Old Dogs
--Desert Crossing, Peray (Thailand)But when you own a big chunk
of the bloody third world,
The babies just come with the scenery
--Middle of the Road, The Pretenders
Beware, my Lord!
Beware lest stern Heaven hate
you enough to hear your prayers!
--Anatole France
________________
My old dog Vietnam comrades often say that we did not win the war in the Republic of Vietnam because we were not allowed to win.
Ranger just viewed the excellent HBO series Generation Kill, and left with the only possible idea one could: In the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq the U.S. applied its full force of arms, yet we still did not win. The U.S. can pound little shit box nations into the ground, killing their people and destroying their armies and infrastructure, but we will still are not going to win.
The simple fact is, you cannot win the unwinnable. What would be gained if the U.S. did win? Something that most of would not want. We do not want to win aggressive wars -- our strength lies in the defensive nature of democracy. We fight to preserve our way of life, not to foist it off on others.
The old Clausewitzian adage that wars can only be won through offensive action may no longer be realistic. Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan show that defensive warfare is the new paradigm. Fighting defensively in unconventional warfare/guerrilla warfare [UW/GW] insurgent scenarios is the wave of the 21st century (having been proven in the 20th century).
The only thing worth fighting for in any war can only be achieved in a defensive campaign, and that thing is sovereignty. If there is any historical lesson which should be evident, it is that nation states lack the resources to stay on a permanent war footing, especially fighting aggressive and elective wars. The reality of the 20th century is that even when you win wars, you lose.
Why is U.S. policy to fight long wars with no endgame?
Labels: cocunterinsurgency, COIN, when winning is losing
posted by rangeragainstwar at 2:45 PM
7 Comments:
Well, Ranger, its like wargames...I suspect you've never played any of them, but indulge me the comparison..
The issue of board war games is usually set with victory preconditions...for example, in order to be considered the victor, your army must defeat defenders at X city, and Y bridge, thus controlling flow of logistics for the next phase of the campaign.
The defenders victory conditions...deny the victor his victory conditions.
If the attacker can not take those two objectives...campaign is over with.
So, all the defender has to do is survive...which is an automatic defeat for the attacker.
So...if we, the United States, didn't meet our "victory" conditions in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese met theirs, deny us our victory conditions...they won.
If we didn' meet the victory conditions in Iraq, and yet the insurgents met theirs...they won.
Which brings me to Afghanistan and how I agree with you...I applied the victory conditions to give myself perspective.
Our victory conditions...
Defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and render one or both impotent.
The Taliban is still functional, Al Qaeda has decentralized...so...not only did we not meet one, we didn't meet the other requirement either...so another defeat.
All this swinging of our armies around in circles around the globe is making me think of a couple of Despair.com posters.
"failure. When your best just isn't good enough."
and
"Losing. If at first you don't succeed, failure maybe your style."
How do we reverse this trend?
Clausewitz sayeth, Book 6, Ch. 1, Part 2:
"What is the object of defense? Preservation. It is easier to hold ground than to take it....Just what is it that makes preservation and protection so much easier? It is the fact that time which is allowed to pass unused accumulates to the credit of the defender...."
So you are hardly at odds with the Great One (I say that partly tongue in cheek). It's too bad the folks at the Pentagon haven't read Clausewitz--even more tragic that Obama hasn't either, since he's CinC. They might have learned something.
Why pursue wars of aggression with no end game?
For Jack Reed, during WWI, the answer was a kurt, "Profits." For Orwell, it was about maintaining a state of permanent warfare with which to militarize and oppress society as a whole.
What I find most disturbing is the near complete lack of any real national discussion on this level. Because without that, it doesn't matter what reason(s) anyone cites. It just "is." Unchallenged.
How can most of a nation simply accept, without question, what this is all about?
I guess it depends on the definition of winning. I agree, people are going to take the side of who feeding them not who bombing them in to the stone age which pretty much were they were any way. Sad. A close Vet friend has alway said it be cheaper and safer for all if we just threw bales of money out the back of planes and then sold them the goods they want to buy.
jo6pac
sheerahkhan,
You've hit the nail on the head. I got kicked out of kindergarden b/c I wouldn't play games.
I was req'd to play First Battle in IOAC and in various training exercises and it always bored the hell out of me.
Do you have any wargames aimed at the COIN environment?
To answer your question- we reverse this trened by not playing war games.
jim
Anon,
Even defense presupposes depth to the battlefield and is a conventional concept.The defense I'm talking is UW/GW realities seen in all our recent nasty little wars.
The people have nothing to lose and everything to gain by simply running in place.Have you noticed that the insurgents dictate the pace of US COIN ops.? What does that tell you in Clausewitzian theory?
The idiocy of US policy astounds this Ranger.
jim
JO6PAC,
We should throw our leaders out of the back of airplanes and let them stay in the AO for years at a time and send them back repeatedly. In fact let them stay in AFGH/ IRQ since they love those people so much. Let them have the whole thing.
jim
i recommend a simultanious reading of "generation kill" and nathaniel fick's "one bullet away."
the platoon leader, and the embedded reporter, working apart from each other produced works which strongly corroborate each other's perceptions of events. in a war zone, that's very rare.
there are many moments of brilliant little sparks of insight.
one of my favorite is when sgt brad (iceman), expresses his disgust at the way the recon troops are being used. "we're truck drivers, not warriors."
Post a Comment
<< Home