This is an ongoing debate on KOW, but it sort of matters. I agree with David (in the comments below) that this century could be a very bloody one. But I was drawn to the provocative article David linked to, which complains:
‘our militaries are still structured to fight an industrial battle against a nonexistent Soviet enemy, and the political-military way of thinking about using force is still based on models of industrial war.’
The Soviet enemy may not exist. But states wielding military force aggressively, even irrationally, will continue to exist for some time, or will return sooner or later. Being prepared to deter and respond to conventional agressors did not become an eccentric or redundant task in 1989. In the time between then and now, Iraq invaded Kuwait, Ethiopia invaded Somalia, NATO attacked Serbia, America attacked Afghanistan and Iraq. In the final decade of the Cold War, Argentina invaded the Falklands and Iraq invaded Iran. These kinds of conflicts may be receding, but the dangers in even one are sufficiently serious to bear preparing for and, if possible, preventing.
To be sure, nuclear weapons, costs, the memory of past interstate wars and other things mean that it remains an activity bound to make many nervous. But part of the task of the US as hegemon should be to keep it that way, rather than falling prey to the delusion of ‘full spectrum dominance’ and the trap of endless, unwinnable expeditionary wars.
Moreover, things might change. To assume the obsolescence of state threats from a recent tendency for fewer, less decisive interstate wars in the past twenty years would be an unfortunate case of ‘presentism.’
So personally, I’m still not convinced that we should overhaul our militaries or states fundamentally away from their core task. Clearly we need to avoid dichotomous thinking – peacekeeping, liberal intervention, or the sheer unpredictability of war make flexibility imperative. But we should resist the logic that because the strategic environment will make ‘asymmetric methods’ more attractive, therefore we have no choice but to prepare to commit our forces to expeditions to deal with them.
We have choices, and a strictly limited view of when and where military force is appropriate is a more prudent response. Grand strategy is about the avoidance of war as much as the preparation for it, and as well as sharpening our military instrument, we need to keep thinking very carefully about how it is used.
In terms of the July War, the conflict used by Ilana Bet-El to plea for a post-industrial military posture, an alternative approach is possible. That war wasn’t profoundly new, other than in the particular sophistication of Hezballa. It has never been a great idea to attack a population indiscriminately, stir up shared religious-nationalist opposition, alienate world opinion and weaken your military mystique (ask Napoleon, ask Brezhnev). Israel had the right to use some force against Hezballa’s persistent rocketing and kidnapping, but surely the wrong reaction to that war is to conclude, ‘let’s reform ourselves to fight it better next time.’ The strategic lesson should be, ‘try not to do it.’
Finally, we should avoid declaring certain forms of war ‘dead.’ We have had quite enough of this shallow, overconfident kind of futurology. As William Pitt found after 1792, and Norman Angell after 1912, this can look a bit embarrassing in hindsite.
Wednesday, 9, July, 2008 at 2:24 pm |
Iraq, Kuwait, Ethiopia, Somalia… which one of these countries individually or in aggregate adds up to anything like the sort of threat which the Soviet military–large, well-equipped, relatively well-trained and, in its hey-day, well-led? I don’t deny that there is a plausible case to be made for the continuing threat of high-intensity conventional war. Frank Hoffman sometimes describes the US military as a one-armed cyclops with a massive club. Which is great when you have an adversary who places himself in your limited field of view and invites you to club him, but it really sucks when you send your cyclops against an adversary who does not so oblige. In effect, here is where I think the nub of our disagreement lies, I think the sort of army you suggest we preserve (actually, revive) generates very little security. You say ‘Israel had the right to use some force against Hezballa’s persistent rocketing and kidnapping, but surely the wrong reaction to that war is to conclude, “let’s reform ourselves to fight it better next time.” The strategic lesson should be, “try not to do it.”‘ I think this is backwards: it rests on the idea that you can always choose your enemies and your ground when that is not so.
Wednesday, 9, July, 2008 at 3:57 pm |
Fair enough. Several points here:
a) I’m not claiming state threats must be comparable to the scale of the Soviet Union to be a danger. I’m saying that states with conventional forces must be the main priority for long-term strategic and military planning. You don’t hugely disagree on this point, but you do see the post-Soviet era as a terminus, whereas I’m less than convinced.
b) its in the area of choice (or ‘initiative’) where we disagree, as you say. Much as I admire the serious efforts to turn things around in Iraq, I don’t think we should get into the habit of sending the cyclops into backyards of dangerous states to root out terrorists/insurgents. It is far too expensive, unpredictable, and ties down the cyclops, leaving it less capable of responding to/deterring the main antagonists.
c) I absolutely agree that you can’t ALWAYS choose the enemy or the ground, and what you say is an important corrective. But you can exercise much greater and more prudent choice. Israel did not, absolutely did not, have to escalate its war against Hizballa into escalating bombardments of civilian areas (I know there was some false propaganda there, but some it still happened). It did not have to send its ground forces into terrain heavily fortified by a well-trained, well-led, well-funded, richly armed enemy. Powers like the US and Israel can choose not to carry a war into certain ground. That doesn’t mean there is no role for force. But there is a role for a little more restraint.
Moreover, even if the cyclops were hugely better at fighting these so-called ‘wars amongst the people’, many of those wars are still likely to be unwinnable, protracted and inflame other crises. Bottom line, some wars are just dumb to fight no matter how refined your instrument.
d) Something you will know about that me, would value your view on this aspect of the thing: I’m not confident that we can turn the Cyclops into the armed wing of the Red Cross while retaining its overwhelming capability. There must be costs to shifting a military from one overriding priority to lots and lots of complicated, often unrealistic, and exhausting types of missions. I know this is deeply intellectually lowbrow, but some campaigns such as the Falklands or Gulf War One, with a few different decisions by the enemy and a slightly less capable military, could have different and really bad outcomes.
Wednesday, 9, July, 2008 at 3:58 pm |
I don’t know why that ‘winking’ icon just appeared. Although it does look sexy.
Wednesday, 9, July, 2008 at 10:06 pm |
At the risk of engaging in exactly the type of futurology that leaves me looking like an idiot:
1. The argument that the US will face one type of foe at the expense of another misses the point of how any foe will likely choose to fight America for the foreseeable future. Jihadists in Iraq are not the only ones out there who have noticed that fighting America via asymmetric warfare works better. For the foreseeable future we need to be prepared for conventional foes to fight the US unconventionally. Further, as Iraq has proven, what starts out as a conventional war often does not end that way.
2. Equipping US soldiers for COIN does not decrease their ability to continue slicing through conventional armies like a knife through butter. Most of the commentary I’ve read from US soldiers suggests they consider COIN to be the grad school equivalent of combat. It doesn’t mean your forget how do do the other stuff.
3. Recruiting and training more soldiers capable of doing COIN means a higher level of forces that can be deployed to train others. This is what the Special Forces does best, and the more effort and energy the US expends training allies – like Colombia and the Philippines – to fight their own battles the less chance it will have to send the cyclops into their backyard.
4. In terms of military spending – AC-130s vs. F-22s – I’m not suggesting we bag the latter. But if I had to guess, I’d expect the former are going to come in for a lot more use in the foreseeable future.
Thursday, 10, July, 2008 at 11:20 am |
The discussion so far has brought some very interesting points but I just wanted to add after Iran last missile trials that in case they do decide to show the world how strong they are, the kind of war that can result is exactly the combination of a conventional and a none conventional war that is the main type of war that America should be ready to fight.
Thursday, 10, July, 2008 at 1:53 pm |
COIN may be the grad school of war, but it does degrade the fundamentals of fighting a maneuverist fight.
Several years ago many viewed High Intensity Conflict as the most tough type of war to fight, and that if you properly prepared for HIC, you would have the required skills for a Low Intensity Conflict/COIN fight.
This type of thinking has been proven completely wrong.
Now I fear we are in danger of making the same mistake, by claiming that COIN is the most difficult type of war and that if you are properly prepared to undertake COIN, you are automatically equipped to fight a HIC/Maneuver fight. On an individual level, this may be true, or it might not be. But one thing is undoubtable: That the modern battalion and regimental/brigade staffs are NOT trained to do fundamental tasks like Fire Support Planning, operating in a CBRN environment, and operating with degraded or nonexistant communications while conducting a Movement to Contact. These are fundamental abilities that have been perilously degraded.
We need to maintain core capabilities in both aspects of war: HIC & LIC. Neither is a grad school of war, and being prepared for one does not make you able to flight the other.
Thursday, 10, July, 2008 at 3:11 pm |
Mr Eagle,
You comments about the ‘degrading’ (gawd, I hate these nonwords, like attrit and others) are well taken. Two points, by way of illustration:
1. In the Canadian army, for example, there was a time just after 2000 when it was decided that ‘The Defence’ should no longer be taught, because it was not an operation or phase of war that would likely be encountered on a large scale. The time in training and doctrinal development would be better spent on other, more common and pressing issues. Fair enough. However, it was soon discovered (predicted, I am sure, by some who were paying close attention) that key skills, such as the ability to conduct ‘defensive’ tasks, like siting camps properly, like conducting convoy operations, like siting machine guns and other direct fire weapons, which were used in both the ‘offense’ and the ‘defense’, were also being ‘degraded’. By focusing on the what was perceived to be the future, the good aspects of the ‘past’ were neglected.
2. Also in the Canadian context, the Army in 1997 responded to a massive flood. It was the largest internal deployment of troops in the history of the country. Anyway, it was decided, in the absence of any other framework, to tackle the problem of the flood, as a ‘conventional operation’. So, conventional structures and procedures were used, to ridiculous effect. First, because infantry battalions are ’supported’ by engineering squadrons in war, this arrangement continued. An engineering major gave advice and techical support to an infantry lieutenant colonel on how to accomplish what were clearly civil engineering tasks. Perhaps it would have been better to break with convention and have the engineers plan and lead the show, with the infantry and other ‘combat arms’ provide the muscle. Second, it was decided that the threat during the flood was the water (wow, some mission analysis) and since threats were handled by the intelligence section, they were tasked with tracking and reporting on the water, with the infamous ‘Crest’ as the most wanted info requirement. Well, the poor int guys had no clue how to handle this task, other than with their existing methods of working. The subsequent reporting was time consuming and, frankly, useless. Perhaps having civilian weather or environment experts from the provincial government sitting in the ‘int van’ would have been a better option. By focusing on the what was good from the past, the new aspects of the ‘present’ were neglected. What was worse, in the follow up after action reports, leaders dismissed observations to make changes, because a flood was described as a ‘non-standard’ operation, a freak occurence not worth changing routines over.
Thursday, 10, July, 2008 at 3:48 pm |
Faceless Bureaucrat-
The plus-upping of my Beltway-NonSpeak will not be occuring in the future.
Your complaint has been noted.
This reminds me of a story at The Basic School. A fellow Lt, recognizing at the time that he was living in a verbal petri-dish, decided to pollute the vocabulary further. In a field problem he decided to use the word “Flankal Security,” meaning security to the flanks, of course. Soon, use of the word “Flankal” continued among students and instructors until some LtCol heard the word and gave us a lecture on the decline and fall of the English language.
Perhaps the Queen’s English should be taught as a core warfighting skill…
-SE
Thursday, 10, July, 2008 at 10:56 pm |
The question is do what Mao Zedong did and develop a offensive war theory that allows a western military to readily switch between mechanize offensive warfare to defensive guerrilla warfare to mobile guerrilla offensive warfare to mobile mechanize defensive warfare. Like a full spectrum warfare but based on a bottom up mentality instead of the slavish obsession to the top down mentality that hurt the US Army for so long in Iraq.
Right now the US Army is in no way capable of holding off a well planned and executed Iranian mechanized offensive war into Southern Iraq or Afghanistan on a short term bases. The US military has switch to the current role of COIN operation but do to the lack of the ability to rapidly adapt through new/better tactics of this kind of threat the US Army would have to rely on the USAF for weeks as they try to scramble together all their units. The reality is that the very thing that could stop the Iranians on the ground is there a well dispersed military highly trained highly equipment with nearly unbreakable esprit de corp. These units could stop any Iranian invasion in the dozens of small and medium cities in Iraq as the Soviets did to the Germans on the Ost front in 42-43 and as the Germans did in turn on the Eastern and Western fronts by 44-45. Loosely controlled and well supplied small units of mobile infantry and combat support personal would quickly out smart and out maneuver any large offensive force in an urban environment (Stalingrad, Berlin, Hue, Grozny). What is lacking is the basic E&E skills and the understanding that you can fight alone as a squad as well as a company or battalion. It comes down to training or lack there of and the understanding that combat includes all soldiers not just combat arms and that each soldiers is capable of providing combat and support knowledge to best lead or follow on any given mission.
In Afghanistan NATO and US Troops could hold Herat and Kandahar but would have to trade large chunks of southern Afghanistan (Soviets 41-43) as they move a bulk of their units in the north further south to fight a more open offensive mechanized war with out the use of any real heavy armor (Denmark and Afghan forces are the only ones that was tanks there). This would allow a better use of the flat and open areas of southern Afghanistan by a highly mobile NATO/US force harassing Iranian armor and infantry units (North Africa 42-43, Iraq 91 and 03).
The deal is that we can switch from the idea of a Industrial warfare to a asymmetric warfare and back through better training and looser control of units through out Iraq and Afghanistan. As the same time be able to switch from defensive to offensive asymmetric warfare or from Defensive to offensive mechanize warfare. Mao Zedong started on this theory and worked extremely well for the Chinese. We need but take what they learned compare it to what we know and learn and expand upon these ideas to allow for better.
Friday, 11, July, 2008 at 4:58 pm |
The wars that we are discussing broke out due to different reasons (or the wrong reasons).
E.g.
- 2006 Lebanon war – kidnapping of Israeli border troops
- Chechnya – separatist movement
- 2003 Iraq war – wrong reason, no WMD
Armed forces (and perhaps more importantly, politicians) have to learn when to use force, and when not to use it…
On a related note, some of the work that the armed forces are doing should be done by the police…