Insofar as the Americans are now winning in Iraq, as they do now seem to be, this is, first, because Al Qaeda have shot themselves in their stupid murderous feet by being stupid and murderous, and pissing off the Iraqi people; and second, because the Americans switched strategies, from (the way I hear it): sitting in nice big armed camps doing nothing except maybe training a few Iraqis to do the nasty stuff, to: getting out there themselves and doing it, thereby giving the Iraqi people something to get behind and to switch to, once they had worked out what ghastly shits AQ really are.
The first bit is very interesting, but this posting is about the second bit. Instapundit linked yesterday to this, and I particular like the first comment. Here, with its grammar and spelling cleaned up a little, it is:
The Democrats missed a great opportunity. Bush would not have changed strategy if the Dems did not win as big as they did. They could have said it was them that made Bush change to a successful strategy.
Over the summer I reread one of my favourite books of the century so far, How The West Has Won: Carnage and Culture From Salamis to Vietnam by Victor Davis Hanson (which was published in October 2001). In this, Hanson makes much of the Western habit of what he calls “civilian audit” of military affairs. Armchair complaining and grilling of often quite successful generals for often rather minor failures in the course of what often eventually turn into major victories. Sidelining Patton for winning some battles but then slapping a soldier. Denouncing Douglas Haig forever for winning too nastily on the Western Front. Votes of Confidence in the Commons during the dark days of World War 2. Most recently, General Petraeus being grilled on TV. That kind of thing.
Above all, there are the journalists, wandering around the battlefield being horrified and sending photos back of people who died during disasters, or during victories, thereby making those look like disasters also (which they were for the people who died.)
Unlike many with similar loyalties to his, who describe all this as a Western weakness, Hanson sees it as a major Western strength. Yes it is messy, and yes it is often monstrously unjust. Yes, it often results in serious mistakes and failures, especially in the short run. Yes the questions put to returning generals and presiding politicians are often crass, stupid and trivial. But the effect of all this post-mortemising and second-guessing and media grandstanding and general bitching and grumbling is to keep the West’s military leaders on their metal in a way that simply does not happen in non-Western cultures.
It must really concentrate the mind of a general to know that there are literally millions of people back home who are just waiting for him to screw up, so they can crow: we told you so.
It also results in Western armies filled with people who know quite well what the plan is and what the score is, having just spent the last few hours, days, weeks or even years arguing about it all. Western armies invariably contain barrack room lawyers and grumblers, to say nothing of people who sincerely believe that they could do better than their own commanders and who say so, courtesy of those interfering journalists.
Central to the whole idea of the West is that you get better decisions, and better (because so much better informed) implementation of those decisions by the lower ranks, if lots of people argue like hell about these decisions first, during, and then again afterwards. In fact if you argue about them all the time.
Take Iraq now. The narrative that is now gaining strength goes as follows: Iraq invaded for dubious reasons, but successfully. Peace lost because no plan to win it. Two or three years of chaos and mayhem. Change of strategy. Now war may be being won. Maybe this story has not quite reached the MSM, but I believe that it soon will, if only because of bloggers like this guy and this guy.
Strangely, Hanson has, during this particular war, been one of the most vocal complainers about the complainers, so to speak. He has gone on and on about how suspect are the motives of the complainers and how ignorant they seem to be of what war is necessarily like and how bad it would be if the West lost this particular war. Yet is not the way this story may now be playing out yet further evidence of the important contribution made by anti-Western kneejerk anti-warriors to the good conduct of Western wars by the West’s warriors? What these people want to do is stop the war by making the warriors give up and lose it. But what they often achieve instead is to bully the warriors into doing better, and winning. They are, so to speak, an important part of the learning experience. Hanson returns again and again to how the West often loses the early battles, but ends up winning the war.
Under heavy political pressure, President Bush switched in Iraq from a failing Plan A to what now looks as if it could be a successful Plan B. Would this switch have happened without all the pressure? Maybe, but it is surely reasonable to doubt it. The next commenter after the one quoted above says that it is still not too late for the Dems to do a switch of their own, and to start claiming that had it not been for them and all their grumbling, the switch by Bush from failure to success would never have happened. If and when they do start talking like that, they will surely have a point.
(Patrick Crozier and I recently discussed VDH in this podcast, more about which here.)
Speaking as an anti-Iraq-war warrior, I can say that if this new strategy wins the hearts and minds of Iraqis to our side, I’m all for it. It will not justify our presence there, but that will be a relatively small price to pay to have the first genuinely (at the popular level) pro-western Arab/Muslim nation in the world, as opposed to a pro-western government imposed by external forces on an anti-western population, which cannot help but make the “Muslim street” angrier.
I will be perfectly happy to strip naked in Times Square and announce to the world that “I underestimated the Iraqi people”. But since the rest of the world seems to prefer me with my clothes on, I’ll satisfy myself with admitting it here … if and when it can be shown to be true and lasting.
Of course, if this is just a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” on the part of the Iraqis, they would lose both friend and enemy simultaneously, repeating our experience with ObL in Afghanistan. In that case we would end up with Iraq, either sporting a puppet pro-American government (through nefarious means) and enraging the anti-American majority further, or sporting an anti-American (and Islamist) democratic government. Either of these would be worse than Saddam for us (though perhaps not for the Iraqis).
These things are notoriously hard to predict, which is why I will continue to maintain a “don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes”, and “don’t put your assets where they can be reached” attitude, despite being wrong in this case.
It won’t be the first time I was wrong on Iraq. In 1992, I opposed our intervention in Kuwait, feeling it had no strategic value to us and that there would be no gratitude for the restoration of their monarchy, and I still believe I was correct.
But at that time, I believed that having won, we should have removed Hussein from power immediately, and have it over with. In that, I now believe that I was wrong, having failed to take into account the popular sentiment which would have required us to rebuild Iraq, rather than removing him, declaring victory, and going home, which is what I would have preferred then (and now).
We shall see.
Strangely, Hanson has, during this particular war, been one of the most vocal complainers about the complainers, so to speak. He has gone on and on about how suspect are the motives of the complainers and how ignorant they seem to be of what war is necessarily like and how bad it would be if the West lost this particular war.
What distinguish some of the current round of complainers about the war from the civilian auditors of the past is that, in the past, few if any of the auditors left much doubt about who they thought had the right of it, and who should win the war.
Too many of the current complainers seem to believe that the West is, if anything, the culpable party, the aggressor against Islam, and that the world would be better off if we lost. Coming from people with these avowed beliefs, it is hard not to take their complaints as something other than constructive criticism.
Its one thing to be anti-war, its something else to be anti-losing-the-war. Anti-war often translates into peace at any price, which definitely cause its adherents to pay a very high price regardless of whether it results in peace.
I disagree with your take. A critique can be warranted and help find a new way or it can be also poisonous and dont help at all. Since Vietnam War most critiques have been poisonous and help Americans have more casualities giving hope to American enemies.
If Iraq is going well, someone needs to let the Iraqis know:
Most of the results show a deterioration in the situation since the previous poll in March 2007. Virtually all show the level of violence and civil conflict is higher than most Iraqi and US government sources like to publicly admit. They also show that most Iraqis see the US and Coalition forces as at least a partial threat, do not trust the US or coalition, and see their aid efforts as failed or non-existent.
The ABC News poll conducted in August 2007 did find, however, that 41 percent of all Iraqis saw security as the most serious single issue facing the their life — up from 18 percent in 2005. The poll found that while in 2005, 63 percent of Iraqis said they felt very safe in their neighborhoods in 2005, only 26 percent had said this in August. Twenty-eight percent did not feel safe at all.
Nationally, 11 percent of all Iraqis surveyed in August 2007 reported that ethnic cleansing — the forced separation of Sunnis and Shiites — had occurred in their neighborhoods
In mixed-population Baghdad, 27 percent of all Iraqis surveyed in August 2007 reported that ethnic cleansing — the forced separation of Sunnis and Shiites — had occurred in their neighborhoods.
A total of 47 percent of all Iraqis felt US forces should leave Iraqi immediately. This percentage has been steadily rising, from 35 percentmin March 2007 and 26 percent in November 2005. In contrast, about one third (34 percent) of Iraqis felt that US and Coalition forces should stay until security is restored.
(full 70 page report available at link)
Whether or not the US is winning – whatever that even means – the Iraqis sure as hell aren’t doing any better.
I agree with the last comment (that of luck…).
There is a vast difference between a critique that says “your tactics are wrong for the following reasons…..” for example the sort of thing that John McCain did over the present war in Iraq for years. And a “critique” that is basically code for “death to America, death to West” – the sort of thing that is taught in the modern “education system” and in most of the mainstream media.
The latter is no help at all. As no matter what the facts on the ground are anything evil will be wildly inflated (or if nothing evil can be found it will be invented), and anything good will either be buried or wildly distorted. Getting involved with such people would just utterly undermine any military or political leader – it would not sharpen such leaders to deal with external enemies.
One can not convince the death-to-the-West crowd or get a fair hearing from them – the thing to do is to reach over their heads to the general public (of course to do this there most be media outlets that are not under their influence – and the public most not have been so “educated” by the schools and universities as to make immune to rational argument).
If the only media outlets were things like CNN or MSNBC (or, in print, such publications as the New York Times) and the education was only from schools dominated by the ideas of the teachers unions (and the various administrators) or universities in the “academic mainstream” then things would truely be hopeless.
As it is there is little hope for the West – but there is some.
There is also a big difference between an anti war stance that holds “this is a waste of lives and money” and an anti war stance that is really based on “the West is evil, let us do everything in our power to make sure the West loses”.
Even libertarians sometimes cross the line.
Brian I know remembers Murry Rothbard with his “left and right join hands” even down to Rothbard using the language of the Marxists about Vietnam being a noble struggle against “Western Imperialism”.
And, of course, there are “9/11 truth movement” types (and other such human shaped bits of shit) too close to Ron Paul’s campaign.
Congressman Paul and the libertarians who support him should have nothing to do with Move.org or Daily Kos creatures. There is nothing good or useful in their “critique” of the West in general or the United States in particular.
He who allies with such forces, even for a good purpose, ends up not using them – but being used by them.
He who touches pitch is defiled.
Unfortunately I have to agree. The leftist position of “the west is evil” is what is driving most of the anti-war movement, which of course means it’s not an anti-war movement at all, but barracking for the other side.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t legitimate criticism to be made but it can’t be aligned with that crowd.
Joshua: I (reluctantly and, it could be argued, erroneously) supported the decision to invade Iraq, but my goal was not to make Iraqi people feel better, or be better. Neither is their being or feeling better is part of my definition of winning the war, although I certainly see it as a desirable side benefit.
BTW, I appreciate Rich Paul’s comment, and not just because he promised to remain decent:-)
There is a difference between legitimate criticism by those who more or less are on the same side (even if they disagree about goals or are even domestic political rivals), and those making criticisms solely to weaken and destroy morale.
The first group is likely to stop criticizing if proved wrong, or if their criticism initiates reform that produces victory. The second group merely changes their criticism in order to keep up the image of failure.
A major failure of the Bush administration is that they lumped both types of critics together, and for too long ignored real problems in the way he handled the war. First, it drives allies into the enemy camp. Second, it increases the credibility of your enemies because they can say they were right, even if they really weren’t (much of the criticism before the war does not match what went wrong now). Third, by not including “good critics” onto your side, you build a legitimate political opposition to your goals. Fourth, refusing to admit when you’re wrong destroys your credibility when you can rightly proclaim that you are now winning.
By the time the US changed tactics in Vietnam and was arguably winning the war, the war effort was discredited enough that no one believed it. Now that it actually looks like the Coalition may be beating the insurgents, it looks dangerously close that Bush is also unable to convince people that we are winning.
Dear Sirs,
This posting reflects a growing meme that the US finally realized the winning strategy and why the Hell did it take so long to figure it out? This is naive and totally refuted by history.
The current success of the “surge” is totally dependent upon:
1. The realization by the Iraqis that AQ and the nihilists are the bad guys.
2. The realization by the various factions that armed insurrection isn’t working.
3. The formation of a willing and able ISF.
4. Battlefield preparation: 20-30 thousand insurgents killed or captured, disruption of logistics and communications, cumulative intelligence and financial disruption.
This has taken four years. In view of prior experience with insurgencies (Vietnam, Philippines, Algeria, various South American, African…) this will be viewed as a dazzling success.
Regards,
Roy
Brian M.
That’s something that the US military started some time ago: the statement of Commander’s Intent. Before any operation, the overall commander publishes a statement as part of the plan, in which he gives his subordinates a picture of what he’s trying to accomplish. The idea is that the commanders two levels below him will know what he actually wants and will therefore be able to use discretion and judgement as to the best way to achieve said results in their respective areas of operation.
The notion of having individual people engage their individual brains to solve problems should be a suggestion for how to govern or even just live in general. I suspect that the concept I’m clumsily fumbling to explain is intuitive on this site, though.
Rich Paul:
Thomas Friedman once observed that Iran has the most pro-US “man on the street” in the Muslim world. I suspect you nailed it right there: whatever they think of us, Asmadasahatter may be a puppet, but he’s not our puppet and almost everyone knows it.
Really, that won’t be necessary.
AQ did not exist during that time. And neither did the Taliban. And both the US government and ObL denied that such support ever was given.
Are Osama and the CIA conspiring together to deny that they conspire with each other? You’ll make my head spin if we go there.
Chris Dunnell
That’s me right there. I’m one of the dog-shooting JBT pigs so often bashed on US-based libertarian blogs, supported the 2003 attack, and am an advocate of shooting bad guys in the face. The fact that I was also opposed to torture (excuse me, “waterboarding” and “stress positions”) and domestic spying got me denounced as one of those Dhimmicrats who is trying to “give the Islamofascists Constitutional rights” and is “on the other side.”
This is not how you win friends and influence people.
A major failure of the Bush administration is that they lumped both types of critics together, and for too long ignored real problems in the way he handled the war.
I would agree with that. Of course, part of this failure is due to the willful failure of the legitimate critics and the media to help make this distinction.
Another distinction is that, in previous wars, I don’t know that media manipulation to undermine support was a keystone of the enemy strategy. If you have the best of intentions, but your criticisms are advancing the enemy’s only hope of winning, then I think some reflection is in order.
I am sometimes accused of being too cynical about people – so I will assume that Joshua Holmes is interested in facts.
It is not just American casualties that are down in Iraq -it is also Iraqi casualities that are down.
I did not support the judgement to go in to Iraq in 2003 and I still think the judgement mistaken (largely because I do not think that getting rid of Saddam was worth the lives and the money – and, perhaps, because deep down I do not really care enough about the local population to support such an operation). However, now we are committed to this operation I do support victory – “whatever this means” (I have no problem understanding what victory means).
I prefer victory to defeat and pulling out without victory is defeat (make no mistake about that). The defeat of the West by radical interpretations of Islam (both Sunni and Shia) in Iraq would not just have consequences in Iraq, it would have consequences in many other places also – including in many cities and towns in the West itself.
“Central to the whole idea of the West is that you get better decisions, and better (because so much better informed) implementation of those decisions by the lower ranks, if lots of people argue like hell about these decisions first, during, and then again afterwards. In fact if you argue about them all the time.”
I’m really not so keen on the lower ranks arguing in the “during” phase – bitching, sure, that is every solder’s right, but arguing is for when plans are being made and when they are being critiqued. In the “during” phase you might have to change the plan, but save the sophistry til later.
Brian M.
You are correct in identifying self-criticism as a strength of liberal democracies, but the criticism of the war did not lead to a change of strategy after the ’06 elections. Petraeus, Mattis and Kilcullen were working on a new counter-insurrgency strategy for the US, along with a host of folks in places like the War College, for a couple of years before the elections.
Rumsfeld recognized that too many of the top brass in the Army didn’t want to fight counter-insurgency wars, and he forced the issue. The US will never again be in a conventional war, so we have to have the ability, and the rough outline, of fighting unconventional warfare.
Remember Rommel – the American way of war is chaos.
Going into 2001, the upper echelons of the US military were people who had trained all of their lives for Massive Tank Battle in the Fulda Gap. That’s what the entire damn cold war was: setting the stage for MTBitFG and the battle for Europe. (Sorry, Nicaragua/Vietnam/Korea, but you really were a sideshow.)
9-11-01 changed everything. Actually, the world had been changing for the decade prior, but a lot of people with a lot of bright shiny crap on their uniforms had deluded themselves into thinking that they could continue being Armor and Cavalry and train for Massive Tank Battles in the Fulda Gap.
When Rumsfeld told them to adapt or GTFO and make room for folks who could, they were unsurprisingly resentful. Hence a lot of the badmouthing of Rumsfeld had less to do with competence and more to do with petty office politics.
And finally, the counterinsurgency in Iraq seems to be guided by people who can look at the world in terms of something other than MTBitFG.
That being said, never say “never.” The forward-looking folks said that in 1990 and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait took them by surprise. Bill Clinton thought so for most of his presidency, and OEF and OIF showed up not long after he went to molest interns full-time.
The only really predictable thing in this world, in my limited experience, is that it’s not all that predictable.
Quite so Sunfish.
Indeed both Russia and China (as well as smaller hostile powers such as Iran) are both going all to build the strength of their armed forces AND pumping up the antiAmerican stuff at home.
Watching the Communist Party conference in China (via television) remined me of what a weird place the P.R.C. is.
Lots of private manufacturing industry (in many ways less taxed and regulated that in the West), but at the same time they have not moved an inch from the collectivist ideology – the private industry is just seen as a tool to build up economic strength in order to safeguard the power of the party at home and to expand that power around the world.
It is a weird mutant form of Marxism – but they are not just playing silly games when they insist they are Marxists and Marxists whose lust for ever more power and domination has in no way reduced (and who utterly reject “capitalist” concepts of good and evil – right and wrong).
China has had a lot of private industry in the past and nationalized overnight (for example such things as the biggest iron production in the world – taken over, without warning, by an Emperor about a thousand years ago).
They will use private industry but they have no belief in the principles of private property – civil society (indeed the basic concept of civil society, society distinct from the state, is exactly what they OPPOSE).
I am no fan of the protectionism of Duncan Hunter, but allowing an enemy like the People’s Republic of China (and it is an enemy) to replace American manufacturing industry is dangerious – where he is wrong is in his belief that taxes on imports from China will save American industry (the weakess is internal – the taxes and regulations, especially the “anti trust” and pro union regulations must be dealt with).
In Russia – Mr Putin has vast natural resources to call on to support his dreams of power after power.
He will also use private companies (but only in the same way the Chinese use them).
In many ways the regimes in Russia and China are as aggressive as the left, falsely, thinks the American government is.
The various Latin American regimes (Chevez and so many of others) are both vicious and antirational (in that, for example, they reject the idea of economic law – or anything else that might stand in the way of their will having anything it wants) – but they are not powerful enough (in spite of oil) to matter much (although the desire among many to reverse such things as the war of 1848, indeed go further, might prove to be a problem – as might the idea of transforming American politics, as bad as it already is, into the Latin American idea of politics being about “the masses” being taught to seek salvation for all their problems via government – at the expense of “the rich”).
The radical Muslims are more of a short term security threat. True even the Iranian regime could not defeat in the United States in conventional warfare (at least not a United States that was not being undermined at home), but Iran could be irritating.
Especially as the Iranian regime do not fear death indeed would welcome it (very unlike the Soviet Union in the Cold War).
With Russia and China carefully (and in a private way) pushing the Iranian regime (and others) forward, things could get interesting (say a few cities nuked).
Of course conventional war could come in other ways.
For example, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Contrary to the Cato Institute the policy of Taiwan is not “provoactive” (it is not a provocation to maintain independence) and, also contrary to the Cato Institute, there is no way that Taiwan could conventionally defend itself with any hope of victory.
Numbers may not mean everything – but about 20 million versus over one BILLION does matter.
Should the P.R.C. decide that either the military forces of the United States or the WILL of the United States are weak, they will attack. And they will not just attack Taiwan – there are a lot of other places in Asia on the list.
Paul, your comment at October 26, 2007 12:47 PM, is one of the most important statements you’ve made. I think you’ve pegged the priorities and threat assessments exactly.
China’s philosophy seems to compare most closely to fascism. I haven’t given Russia’s much thought because Russian economic strength is in natural resources and how those resources are brought to market is not as important to their success as how China is bringing human thought and labor to market. In many ways, China economically reminds me of Germany between the wars.
Yes Midwesterner.
Especially National Socialist Germany in the 1930’s (whose economic performance, in terms of both industrial growth and low unemployment was greatly superior to that of the United States under the New Deal).
The P.R.C. may not be so blatenly racialist as Nazi Germany in the 1930’s (although there is quite a bit of Han nationalism – both the persecution of other ethinc groups at home, and in talk of reaching out to the Han Chinese in other nations). But its aggressivness is similar. This includes a vast military buildup (everthing from cyber warfare to long range I.C.B.M.s)
There are differences – for example the 1930’s were a protectionist period, so the Nazis found themselves limited in how much their nonunion (and non “anti trust”) industries could export (not so the P.R.C.).
Most importantly there is the matter of SIZE.
Although Hollywood has traditionally presented World War II as vast numbers of Germans against small numbers of Allies, the truth is almost the exact opposite.
The Germans were outnumbered – WILDLY outnumbered.
But China is a vast power, its resources do not just include cheap manufactured goods or clever computer hackers. They include more than a billion people.
All this tied to an ideology that places the gaining of power and more power as its central objective – and has nothing but contempt for “capitalist” concepts of right and wrong, good and evil (believing itself to be “beyond” such concepts).
Speaking as an anti-Iraq-war warrior, I can say that if this new strategy wins the hearts and minds of Iraqis to our side, I’m all for it.
You mean our side – not your side
Posted by bandit at November 15, 2007 01:27 PM
[strong]You mean our side – not your side[/strong]
Cut the guy some slack. If he thinks our side includes this, then maybe it is ‘our’ side (re: he is just anti Iraq war vs. anti western)…
From the beginning of the war, the U.S. has followed policies and tactics intended to answer or deflect the criticisms of the anti-war crowd (much of which were in bad faith). The policy of pulling U.S. forces back into bases was a response to left-wing claims that U.S. “intrusion” was alienating Iraqis. U.S. tactics were formatted to avoid American casualties and Iraqi civilian casualties from American action. The empowerment of the Iraqi government and deployment of Iraqi forces was rushed, to deflect charges that the U.S. was colonizing Iraq. This led to numerous problems: corruption in the Iraqi government, infiltration of Iraqi forces by insurgents and paramilitaries, terrorists and death squads running wild, and more attacks on U.S. troops.
There were some war critics who called for increased troop levels, but the vast majority called for either immediate withdrawal or further retreat into bases. Of those who did call for more troops, many advocated impossible increases, with the implication that the only alternative was withdrawal.