Tuesday, 19 August 2003

War and Peace IV: The Quest for Superman. It's only taken me the better part of a month, but here's the fourth and final part of my fresher, cleaner, better outline of the War on Terror thus far. Read parts one, two and three first, and read Steven's original outline for a different view.

7. Results of military action in Iraq
1. We easily won the war…
1. Faster than a speeding bullet: America's real "shock and awe" tactic is the speed and autonomy of its armed forces.
1. Comprehensive takedown of Iraqi command and control structures, from stealthy special-forces raids to missile attacks on Saddam. With the Americans running an unexpected gambit—a full-thunder charge aimed directly at Baghdad—Saddam simply wasn't given time to mount an effective response.
2. American combat doctrine gives control and authority to commanders in the field, allowing tactical decisions on the fly. (We had a detailed plan for taking the city of Baghdad, which the general on the spot discarded in favor of simply rolling tanks up Baghdad's main street and parking them next to the television cameras.) Meanwhile, Iraqi forces were paralyzed as they lost access to senior Baath Party officials. (Link via Chief Wiggles.)
2. More powerful than a locomotive: The safest place to be during combat is inside an M1A1 Abrams tank.
1. The leading cause of death for M1A1 crew members in combat: Drowning (1). No opposing force has ever killed an Abrams tank crew member.
2. Anti-armor RPGs can disable the M1A1's treads (anti-personnel RPGs just scratch the paint), and there are conflicting reports on whether two Abrams were lost to anti-tank missiles in the recent fighting—but in all cases the crew escaped the tank without injury.
3. The M1A1 is the prime example, but American armor and weapons were vastly superior across the board.
3. Able to smash tall buildings with a single bomb: Precision-guided bombs and missiles are changing the battlefield.
1. If you live in a desert and have no air force, the USAF has got your number—it's programmed into one of their satellite-guided bombs. America's armed forces have now proven themselves twice vs. opponents with weak air defenses and limited terrain features.
2. Since 1991 the Air Force has equipped almost all its aircraft to carry precision munitions; one reason we didn't have a six-week bombing campaign is that one week of 2003 bombing did just as much damage.
3. Crew-fired weapons without air cover (e.g., tanks, artillery, etc.) are just targets waiting to die. Most of Iraq's forces were destroyed before coalition land forces even came within range.
4. …and Iraq didn't have any kryptonite.
1. The bottom line: We are rapidly reaching the point where conventional weapons plainly and simply don't work against the United States, even as a deterrent. America can clobber any conventional force in the world with ease.
2. This simple fact is driving the proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. North Korea, armed to the teeth with conventional weapons, is still not "safe" from America's armed forces.
3. All evidence to date suggests that Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1990s, that he retained the ability to make more (regardless of whether he fully destroyed the weapons he had created), and that he likely would have begun making them the moment international sanctions were lifted… but Saddam did not pose an imminent WMD threat, as members of the Bush Administration alleged.
2. …and we're struggling to win the peace.
1. Our only tool is a hammer.
1. America's forces are well-trained, well-equipped and well-prepared as an army of liberation. An occupation army requires more MPs, more translators, and most of all more troops. Shinseki was right, Rumsfeld was wrong.
2. Not having enough translators is especially telling. Our troops spent months in Kuwait, years in Saudi, surrounded by native speakers, we've known Iraq was coming for at least two years if not more… so why weren't buck privates learning Arabic in droves?
3. "Voice of Iraq" radio and television programming should have begun as soon as we seized control of the transmitters (with the announcement of plans to privatize state-owned media to follow). With a literacy rate of 40%, radio and television are much more important than newspapers in Iraq; we missed this and other opportunities to make a stronger first impression on the Iraqi people.
4. Killing Uday and Qusay proves once again that we can do the military part well, but doesn't address our ability to convert a culture to democracy.
2. Plenty of war-games, not enough peace-games.
1. Post-war planning should have been a cooperative effort between Defense and State, but intra-Cabinet rivalries prevented that from happening. Dubya resolved the impasse by putting the Pentagon in charge, but this is like solving inter-service rivalries by always letting the Army decide: Sometimes you don't get the best results that way.
2. We had elaborate contingency plans for all the possible military scenarios, but we didn't get much past "…and then a democracy springs fully formed from the desert sand" in our post-war planning. Third Infantry is improvising in the field (effectively, in many cases), but our efforts at nation-building suffer from a lack of forethought.
3. Our post-war playbook may have covered the worst-case scenarios (cholera epidemic, refugee crisis, famine, etc.) in more depth, but once again the doomsday predictions did not come to pass.
4. The hard left of American politics reflexively opposes what Dubya supports, abhors the use of military force, and underestimates America's performance on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the hard right's mantra is that dissent is treason, naysayers are America-hating Communist-sympathizing Saddam lovers, and so forth. This is not the free exchange of ideas that powers a democracy, and our post-war efforts are not informed or improved by these sentiments.
3. Bootstrapping a nation is harder than it looks.
1. Japan is the shining example of a "backward" nation that adapted Western tactics and leapfrogged to the top—but Japan was (is) a rigid, hierarchical culture, driven by a deliberate top-level decision to adopt Western technologies and methods of production. Iraq's culture is tribal and family-based, and has systemic problems with cronyism, corruption, and maintaining the rule of law.
2. The road from monarchy to democracy is well-traveled; the road from tribalism to democracy, less so. Democracy imposed on a tribal structure often degenerates into nepotism and one-party kleptocracy.
3. …but half a loaf is better than Saddam, whose Baath Party government was already the worst of the worst. Any change in Iraq's government represents an improvement.
4. Making a lasting change to Iraq's government and society will require a lot of time, effort, and patience. By building its case on shaky ground—by using the premise that Saddam posed an imminent WMD threat—the Bush Administration implied a short war (to remove the threat) and delivered a long one (to reform Iraq).
5. Bush now runs the risk that popular support for our Iraq commitment will fade before the 2004 elections. It was easier to make a case for war on the pretense that Saddam posed an imminent threat and was working hand-in-hand with Osama—but by doing so Bush neglected the more difficult and potentially stronger argument that Iraq was the key to a lasting solution for ending Mideast terrorism (as several right-wing pundits have claimed).
6. Congressional Democrats also did us a disservice by failing to debate any of Bush's premises for war, choosing instead to roll over and hope the subject changed to the economy. (It didn't.) By failing to test any of Bush's rationales in the crucible of democracy, the Democrats gave Bush a victory by default, weakened their 2002 election chances, and left us doubly unprepared for the post-war struggle to rebuild Iraq.
3. Mission accomplished?
1. Saddam is deposed, his sons are dead, and their reign of terror has (mostly) ended.
1. This is unquestionably a Good Thing. The only debate is whether Saddam could have been deposed more easily with sanctions or other soft-power pressures, and that question has been answered at length.
2. Many believe that war is always the wrong answer, that there must be peaceful ways to achieve our goals, and that our inability to peacefully remove Saddam from power was in itself a failure. History mocks these beliefs and is cruel to those who hold them; while we all may hope for a world without violence, wishing does not make it so.
2. Iraq is no longer exporting instability and terrorism.
1. …now we have terrorism inside Iraq, mounting daily attacks on our soldiers. It's only a matter of time before the first Khobar Towers-sized truck bomb.
2. On the other hand, state-sponsored terrorism has been dealt a double blow, first in Afghanistan and then Iraq; several signs that Syria et al. are backing away from direct support for terrorists, at least for now.
3. Positive effects on other nations in region.
1. Palestinians are at least entertaining the notion that their "suicide bombing" strategy is not working. Israelis and Palestinians are talking to each other again.
2. Liberal elements in Iran are challenging the theocrats' hold on power.
3. Calls for political reform in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
4. American military is stretched to its limits.
1. Our troop commitment in Iraq is more than we can sustain without suffering a gradual degradation of combat readiness. We do not have enough men and women in uniform to rotate the Third Infantry out of Iraq, and the prolonged overseas tours of duty are affecting maintenance schedules, marriages, training, morale, and re-enlistment rates.
2. Iraq deployment leaves us with fewer assets available to defend against North Korean threats, should the need arise.
3. With the "world's policeman" preoccupied in Iraq for the next five to ten years, the world could become a very interesting place. Bad news for innocents in Aceh, Chechnya, Burma, (Liberia?) and other places that in quieter times might be getting more attention.
8. The future
1. For Iraq, the question on the table is what we should do now.
1. Like it or not, we've invaded Iraq, toppled the government, and committed the bulk of our armed forces to this endeavor.
1. Maybe we shouldn't have invaded Iraq.
2. Maybe Bush shouldn't be President.
3. Maybe the Kansas City Royals shouldn't have won the '85 World Series.
4. Maybe we're past the point in time where debating these questions can have any impact.
5. The only value in re-fighting these fights is to let certain Democratic candidates (Howard Dean) show how they wouldn't have been rolled as quickly as their peers were.
2. Returning to the status quo ante is not possible or desirable.
1. We now have the duty to replace Saddam, since we took on the duty of overthrowing him.
2. Restoring him to power, or allowing him to regain power, would be an unthinkable breach of that duty.
3. Permitting another dictator to take his place, or allowing a fundamentalist theocracy, would be equally derelict.
4. America's founding premise is that governments derive power from the consent of the governed.
5. We must establish such a government in Iraq.
3. Building a stable democracy in Iraq will take a long time. Thirty years of Baath Party rule have weakened cultural pillars that support democracy, including these norms:
1. Force is not an acceptable means of settling political disputes. Anyone using violence to advance a political cause is automatically and universally condemned; the only valid use of force in the political arena is as a last-ditch response to tyranny.
2. The rule of law applies fairly, impartially, and consistently to all members of society. A crime is a crime, a contract is a contract, regardless of whether it's a cousin or a stranger, and regardless of the defendant's politics or religion.
3. Individual freedom is highly valued. People are allowed to choose their religion, speak their peace, decide on a career, and generally run their lives without interference or penalty.
4. Wealth is the reward of ambition and hard work, not the inheritance of power or blue-blood aristocracy. Anyone can enter the upper tiers of society, and precious few (if any) are guaranteed a berth.
4. America's success at building stable democracy in Iraq will depend on how well (and how quickly) we can establish these norms.
1. We need more troops. Fundamental security issues will block the establishment of these values: If we can't guarantee public safety, then we certainly can't guarantee the rule of law or the exercise of individual freedom.
2. "More troops" doesn't have to mean more American troops: Any nationality will do (including Iraqis), provided they embrace these core values and are prepared to defend them.
3. America's ability to impose a "no more violence" standard has been compromised by our role in the war: Iraqis are now being asked to make the fine distinction between resisting an evil tyrant (morally right) and resisting an occupying army (morally wrong, in this case).
4. Bush and team have largely failed in their efforts to recruit more peacekeepers from other nations, or to win the United Nations imprimatur that would bring relief to our troops.
5. High risk, high reward.
1. Rightly or wrongly, President Bush has made the high-stakes gamble that a pre-emptive strike on Iraq will reduce the threat of terrorism.
2. The gamble may pay off. Unlike Vietnam, which was literally a no-win scenario (the U.S. was fighting for a draw), the Iraq scenario has several possible outcomes which would meet the criteria for success.
3. The gamble may not pay off, in which case many American men and women will have died in vain.
4. By hyping Iraq's "imminent" WMD threat and playing up weak evidence of an Al Qaeda connection, Bush led the American people to believe the risks of not invading Iraq were greater than they actually were. The danger now is that those who were deceived, and who based their support for the war on Bush's unsupported claims, will turn their back on the entire effort once they learn the truth.
5. Those who supported the war for more solid reasons will continue to support it; the question is whether the war's supporters will remain in the majority. The depth and breadth of that support may be sorely tested in years to come.
9. We can still lose this war.
1. Our success depends on preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons—but our actions are having the opposite effect.
1. America's ever-increasing ability to crush conventional armies, and our growing contempt for the issues and concerns of other nations, sets the stage for increased deployment of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
2. The law of unintended consequences in action: Almost every nation on earth glanced at its conventional forces at the end of Gulf War II, and reached the same conclusion—tanks and planes are just cannon fodder to the Americans. If I want to deter Bush, I need nukes.
3. Go-it-alone unilateralism weakens international efforts to contain nuclear weapons. Discrediting the IAEA was not in our interest.
4. North Korea and Iran are fast-tracking nuclear development.
5. Rogue actors with nukes are the ultimate "lose" scenario for the United States. Sam Nunn is still the American Cassandra.
6. To date, nuclear weapons have remained beyond the grasp of non-state actors, requiring skills and materials that only a state has at its disposal. (Non-state actors have deployed chemical and biological weapons in the past.) As the number of nuclear-armed states goes up, so too does the risk that terrorists will have access to them.
2. Our success depends in no small part on how we're perceived abroad, especially in Iraq.
1. If we're seen as liberators, then our chances of success improve, and resistance to our efforts will diminish over time.
2. If we're seen as occupiers, then resistance to our efforts will continue and increase.
3. Our commitment to democratic principles at home affects how we're perceived abroad, and that commitment wavers each time a politician makes a short-term gain at democracy's expense:
1. Choosing our judges based on political litmus tests.
2. Short-changing debate because it's not politically expedient.
3. Eliminating taxes on inherited idle wealth.
4. Answering dissent with accusations of treason.
5. Invading privacy with Orwellian police powers.
6. Creating secret tribunals and special prisons.
7. Suspending and violating civil liberties.
4. We can't nurture democracy abroad and neglect it at home.
5. "Local" efforts by the troops may ultimately be the key to Iraq, but this only re-emphasizes the need for more troops.
3. Our success depends on continued public support for the Iraq reconstruction effort.
1. Popular support for toppling Saddam may have been higher than popular support for occupying Iraq, especially since WMDs and Al Qaeda links were emphasized as reasons for war. Now that Saddam's gone, the "imminent WMD threat" is obviously removed, and the "Al Qaeda links" are clearly dissolved—and the good reasons why our troops are still hanging around in Iraq and getting shot at are… what were they again?
2. In other words, Bush's case for invading Iraq was a bait and switch. The neo-con fantasy was a tough sell to a skeptical crowd, but the "Saddam has the Bomb!" scare tactic was an easy way to drum up support for military action.
3. If we lose popular support for occupying Iraq, the neo-con plans for remaking the Middle East will come crashing down in a jumbled mess.
4. Our success depends on having enough troops to get the job done.
1. Bush Administration still refusing to negotiate with France or Russia, righteously protecting the Iraqi people from unfavorable oil deals that might, oh, help get the electricity back on and diminish the attacks on our troops. (Meanwhile, Halliburton pockets another no-bid contract.)
2. We don't have enough troops to sustain this level of commitment. Something has to give soon; let's hope it's not our resolve.
3. Our best hope of success is that Bush swallows his hubris and does what's required to win at least NATO support.
5. Historically, America's interventions and nation-building projects have a mixed record: There have been some successes (e.g., Germany, Japan, Grenada), many failures (Cuba, Vietnam, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Guatemala), a few mixed results (the Philippines, Mexico), and one too early to tell (Afghanistan). We can only hope that our efforts in Iraq and the Mideast will be successful—but the road ahead may be longer or harder than we think.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 11:25 am. comments.