It’s relatively easy to tell whether or not you’re winning or losing in a fighter, especially in 1v1 BFM. If, over time, the adversary is marching forward on your canopy and you’re seeing more tail than nose, you’re winning. Conversely, the more of his nose you see aft of your wingline, the beatener you’re getting.
It’s a little harder in the GWOT, where generally improving trends are punctuated by shocking episodes of violence. In the Weekly Standard, Frederick Kagan sketches out what winning will look like, for those willing to be impressed more by the evidence rather than their preference.
Frederick Kagan is a special pleader here-as are all of his articles since about mid 2006. He has a vested interest in being proved right-since the surge and most of the Iraq war is his baby.
Let’s start with his first statement-”Virtually everyone who wants to win this war agrees that success will have been achieved when Iraq is a stable, representative state that controls its own territory, is oriented toward the West, and is an ally in the struggle against militant Islamism, whether Sunni or Shia.”
Idiot. Very few of the serious and concientious critics of the administration’s decision to go down this path disagree with his statement. What they find astounding is that Kagan can create proof that his pre-conditions are being met. Especially when he just blythly ignores some pretty telling evidence that exactly the opposite of his pre-conditions for “victory” are being met.
Phrased another way-he has way too much faith in the Iraqi’s that is not well justified by their track record to date. Furthermore-two of his principal assertions, that Iraq has become more stable and that it is allied with the West are at odds with the available data. Violence remains at a stready state rate of about 30 Americans killed a month and an injured rate 3 times that (the only number that really matters BTW)-and it has really never dropped below that number.
As for his other point-alliance with the West-that too is not exactly proved right by the empircal evidence.
The real issue that I just refuse to let slide is that people who do not see the facts as he does, are somehow advocating “defeat” or refusing to to look at the facts. The real truth is that for every example he points out-there is an equally factual counterpoint. (I will be happy to provide references) So it hardly points to the overall wisdom of the policy to begin with-or its potential for sucess.
Fred Kagan would be better off re-learning why the “the Iraq war is long past being worth the $120 billion a year being spent to wage it” and not likely to get better on that score any time soon which makes a lot of his arguements moot.
Skippy-san,
You’ve told us why Kagan is wrong and the Iraq War cannot be “won.”
I have seen these arguments in many places in the Internet. What I never see is a detailed analysis of what we have to do to defeat the threat. Of course, if you don’t perceive a threat then there is no point in anything we have done thus far.
I see our options as:
1. Take the fight to them as we are now and keep after them until they finally accept that we are not going to quit. Let them find out that we are just as intent on preserving freedom and democracy as they are in trying to impose 6th century Islamism on the West.
2. Retreat to fortress America. Fight a defensive battle by quarantining Muslims in their part of the world. Hope that eventually the moderate Muslims will tire of sharia and extremist enforcement of Islam such that Islam will be reformed into a tolerant, peaceful religion.
3. Withdraw from the ME, rely on diplomacy to assuage Muslim grievances and keep our homeland security on guard, while hoping for detente with the Muslim world.
4. An all out war against the Muslim world that will force the refomation of the religion at the point of the sword.
There are, I’m sure, other options. None of the above are, IMO very palatable. Certainly none of them are certain to attain that which we most desire, an Islam that desires to live in peace and tolerance with all peoples.
Anyway, I’m interested in your thinking about the issues.
Jimmy J,
The better question is what are the Arabs doing to counter the threat? And when does the cost to us outweigh the gains? From a strictly narrow US standpoint the objectives the US needed to have accomplished in Iraq have been accomplished. It is not the central point of changing the Arab world and never will be.
Re your options. A combination of containment coupled with a focus on economic reformation of the area is the key to countering the threat. That will take a long time but will not require the commitment of 140,000 plus troops for a decade or more. Economies that are not : 1) totally dependent on Filipinos and Banlga Deshis and 2) not reliant totally on oil will make the region better. There is no sign of that changing soon. The Arabs need an incentive to do so-and so long as oil is 100+dollars a barrel that will not happen soon. (Remember too that these high oil prices are directly related to the violence going on in Iraq and the uncertain situation in Iran. As well as too many nations like India and China wanting a bigger share of consumption).
Kagan never comes up with a satisfactory explanation why the best running Arab countries are not democracies but benign monarchies. Which are just fine so long as they support US interests.
There are smarter men than me who have pointed out that we do not needed have to have war without end-but a more coherent approach to an interlinked world. I’ll find some of the articles and post here.
Skippy-san,
Thanks for your take.
Containment is an option, but as you point out it will take a long time. At least until the oil runs out.
It will also mean exercising our military power as necessary to keep them in the box. In the meantime we have to keep looking for the bio/nuke weapons that might be headed our way. Still an expensive proposition.
I agree that oil prices are linked to the chance of an interruption in supply. All the more reason to increase our supplies and step up the work on alternatives. There are 60 billion newly discovered barrels outside the ME (Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, China, E.Timor) that will start to hit the market in two years. So, the cavalry is coming. In the meantime, if things get rough enough, Congress might even start approving nuclear power plants.
Looking forward to the articles.
Speaking of nukes, anybody here a Navy NucE and how are the job prospects in the outside world? When my cousin tried it back in the mid-80’s he found the Navy to be cool but after-Navy job prospects to be dismal, and wrote me last week there hasn’t been a new nuke plant built since then so his whole education was wasted. He’s a mid-manager in his companies IT department now.
It would seem we have a lot of reactor operations talent available to us, I’m sort of wondering if the civilian market is wasting a lot of resources is all.
— Max