Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
I like to think our counterinsurgency reading list is pretty good, too, but this one, from the U.S. Army War College, is really comprehensive. (Thanks, Ross.)
here is another great article.. Ralph Peters Trapping Ourselves in Afghanistan and Losing Focus on the Essential Mission
http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/07/31/25310-trapping-ourselves-in-afghani...
Excerpt..
"Afghanistan doesn't matter. Afghanistan's just a worthless piece of dirt. Al Qaeda matters. To a lesser degree, the hardline elements within the Taliban matter. Pakistan matters, although there is nothing we can do to arrest its self-wrought decay. But our grand ambition to build an ideal Afghanistan dilutes our efforts to strike our mortal enemies, mires our forces in a vain mission civilatrice, and leaves our troops hostage to the whims of venomous regimes."
Sound familiar? Yeah.. LTC Peters agrees with me. Our real enemies are the ones that are funding, training, and providing material support to our enemies within Afghanistan and this goes back to what i've been saying about our COINdinista leaders.. they don't want to address the real mission of our real enemies. If we leave Iraq and Afghanistan without deal with the underlying problem, we've lost just like we did in Vietnam.
Above, I asked you to explain terms like ‘enemy’, ‘mobilize’ and ‘dehumanize’ so I could better understand your arguments but you dismissed me as ‘admittedly knowing nothing about warfare’. The reason I asked was because the vague way you use these words mean people have to put words into your mouth, as your points finish halfway through. You instead back them up with clichés like ‘enemies respect victory and success’ and a specious reading of some past episode like the Cuban Missile Crisis. But as you fail to link points with facts and follow them to their logical conclusion, others and I have to guess what it is you’re arguing.
Of course Russian ships could get out of their harbours: this was because the American blockade was of Cuba, not Russia. And the nuclear sites that Kennedy removed from Europe as quid pro quo were in southern Italy and Turkey, not Greece. ‘Instead of brandishing our obvious power, we apologized for it’. Okay, without any clichés, please explain how you would have ‘brandished’ obvious American power in the Cuban Missile Crisis because the logical conclusion is nuclear war with Russia. But so as not to put words in your mouth, please explain what you mean by this too.
AHE,
Perhaps "dehumanization" doesn't clearly explain my point although it was clearly used in WWII during our informations operations by using racist terms for the japanese and germans. Strong national identity is key to motivating a nation to fight another nation. it ensures unity in the field of battle by instilling an US vs THEM mentality. if this breaks down, as it did in Vietnam, troops become demoralized and start drawing peace symbols on their helmets and doing drugs. napoleon created his grand army by instilling a sense of french superiority in his country. not only did the population voluteer to go to war with him.. they mobilized the economy in what is considered the first industrial war economy.
as for our enemies.. if i was privy to all the information that a national leader had it would make planning effective. since i'm not.. it's kind of a silly exercise because i don't have anything but a starting point.. which is clearly defining your enemy and what peace on our terms looks like. i would start with an analysis of what my diplomatic, information, military, and economic options are (in strategy development we call this DIME). after attending seminars with State Department officials where when asked by military officers "can you help us with "XYZ"? Their answer was almost always "we aren't manned, trained, or funded for that". i have little faith that Diplomacy by our State Department would be successful. Americans have displayed a shocking amount of stupidity in our information campaigns in the middle east. Promoting women's rights? Really? As for the military options.. i could list options.. like when reagan dropped a few bombs on Qaddafi.. that was somewhat effective.. at least for a short time. i certainly would not have gone to war in iraq or afghanistan because at the end of the day.. even if we leave those countries stable and democratic.. Al Qaeda and it's supporters will still be free roaming the earth. Iran is still sponsoring terrorist organizations around the world. we've done nothing to solve the broader problem that faces us but we have expended an enormous amount of treasure.. and for what? on the economic side, sanctions rarely work. there are too many adversary's and even allies that will go around and make deals behind our backs and subvert the effectiveness of sanctions. when Bush put piddly sanctions on iran for their nuke program.. iran reached out to china for help developing their energy resources. in the end, iran actually came out ahead by getting paid 2 billion dollars (the sanctions amounted to around 200 mil), more energy for their country, and honor in the middle east for standing up to the great satan and winning. we looked like fools and rightly so.
why wouldn't you want your enemies to obey you? war is about bending the enemies will. as for historical examples.. modern day iraq is a good one. the middle east is an honor shame culture.. they follow the strong horse. that's how saddam ruled iraq although he was from a minority. people knew that if you messed with him the consequences would be severe. remember when we rolled in to iraq? syria pulled troops out of lebanon earlier than normal.. they were worried that we may come after them. Qaddafi voluntarily gave up his secret nuke program fearing the massive amount of firepower we had. then.. slowly.. one attack here.. one attack there... syria, iraq, and saudi arabia started testing us. when we caught their agents and did nothing, they saw us as the weak horse. there would be no punitive measures for their crimes and they proceeded to escalate. IMO, our cowardly military and civilian leadership allowed this to happen. by not striking back in a punitive way, we telegraphed that we were weak. i would have struck back and i would have done so in a way they wouldn't forget.
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