I find myself yet again playing jackal to Wretchard’s lion. In a recent post, Total War, Wretchard writes of the organizational and political challenges of modern warfare:
An interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor highlights some of the challenges of putting ‘more boots on the ground’ in Iraq. It turns to be a little more complicated than ordering more men into the theater. It means creating more units in the first place and structuring them differently.
He quotes Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld:
We’ll be bringing home some troops, we’ll be bringing home some dependents, we’ll be shifting our weight in various parts of the globe. And the emphasis will be not on numbers of things, but on capabilities. And we’ll be looking less to how many troops or how many tanks or how many planes are located in a certain spot and we’ll be focused more on precision, equipment, speed, agility, as opposed to mass and sheer numbers. And that’s going to be a hard thing for people to understand.
Wretchard continues:
The hardest thing to understand was that the old world — and the old military metrics had departed forever. During the First World War large horse cavalry masses were held in reserve for years in the expectation of a role which had already disappeared into history. Each transformational task that Rumsfeld faced had its analogue in the field.
I don’t fault the Administration for not planning for every contingency. I don’t fault the Adminstration for not armoring every vehicle. I don’t fault the Administration for having the wrong force structure for the conflict that we’re in (as Wretchard’s post suggests).
But I do fault the Administration for not trying harder to explain the conflict to the American people. If it’s hard to explain, try harder don’t avoid the subject. Do the spadework. Expend the political capital. Build the political support. That the Administration has not built enough political support for the War on Terror in general and the War in Iraq in particular is obvious. Just open any newspaper.
Perhaps it’s just me but I see an eerie analogy between America’s military actions in the field and the Bush Administration’s conduct of politics. More than a year ago rather than engaging the forces that opposed us, doing the house-to-house searches, taking the casualties, reducing the opposition, and bringing security to Iraq we allowed the oppposition forces to withdraw, dissolve, re-group, and harass our forces and Iraqi civilians ever since. Now we’re taking those forces on, first in Fallujah, then elsewhere.
Rather than making a strong case for war in Afghanistan and Iraq, building a domestic political coalitiion to support these actions, and then going to war the Administration has avoided making the case or building the coalition.
Have our military or Iraqi civilians taken fewer casualties as a result of our strategy there? I’d certainly like to see someone make that case. I’d also like to see someone make the case that failing to build a consensus of support for the Administration’s actions will enhance our ability to engage in a generation-or-more-long struggle against radical Islamist terrorism.
Jeebus. We aren’t fighting a maneuver war here, people. We’re fighting a counterinsurgency. What Rumsfeld and Wretchard are talking about is the former.
I’m aware of that, praktike. Let me ask you some questions. Do you believe that the Bush Administration has done an adequate job of mobilizing the American people for the efforts at hand let alone the efforts ahead? Has the Bush Administration developed consensual support? Do you believe that delaying the house-to-house action by a year reduced or increased the total number of U. S. casualties in the war in Iraq? The total number of civilian Iraqi casualties?
My view is that the troop mix is hard to get right because the enemy will keep adjusting. There is no magic mix that will make the porridge “just right.” Not having the 4th ID to sweep down from the north in the initial set up altered the mix and allowed the “insurgents” some breathing space. The delay before the last assault on Fallujah allowed the logistics chain to catch up and also provided time to build up some useful Iraqi forces. Both of these reduced, in my opnion, casualties both civilian and military.
On your earlier point, the US PR on the Iraq invasion has been uniformly poor. There are many good reasons to be there and we have had many successes, but overcoverage of Abu Ghraib, the “missing” explosive and the Marine who shot the “possum” have not helped get the more positive story out. Perhaps the moral is not to run wars during politcal season when most of the media is not on your side.
Perhaps the moral is not to run wars during politcal season when most of the media is not on your side.
That’s probably a pretty good summation of my point, EagleSpeak. But you have to go to war with the media you have and a little more political courage would help. It may be naive of me but I’ve got faith in the American people.
Dave,
I don’t think we’re diagreeing. I liked your points. And I agree that this administration needs to learn to trust that the people will understand the importance of the mission if it is explained well. And explained often enough to counter the long-faced “bad news bearers” of the MSM.
I understand the President is not world’s best orator, and his advisors may not like him to speak too often, but he can be pretty effective when he’s well prepared. Since the State Department seems unable (or more likely unwilling) to articulate support for the liberation of 30 million people, it’s up to Mr. Bush to make his case.
Judging by the reaction of Iran the bad guys already understand the importance of what’s happening in Iraq.
Do you believe that the Bush Administration has done an adequate job of mobilizing the American people for the efforts at hand let alone the efforts ahead?
No. They’ve portrayed the whole thing as cost-free. No tradeoffs. Shifting rationales.
Has the Bush Administration developed consensual support?
Not sure what you mean here.
Do you believe that delaying the house-to-house action by a year reduced or increased the total number of U. S. casualties in the war in Iraq?
Depends on what you mean by “house-to-house action.” If it means US troops storming into homes at 2 am, scaring a bunch of women and offending family honor, then I don’t think that’s so helpful because it leads to revenge killings. If it means standing up Iraqi commando units of mixed ethnic/sectarian makeup and having them do it, it’s probably good.
The total number of civilian Iraqi casualties?
I don’t know. I’ve heard military types say that there’s a lack of fire discipline among the kids. They’re jumpy. I think there are more civilian casualties than the military is letting on, but less than many are alleging.
Not sure what you mean here.
Did they develop a consensus of support for their actions before taking them?
Depends on what you mean by “house-to-house action.” If it means US troops storming into homes at 2 am, scaring a bunch of women and offending family honor, then I don’t think that’s so helpful because it leads to revenge killings.
I think it was obvious that there was no way to establish adequate security in Iraq without doing what was done (and is being done) in Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq from the very outset. It was obvious to me anyway. It’s one of the many reasons I thought the war in Iraq was imprudent. And the “revenge killings” point seems moot since we’ve gotten quite a bit of that over the last year.
If it means standing up Iraqi commando units of mixed ethnic/sectarian makeup and having them do it, it’s probably good.
Since that was not possible a year ago does that mean that you believe that the conduct of the occupation over the last year has been conducted properly?