I’ve just finished Michael Yon’s book,
“Moment of Truth in Iraq.” I’ve read all his essays on his website and expected the book would be a rehash. Not so. He manages to knit together a picture of what we did wrong and how we got back on track. As a result of reading this book, I feel like I understand COIN as I never did before.

There are officers and non-coms doing incredible things over there. Going from kinetic combat ops to Barnett’s Sys-Admin ops in the same day; sometimes twice a day.

The flexibility, ingenuity, and conduct of our troops is winning hearts and minds. It ain’t over and is, as they say, still fragile, but the ability of our military to adjust and “get er dun” is awesome.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand Iraq and COIN.

So his brilliance is relevant, being one of the first to proclaim “don’t get stuck on stupid.”

Drew: Clausewitz supposed that the thought process would have already been done when the war was started. The trinity would have already be set to go to war with rational expectations of the costs. This is where the modern society falters where the price for somethings is declared too high.

I’d also recommend “Masters of War” by the late Michael Handel. A great examination of Clausewitz, Tzu, Jomini, and Machievelli (who also wrote an “Art of War”… quite boring unless you like detail on 16th century Italian formations), that compares and contrasts the logical processes, or lack thereof in each writer’s text.

It is also a big mistake to base the relative progress of a counterinsurgency on body counts, either friendly or enemy, as one would a sporting event score. While killing the enemy and taking enemy territory are fundamental with Clausewitz, and success or failure may be judged in those terms, body counts are not nearly as important in COIN warfare. Nor are they indicative of progress.

Oftentimes killing more of the enemy can be counterproductive, as was the case in Fallujah. Just ask General Westmoreland about his keeping score with body counts in Vietnam.

Indemnity

The British Expeditionary Force lost approximately 58,000 in 10 hours on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme. Over 19,000 were killed or died of wounds, meaning 32 people per minute killed. That war (and the Somme) would grind on for a further two years, eventually claiming in excess of a million men on both sides.

What I’m driving at here is that every life we lose now is precious, something to be pondered and analyzed in the court of public opinion. Yet, the scope of the conflict Europe was locked in less than a century ago borders on the fantastic. I’m glad that the American public gets queasy at the idea of good men and women coming home in flag-draped aluminum boxes. But I’d rather have them (meaning the non-military public) think about the potential costs (ranging from what we see now to the Somme) before committing themselves to the course of action suggested by Clausewitz.

Before, not after, that commitment.

Also, Louis XIV had “Ultima Ratio Regum” pressed into the sides of cannon made during his reign in France.

Translated from Latin, this means “the Last Argument of Kings”.