I’ve been agnostic on the issue of a troop surge that’s been kicked around Washington in the last several weeks, at least as it has been described thus far and at least partly because I’m ill-qualified to speak on the issue of ground force end strength. That hasn’t seemed to stop anyone else however, including various pundits and retired general officers, none of whom speak with any degree of consensus. With all that in mind I thought I might as well plunge right in.
On one end of the force strength spectrum is the inherently time-limited “double down” strategy – putting all the personnel chips on the table, in other words. Although this would seem to provide the greatest short-term chance for success, it smacks of solving 2004’s perceived problem – insufficient occupational troop strength in the post-major combat operations phase – with today’s already stretched resources.
If we faced the same problem we were facing after Bagdhad fell – a nationalist Ba’athist insurgency augmented by a growing al Qaeda/foreign jihadi threat – a double down strategy might well make more sense. But rather than stamping out an insurgency it seems to me that we are mostly straining to prevent committed sectarian partisans from slaughtering eachother’s constituents.
Quashing insurgencies takes time, often lots of it. Once we’d launched down an all or nothing path, the clock would be ticking – the American people would not support an open-ended committment of nearly all the country’s ground combat power even if such a deployment was morally sustainable in an all-volunteer force or strategically wise given our other global concerns.
On the other side of the force spectrum, the status quo of rotational deployments – although psychologically and materially draining – is nevertheless sustainable, at least over the medium term. But that strategy has not shown the kind of success its proponents hoped for, especially after last February’s Samarra Golden Mosque bombing by Sunni-allied terrorists finally goaded the Shi’a masses beyond endurance.
It is now clear that the only thing standing between the Sunni revanchists and Shi’a militants engaging in a bloody civil war, with regular lines and definable military objectives – and with the Kurds standing on the sidelines cheering for both sides to lose – is coalition military power: If either side attempted to field a force-in-being of sufficient mass to accomplish operational objectives it would be quickly be destroyed in detail by massed coalition air-ground power. But as we’ve seen, losing American lives to prevent Iraqi’s from killing each other comes attached to a difficult moral calculus: Exactly how many lives do we owe in forfeit to a people whose government we “broke”? At what point does their desire to murder each other outweigh our ability to stop them? And is the status quo, with all its attendent suffering, really the worst case for them or for ourselves? There are no simple answers to any of these questions, and the last is essentially unknowable.
But if doubling down is too risky and standing pat is unpalatable, what are the other options? The unveiling of the Iraq Study Group’s compendium of “realist” recommendations on the political stage has forced the administration to formulate at least a political response and now we are told to expect an augmentation of some 20,000 troops as a part of the President’s new strategy.
Now, I am no master of land combat and you can take my thoughts on troop strength in a part of the world I’ve only seen from 25,000 feet with a large grain of salt, but I was and am concerned that such politically induced baby splitting might in fact be worse than maintaining the status quo. It might be just enough to finally break the rotational force without being sufficient to suppress the bloodshed, in other words.
With that in mind, there are a couple of must-reads in the WSJ today, the first on the editorial page itself:
President Bush is set to announce his new strategy for Iraq this week, and the early signs are that it will include both more American and Iraqi troops to improve security, especially in Baghdad. We think the American people will support the effort, as long as Mr. Bush treats this like the all-in proposition it deserves to be.
If the stakes in Iraq are as great as Mr. Bush says–and we believe they are–then he should commit whatever forces are needed to achieve success. The public’s support for the Iraq campaign is waning, in major part because the casualties and expense have been producing no visible progress. Even with Democrats running Congress, Mr. Bush has a political window to pursue a more robust security strategy. The paradox is that the fastest way home from Iraq is a bolder commitment now.
That’s only a taste, and you really ought to read the whole thing before going on to today’s featured editorial (behind a subscription wall, alas) by Bing West and Eliot Cohen. The journals editors disagree with West and Cohen as to whether Nouri al-Maliki should be presented an ultimatum, but they are significantly silent on a point that I have raised before:
Sadr City cannot remain of limits. When the death squads know they are hunted, many will flee the city. Others will fight back. Intense violence, however, cannot sustain itself. American forces fought Mr. Sadr’s milita in April and August of 2004. In both cases, all-out war by the Mahdi Army petered out due to lack of logistics. In both cases, the Shiite population stood to one side. We created a monster by letting Mr. Sadr go free twice. We cannot make that mistake a third time.
Maliki’s Iraqi troops are now engaged in combat with Sunni insurrectionists in western Bagdhad, part of an ostensible campaign to clear the city of all militias. If his intention is to even-handedly pursue that strategy, it makes sense from both a military and domestic political perspective for him to first secure his rear by clamping down hard on Sunni neighborhoods before squaring off with Sadr’s Mahdi army. For that, he’ll probably need the help of an augmented coalition force, one sufficient to not merely clear the city’s warrens but also to hold, and then rebuild them.
If, on the other hand, this is just another campaign of sectarian point-settling, there will probably never be a political solution and perhaps the time will have come to pull back into cantonment – or else fortify both the eastern and western borders – and let them have their little civil war.
It’s about time they started rounding up/ killing the bad guys.
I’ll wait and see what the man whom I voted for in ‘04 proposes, and IF his offerings even include more ground troops as part of a “surge” or as proponents of cut n’run call it-”escalation”. IMO, I think his plan will be multi-faceted and include economic and political incentives as well as a push to secure the porous eastern/western borders, clear Bagdad and give those weary of the insurgency an alternative.
Even just cleaning out Sadr City of all it’s Rats Nests would be worth the effort because every Jihadist we kill over there is one less we’ll have to face somewhere else tommorrow.
If the administration’s offerings are not “bolder”, than it’s more of the sickening same. On the other hand, if the U.S. were to follow the recommendations of the ISGR, then the clock simply ticks until Israel (the leverage w/Syria/Iran in the ISG report), attacks Iran with nucs out of self-preservation. And if/when that happens we will have unleashed the big dogs of war through our own inaction…
What about the Democratic majority in the Congress on all this? Beyond the posturing and nitpicking, their horizon is only the ‘08 election and a President Obama/Hillary. I say if Israel attacks Iran w/nucs, who cares about a pissant election?
B2
“If, on the other hand, this is just another campaign of sectarian point-settling, there will probably never be a political solution and perhaps the time will have come to pull back into cantonment – or else fortify both the eastern and western borders – and let them have their little civil war.”
Frankly, I think that is what we have come to. At some point, it might have been prudent to “surge forces” to clear specific areas. I am not sure that the window for that opportunity has not already passed.
I’ve been thinking, no military strategist my self, that it may be time to use the situation to our advantage. Part of the issue here is that the Iranians are trying to gain significant influence in Iraq as well as hoping to keep us so busy there we don’t have time or the inclination to deal with their nuclear ambitions as well as keep a significant amount of money and resources from crossing their borders to the “reformists”.
I have thought that the forces we need should be additional training forces for the Iraqi military as well as engineers. But, I’m not sure I agree a “surge” is necessary so much as looking at our mix and what kind of forces we are developing state side (ie, training our own guys, billets available, etc).
I am thinking we should reduce our commitment there in order to create a vaccuum that might pull in even more Iranian money and sunni Islamists who think the Shia are great apostates or traitors, etc. for all of Iran’s petro dollars, it’s the only thing fueling their economy and supporting the government. So, if they start spending more in Iraq, they may quickly find themselves in a deficit that could shake their government to the core while at the same time letting them kill each other.
I’m not suggesting abandoning Iraq. Simply, that we put our money and resources in a different direction and allow the Iranians an opportunity to bankrupt themselves.
At the same time, with the additional “lawlessness” that may arise, we use the cover to infiltrate..ahem..I mean, provide some sustanence to the anti-regime crowd back the other way through the obviously open Iranian borders.
Put more money into the Iraqi government forces. Allow the Saudi’s to continue supporting the Sunni. Let them drain their money and man power.
Then, do the Stalingrad Stomp (more recently used in Fallujah). In short, pull back, suck in the money and the people, then provide a very robust “support” for the Iraqi government forces.
The fact of the matter is, the Iraqi government is not seen as having a monopoly on large scale violence nor the ability to protect. It is difficult to protect against a bomb here and a shooting there. It can’t be stopped anymore than pre-empting a bank robbery. What you need to have happen is for the bad guys to actually coalesce into a more solid group with a fixed position (ie, the Ruskies pulled back from Stalingrad, allowed the German’s to come in and declare victory. Then the Ruskies encircled them, stomping them to pieces before they surrendered thousands upon thousands).
While it might not physically look the same as the Stalingrad Stomp (no one is going to be gung ho about bombing any city into the ground these days; those days are passed), we could have a similar effect allowing the Iraqi government forces a much larger role in maintaining and controlling their country. We would surge money, supplies and training to the government at a critical point and then stand back while they commited some serious violence (we could occassionally protest, but insist as others do that the Iraq is a sovreign nation that makes it’s own rules).
This may sound “cold war” in strategy, but i believe the truth is no one has ever beat an insurgency through number of forces. So, I am willing to go “outside the box” to look at other potential strategies in finishing Iraq.
I’d like to see a “surge” in the right kind of troops – not just infantry, but troops capable of training and oversight; setting up an infrastructure for the country is all well and fine, but if you don’t have a separate and stronger infrastructure for the government and their own military and law enforcement, then what is the point?
AND for the guys on the ground already and the incoming, change the ROE so they CAN clear out Sadr City, deal with Fallujah and Tikrit and just take the heat to them.
Web Reconnaissance for 01/09/2006…
A short recon of what?ǂ
Web Reconnaissance for 01/09/2006…
A short recon of whats out there that might draw your attention….
Let’s reduce this issue to a local comparison. If you have a neighborhood rife with violent crime, you can send in more police as a short-term solution. Of course that reduces your ability to properly police the remainder of your jurisdiction. This will soon overtask your personnel, resources and budget absent a significant increase in the overall size of your force throughout your jurisdiction. The criminal element will soon learn to shift their activities to areas in which the police are not deployed in sufficient numbers to pose a deterrent.
Bottom line: The local residents must want law, order and a peaceful existence rather than life in an area infected with a huge crime rate. No reports, at least in the media, suggest that the majority of Iraqis have chosen the former over the latter.
For the second time in my lifetime, we have a case in which politicians are attempting to use the military as the hammer with which to force a round peg through a square hole. Western ideology and mores translate no easier to the Muslim nations than they did in Southeast Asia.
Any “new” plan must include a realistic assessment of the will of the Iraqi people.
In the future, let us remember that the mission of the United States’ Armed Forces is to export violence; to fight and win our wars. They are neither trained nor equipped to serve a police officers in a region in which every home is permitted to own an AK-47, and RPG’s are as plentiful there as TV’s are here.
If the decision is to remain in Iraq, we should consider ourselves to be in a street fight; you don’t knock your enemy on his butt, then patch him up, build him a new house, and give him a job. Leave that to the U.N.
Maybe I have too simple a vision, here it is. With a Gi on every corner and one in the middle of the block, where are the bad guys going to hide?
Sen McCain: we need significantly more troops.
Colin Powell: use overwhelming force.
USMC grunt: you can really reach out and touch someone with a 50cal.
Phil Andrilla: do it, do it now Mr. President.