--A simple game of chess
Our crusade was such madness
that only a real idealist could have thought it up
--The Seventh Seal (1957)
___________________
Ranger
will draw connections among three fights: Lang Vei (Vietnam, Feb. '68),
Mogadishu - Black Hawk Down (Oct. '93) and the Battle of Kamdesh at
Command Outpost Keating in Afghanistan (Oct. 2009).
The
key devolution over 40+ years is that the U.S. is no longer fighting
enemy armies but simple assemblies of enemy fighters variously described
as militias, militants, insurgents, etc., and while U.S. forces are
arrayed to fight battles, they instead get roughly handled by simple
street thugs ... people for whom soldierly behavior does not apply.
So, why do we fight for hills, towns and terrains which are disposable
and not of worth to anyone except those squatting on that particular
grid square, and then pull up stakes and leave? Have the
principles of war lost their relevance? This is the Day of the Jackal; you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. Has Clausewitz had his day? If so, what will direct and constrain our present and future conflicts?
From his personal discussions with battle survivor (Lt.) Paul Longgrear,
the Battle of Lang Vei was the death of the United States Special Forces A-Camps,
which were small and remote fighting camps with mission augmentation.
The fall of Lang Vei showed that the US Army could not hold a camp if
the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was determined to expend the operational
assets to destroy their objective.
If the NVA could
do this at LV with USMC assets a 105 Howitzer distance away, then any SF
fighting camp in VN was a potential death trap. The LV Battle was a
knock-down fight between two determined armies; after LV and Tet '68,
the outcome of the American war in Vietnam was sealed.
And
yet, despite that death knell the U.S. continues 40 years on to emplace
its soldiers in indefensible outposts which suffer the same dire fate.
Like
LV, the Mogadishu battle [Black Hawk Down - "BHD'] was conducted by the
finest Special Operations Forces (SOF) -- the 75th Ranger Battalion
assets teamed up with SOF Delta operatives. The difference in the BHD
scenario was that the enemy was an unorganized opponent lacking a
detailed Table of Organization and Equipment (TO& E) and order
of battle; in short, they functioned as militias lacking state
apparatus. They probably lacked mission objectives beyond killing
soldiers and controlling the countryside and cities by armed violence.
But
BHD demonstrated that militias with platoon-level weapons (including
RPG2 and 7's) could engage and kill prime US war fighting assets IF the
militias were willing to take the casualties. It was
estimated in BHD that the U.S. killed 1,000+ militia fighters, yet the
U.S. mission was ultimately frustrated and abandoned. Somalia is still
the same sewer 20 years on.
The book and the movie were
an awe-inspiring view of a world-class infantry, but insurgents and
militias world-wide re-learned that they can fight any army to
standstill if willing to take the casualties.
The lessons taken from the '79 Russo-Afghan war have been re-imagined in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2001 onward.
The
Battle at Kamdesh
in '09 for which SSG Clinton Romesha earned the Medal of Honor earlier
this year occurred 20 miles away from a similar failure the previous
year in the
Battle of Wanat.
While the U.S. soldiers supposedly killed 100 enemy militants, that is
immaterial since the 4th Division no longer occupies any terrain in the
mountain ranges of Afghanistan.
An old
Counterinsurgency (COIN) metric goes, if we are killing 10:1 of ours,
then we are being successful. It is doubtful the U.S. met that metric in
LV and it assuredly did not in BHD. And in Kamdesh, with a kill ratio
of 8:100 ... ? Did we win?
The
New York Times reported the Americans following Kamdesh
"declared the outpost closed and departed — so quickly
that they did not carry out all of their stored ammunition. The
outpost’s depot was promptly looted by the insurgents and bombed by
American planes in an effort to destroy the lethal munitions left
behind" (
"Strategic Plans Spawn Bitter End for Lonely Outpost.")
COP
Keating was not a win, and they left like Lee slinking out of
Gettysburg in July 1863. The difference was that instead of withdrawing
under an enemy army's pressure, they faced a rag-tag group of militia
fighters who may have been simple bandits or warlord fighters. Though
not a Waterloo or Liepzig, it was a total failure nonetheless.
If U.S. forces were to kill 100:1, they would still be losing in a Low-intensity conflict (LIC) or COIN environment. We no longer talk of LIC, instead pretending that we fight battles, but LIC is the order of the day, and reality demands that understanding. However, that understanding would threaten to upend the profitable military complex as we know it.
Ranger's unit in RVN, Studies and Observations Group (SOG), is reported
to have had a kill ratio of 150:1, but we still lost control of the Ho
Chi Minh Trail since we never controlled the key terrain on the ground.
An army can hold ground, but that is not equal to controlling the ground.
In
the last 43 years, the U.S. Army has lost the ability to control the
ground. It may have conquered Kabul and Baghdad, but it never controlled
the ground, nor the hearts and minds of the locals. This is the fallow
result of phony wars.
The latest wars prove the
inability of the U.S. Army to destroy and force U.S. will on
insurgencies and militia-inspired insurgencies. They are continuations
of LV and BHD on another chessboard. What should we have learned?
Time is not on our side.
[cross-posted
@ rangeragainstwar]
