Atlantic Charter was the end of colonialism
Indeed. And it was this goal that created much friction between the allies (esp Churchill and Roosevelt) as the war went forward. But, FDR knew that he had the might and Winston did not... and as for DeGaulle, he wasn't gonna get to keep anything. Too bad FDR passed before the end and before he could have walked Uncle Joe back eastward a tad.
That said, I think Ike was also thinking about that WWII commitment to end colonialism when he sent Ridgeway to VN in the 50s. Ridgeway came back, said it couldn't be done, and why would we anyways? Ike let the poisoned chalice pass -- at least until Max Taylor convinced the next administration that everything Ike was doing was stupid and they could do (and must) do anything to fight the commies worldwide (sound anything like 2000-2001???).
SP
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