I commend to you his article in the current edition of Armed Forces Journal, "Forget the lessons of Iraq".
Among defense intelligentsia, there are few mantras more chic than that which claims the U.S. military “forgot the lessons of Vietnam.” Had it not done so, received wisdom insists, America’s armed forces would not have struggled in Iraq for so long. Powerful adherents to this theory have spawned a follow-on analog, that we must not “forget the lessons of Iraq.”General Dunlap's point in the article is that we should not take the war in Iraq, and our apparent success, as the paradigm for future wars. Already Afghanistan is proving to be different. And, the Russian attack on Georgia was different from either Iraq or Afghanistan. And, Israel's war in Gaza is different from those three and from its war in Lebanon two years ago.
Unfortunately, some of the key lessons these enthusiasts believe should be learned are the wrong ones, and these mistaken ideas are causing America’s military to be altered in ways that may prove troubling as the U.S. faces an increasingly complex and dangerous range of security threats.
Indeed, the devotees of the forgot-the-lessons-of-Vietnam philosophy have become so ascendant that they might be said to form the New Establishment of defense strategists. The New Establishment is especially strong in the Army. As a result, much of the service is being reconceptualized into a constabulary force in which nation-building and stability operations all but trump force-on-force war fighting.
The last paragraph contains an important warning.
Recalling the timeless lesson President Eisenhower’s words evoke could illuminate our thinking: “Every war is going to astonish you in the way it has occurred and in the way it is carried out.” Relying on the experience in just one kind of conflict to redefine America’s military carries the dangerous potential to have the nation learn the harsh lessons of defeat on tomorrow’s battlefields where the enemy chooses not to fight as Iraqi insurgents did.The fact is, the enemy does get a vote and a smart enemy will be looking for new and better ways to fight the United States. We need to understand that and prepare for that. I used to have a sign in my office at Ramstein AB, FRG, that said something along the lines of "The side that wins the next war will not be the one best prepared for Day One, Wave One, but the one that learns the fastest from Day One, Wave One." We need the depth of capability that comes from good education, good training and good materiel and from a broad vision of what the next war might be like.
And, of course, the views expressed in this article are his and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, the Defense Department or the U.S. government.
Regards -- Cliff
I agree, the stock market admonition that "past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results" is especially pertinent in the innovation-rewarding game of armed conflict. History is rife with examples where forces fighting the last war were annihilated by others fighting the next one. Trenches to tanks to helicopter gunships, each innovation requires new adaptation, and that will likely never, ever change.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do also believe that the "lessons" of assymetrical warfare against a motivated civilian population are consistent enough to be kept in mind when fielding a standing army on foreign soil. Our own revolutionary war has enough in common with our experience in Vietnam to remind us that not everything old fails to be new again. Different from tactics, the strategy required for entering someone else's country with a foreign army must remain respectful of past lessons, and never fail to realize that the only liberators who are ever welcomed are the ones who are known to be just passing through. Any tactician who thinks they can change the immutable essence of tribalism/nationalism and patriotism through force of arms is destined to fail. That, to me, is the lesson we failed to remember, and it's the one I'm hopeful Iraq will burn into our minds for the next time. (Of course, cynicism being what it is, if we forgot it once, there's nothing to say we won't forget this, too...)
Kad,
ReplyDeleteAnd here's more food for thought about that very idea you brought up at the end -- maybe Iraq *sobered* us to that reality before we got ourselves into something even more difficult. As a thought experiment, let's imagine we really did have the Dick Cheney/Richard Perle scenario of roses thrown at our soldiers' feet in 2003 and then a bunch of constitutional liberal Iraqi Democrats sitting around smoking pipes and reading Tocqueville and Jefferson on the banks of the Tigris by now.
If that had actually happened, I'm willing to bet it would've been relatively easy to garner enough domestic/congressional support for some Shock and Awe in Tehran...and who knows, we might now be mired in a country twice the size of Iraq with three times the population, a way more capable military, a more militant and mobilized populace, more hostile terrain, and a more ready and willing army of ideological opponents to the United States willing to die for their cause.
I have no idea what the right answer on Iran is. There are plenty of good reasons for and against all the available policy options.
But I guarantee you that our experience in Iraq (and Afghanistan, too, as that unfolds in its own direction) will act as a major *check* on an entire generation of policymakers who've lived and dealt with Op. Iraqi Freedom..
best,
gp
My sense of Iraq, and why success there might not have been a forerunner of an invasion of Iran is that the Bush Administration probably used the "Goldilocks Criteria" to pick Iraq as the target.
ReplyDeleteThat is to say, they wanted to do something to upset the locked-in stability in the Near and Middle East, in order to bring about the right kinds of change, including eventual changes in Saudi Arabia. (But, with our dependence on Saudi Arabia for oil and support in international fora, who would say that we were trying to change Saudi Arabia? Easier to say Iran.)
So, they looked at Libya and said, "Too Small." They looked at Iran and said, "Too Big." Then they looked at Iraq and said, "Just Right."
Regards -- Cliff