Login HereCounterinsurgency skeptic Gian Gentile -- one of the most interesting defense thinker/practitioners in the U.S. Army -- has a tremendously valuable essay on the myths and the reality of the surge in the new issue of World Affairs.
For surge enthusiasts, there is no such thing as declaring victory too soon. Historically, in order for a counterinsurgency to succeed, the counterinsurgent force must operate in a society with a relatively cohesive identity and alongside a government that possesses at least some measure of legitimacy—two conditions plainly spelled out in the new counterinsurgency manual. Neither apply to Iraq, where ministries operate by sect rather than by function, sectarian hatreds have gone well beyond the point where “hearts and minds” campaigns will dampen them, and only a decades-long American occupation can prevent the country from coming apart at the seams. We are fighting an insurgency; they are fighting a civil war. In 2006, a Sunni brigade commander in the Iraqi National Police (a rarity in the Shia-dominated force) told me, shortly after the destruction of the Samarra mosque, that it would take “400 years” for Iraq to resolve this war. Recent history suggests that for Americans even ten years might be too long.
Whoa! Don't tell that to David Brooks! He knows so much more about the surge than this puny former Baghdad battalion commander and two-Iraq-tour veteran.
Additionally: Gian also makes points that speak directly to the current debate within the Army about whether it's focusing too much or not enough on counterinsurgency. I'll be honest and say I go back and forth on that question, and want to do some additional reporting before I weigh in one way or the other. In any event, get ready for the inevitable -- and inevitably valuable -- response pieces at Abu Muqawama and Small Wars Journal. Guys?
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I don’t even think it would qualify as debatable that the US will be forced to prematurely (by the standards of COIN objectives) withdraw from Iraq by public sentiment.
You can argue the merits, possibilities of success, etc all you like. What you can’t argue is that ANY circumstance exists which under which it would be possible for the US to be being willing to see that through for (say) 5-10 year from this point. There isn’t one.
Afghanistan maybe. But not Iraq.
Kilo:
George Bush has only himself to blame for that.
Er… no. A convenient explanation, but like I said, you can’t propose a situaton where you would support such a campaign. Take a president you were happy with, an intervention you were happy with, then recall how little it took to secure those exits.
Like I said, even Afghanistan’s only a maybe.
Hi Spencer,
In the same issue of World Affairs, Robert Kagan has a… perhaps provocative is the best word… essay arguing that the Founding Fathers were essentially the first neoconservatives. I’d be interested in your thoughts on that.
-James F. Elliott
But the expansion of the Occupied Territory is working!
Actually, there is a circumstance. If the Republics retain power and continue to reap great quantities of plunder, they will have no problem allowing the children of others to remain in Iraq for years to come.
You know there’s a certain irony to the fact that the man who wrote the ‘book’(FM) on COIN ops is in charge of the fiasco! Too bad he threw it out…!
But for a few words, you could almost believe this post is about what is going on in America under the Bush Administration:
The fact that the administration was seemingly unaware of the fact that Iraq was not a monolitic country of “Ay-rabs” the vast majority of whom were not X-tian is borne out by Gentile’s essay. Hell, McVain can’t even keep the facts straight with respect to that small detail.
I suspect that the sentiment “the only good Arab is a Dead Arab” was expressed more than once in the Oval Office after 9/11, and it probably came from #1 and #2 themselves. They have never had any desire to understand the country and people they conquered… the just figured that with a large enough military hammer they’d eventually “win” whatever that means.
Our enemy’s state strategy for defeating us is not body count, which McCain says we’re winning, but economic attrition. “We will bankrupt them.” And, at the strategic level, we are losing. This war is costing $12B/month up front and five times that much in long-term obligations, e.g., interest and healthcare for wounded vets. And that burden is wrecking our economy. A dollar now buys only half as many Euros as it did when Bush was elected.
Cool. I’ll check it out. Didn’t he already write that for TNR?
Why not just say you’d like to dodge the point.
Meanwhile February draws closer still. Now I’m not entirely sure the change that ushers in won’t just be people then having to argue that “if McCain hadn’t been defeated by Obama then the republicans in power would have….”
You know, just like the change we saw with the house and senate.
“A dollar now buys only half as many Euros as it did when Bush was elected.”
You don’t want to be citing things like that as meaningful 5 months before a democrat is elected. Apart from the fact there’s a billion other factors outside the oval office, trust me, your economy’s gonna do a lot worse next year.