tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post7441194453506229203..comments2023-10-30T06:31:05.501-07:00Comments on MilPub: The Death of COIN, or the Death of Strategic ("C") Thought?FDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-20657027432095752682012-01-01T11:49:02.348-08:002012-01-01T11:49:02.348-08:00seydlitz89 said...
"For instance, Thomas Do...seydlitz89 said...<br /><br /> "For instance, Thomas Donnelly has a good handle on strategic theory as evidenced by this article, but would you agree at all with his conclusions . . . ?<br /><br /> http://www.aei.org/article/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional/middle-east-and-north-africa/war-with-iran"<br /><br />It's garbage, which I could have told from the AEI connection - that group of criminals lied us into the mess that we're in.<br /><br /><br /><br />" He's just one. I could provide a whole list of links from <b>competent strategic theorists</b> who have supported policies (for example Iraq) which both of us would see as self-defeating and absurd. The problem is not so much the total lack of strategic thought, but rather that extreme political assumptions and views have blinded these people to the fallacy of their own positions. Strategic theorists are not immune from the virus of national hubris."<br />[bolding mine]<br /><br />This suggests that they aren't competent; the first thing I'd want from a competent guy is decent levels of immunity from that virus.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-35533416220856941402012-01-01T11:37:15.580-08:002012-01-01T11:37:15.580-08:00Clauswitz: "In my eyes, it's precisely t...Clauswitz: "In my eyes, it's precisely the point of conflict ethnography to understand the points you list. Someone understanding the culture of the area for example would have understood that Saddam not being clear about whether he had some WMDs left over was a deliberate feint towards his neighbours, specifically Iran, to discourage "rash" decisions. "<br /><br />Google Hans Blix. Saddam was open to inspection, and not playing coy. In the end, anybody paying attention knew that he had sh*t. And I'm willing to bet that that was the final green light for the invasion.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-45537362443051645582011-12-12T16:10:36.368-08:002011-12-12T16:10:36.368-08:00Simply consider this . . . we, as in the US have c...Simply consider this . . . we, as in the US have currently the successor of Mao wearing a Western business suit and talking our economics . . . with a trade surplus, not to mention all that US paper . . . <br /><br />And we were all along such f***ups? instead weaknesses over the long term . . .<br /><br />1992.<br /><br />Rather didn't we lose the thread, in fact do it to ourselves in this particular sense . . . ?<br /><br />Strategic effect . . . lost?seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-34042136242768334362011-12-12T13:30:52.240-08:002011-12-12T13:30:52.240-08:00FDChief-
I've already given you the example o...FDChief-<br /><br />I've already given you the example of WWI which you pretty much rejected without even considering my argument. We've been over this ground soooo many times . . .<br /><br />You commented:<br /><br />"But that doesn't change the fact that regardless of political climate, most of the time the U.S. hasn't really "planned" its foreign policy from any sort of coherent, over-arching geopolitical strategy."<br /><br />If we consider US foreign policy since 1898, since prior to that there really wasn't much of a foreign policy at all, then US policy has been consistently pro-US business interests with the idea that what was good for American business was good for America. That is US policy was to provide a stable environment for US commerce. This strategy reflected that basic belief and it worked well enough through the 1920s. The Great Depression of course focused the country on other things and gunboat diplomacy in support of US commercial interests was seen as counter to what the government should have been doing at home, although there were instances of it even during the Depression. <br /><br />World War II seems to have been a success story in terms of strategic planning, I think everyone agrees on that . . . but why stop there? What of the establishment of the Bretton Woods system of commercial and financial relations, or the IMF, or World Bank . . . have these not been the result "an over-arching geo-political strategy"? Have they not supported US interests?seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-91853243093927481342011-12-12T10:54:18.411-08:002011-12-12T10:54:18.411-08:00"In my view the current strategic incoherence...<i>"In my view the current strategic incoherence is a direct result of relatively recent changes within our political community and is not the result of some historical American flaw"</i><br /><br />If you believe that I direct your attention to the U.S. political scene circa 1840-1850.<br /><br />Look at the Mexican War; no "strategic coherence" there. Massive division and dissention between free and slave states, between imperialists and nativists, between Polk and the fairly large number of Americans who just flat-out hated Polk.<br /><br />Or, hell, damn near any other period in U.S. history. Look at the lack of unity regarding the Louisiana Purchase...or "Seward's Folly"...or the imperial wars of the Gilded Age...or Versailles and the League of Nations...<br /><br />And again, I want to emphasize that "competence" isn't really the issue. I'd argue that MOST polities don't have some sort of brilliant long-range geopolitical plan but tend to wander from one crisis to another based on local, transient, immediate greeds, lusts, hatreds, affections, and confusion - the usual human condition.<br /><br />Now what HAS happened to the U.S. recently is that we emerged from an unusually, ahistorically moderate political climate. Between 1945 and 1965 - that is, the time most of us grew up in - we enjoyed none of the sorts of sectional, economic, factional, Federalist-vs-antiFederalist, Jeffersonian-vs-Jacksonian, slave-vs-feee, labor-vs-capital cagefighting that characterize most of the rest of U.S. history. And before that, between about 1935 and 1945 the GOP and the plutocrat Right was far in the wilderness they'd driven themselves into after 1929.<br /><br />But that doesn't change the fact that regardless of political climate, most of the time the U.S. hasn't really "planned" its foreign policy from any sort of coherent, over-arching geopolitical strategy. We have domestic politics that often drives our foreign policies and the fact that the Bushies drove it off a cliff says more about the individual incompetence of the Bushies than it does any sort of structural change in U.S. policymaking.<br /><br />In fact...can you pinpoint an actual change in how the Bushies made policy - structural change, a "how" rather than a "what" - that would suggest that their fuckups represent anything than that, rather than some sort of ahistorical lack of competence in geopolitics?FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-83893175665403795932011-12-12T09:42:07.391-08:002011-12-12T09:42:07.391-08:00FDChief
Andy gets the brass ring - the U.S. (outs...FDChief<br /><br /><i><b>Andy gets the brass ring - the U.S. (outside the brief periods when an actual war concentrates our political mind) has NEVER been much for deep geopolitical thought</b></i><br /><br />I second the brass ring. Looking at what was going on in DC during WWII is much more intellectually stimulating than anything on the battlefield. The battlefield would have been a shambles if FDR and Company had not done the job they did in terms of full national mobilization, and all the balls they had in the air to juggle in that regard. As to the "strategic outcome", that did take a little wickering, but they were able to prosecute a war on a scale never before seen, deal with allies and come up with a pretty good geo-political end game.Aviator47https://www.blogger.com/profile/05585964386930142907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-67296418631099312972011-12-12T08:35:50.337-08:002011-12-12T08:35:50.337-08:00FDChief-
It's not shock, I just don't agr...FDChief-<br /><br />It's not shock, I just don't agree with your view as to historical US strategic incompetence. I think if you look at the historical record it shows that we as a country dealt with strategy pretty effectively prior to 1992 (Defense Planning Guidance). "Effective" defined as a relationship to what other political communities achieved.<br /><br />Andy's only commented on Gulf War II up to now, and I think his comments compatible with my argument. He has yet to give any comment in regards to earlier wars and any "beltway" influence creating strategic incoherence . . .<br /><br />In my view the current strategic incoherence is a direct result of relatively recent changes within our political community and is not the result of some historical American flaw . . . <br /><br />It's the same old disagreement Chief . . .seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-90326388891469846412011-12-12T08:20:03.723-08:002011-12-12T08:20:03.723-08:00Andy-
As much as I hate to admit it, I think GWB ...Andy-<br /><br />As much as I hate to admit it, I think GWB was an adequate representative of our political elite. Agree too that domestic politics drives policy (or what goes under that label) which today consists mostly of scams for the majority and pay offs for the well-connected. The questions we as Americans should be asking are basically and fundamentally political, imo.seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-1744316616983291392011-12-12T08:12:15.348-08:002011-12-12T08:12:15.348-08:00I'll chime in here: Andy gets the brass ring -...I'll chime in here: Andy gets the brass ring - the U.S. (outside the brief periods when an actual war concentrates our political mind) has NEVER been much for deep geopolitical thought. Generally we've been pushed or pulled by our own domestic concerns on the short-term election cycle timeframe.<br /><br />Seydlitz, you seem to come at this with a sort of shock; "WTF are you people DOING?" while I think the way to look at this is the way Andy suggests - that most of the time most of our political organs (including DoS and DoD) are focussed on the short-term, small-ball aspects of foreign policy.<br /><br />So if you want the U.S. government to genuinely look big-picture/long term you'd first have to get some sort of agreement on "What are U.S. global interests" and then "What are U.S. interests in the Middle East/Central Asia"...and I suspect that you'd find it difficult to nearly impossible to get the Washington factions to agree on anything more sophisticated than "U.S. mighty! U.S. strong!"FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-8958229270638031102011-12-12T08:10:56.601-08:002011-12-12T08:10:56.601-08:00Al-
Interesting comparison between GWB and Wilhel...Al-<br /><br />Interesting comparison between GWB and Wilhelm II . . . in that both were very much interested in the trappings of military pomp and dress, but not so interested in actually making strategy/decisions. Ludendorff for Wilhelm and Petraeus for GWB?<br /><br />As to "dominating the Middle East", how did Britain do it from 1918 to circa 1950? Was it not a combination of different sources of power applied in different ways to different situations over time, that is a strategy?<br /><br />I would add that while domination can be a strategic goal, it is dependent on the wider political situation/relations. What Britain was able to achieve after WWI was based on the conditions present in the ME at the time.seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-5579658996515256762011-12-12T07:01:23.170-08:002011-12-12T07:01:23.170-08:00Now that we've mostly got the history out of t...Now that we've mostly got the history out of the way WRT the GWB administration, was he an aberration or just an extreme example of the status quo? Or, to put it another way, was the strategic incoherence a product of his particular administration or was (and is) it a problem with US strategy in general? I tend to think the latter simply because so many of these issues are driven by domestic political considerations and whatever is "priority du jour" inside the beltway. At least that's my perception.Andynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-18211279151390103782011-12-12T04:30:36.662-08:002011-12-12T04:30:36.662-08:00It is interesting that GWB, and the GOP ever since...It is interesting that GWB, and the GOP ever since, have referred to the president as "Commander in Chief", yet in fighting the war Iraq, there was effectively no such person. Just uncoordinated actions by various entities.<br /><br />Similarly, they want little or no government, yet still want the nation "commanded".<br /><br />As to "dominating the Middle East" being a strategic goal, one would need far more detail to make it a goal upon which the US could act, if indeed it is attainable at all. What kind of dominance, for example. Can we establish economic dominance? Political dominance? Military dominance.<br /><br />Incoherence has become the national pastime.Aviator47https://www.blogger.com/profile/05585964386930142907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-88934743354859028152011-12-12T03:57:05.849-08:002011-12-12T03:57:05.849-08:00Andy commented:
" Instead different parts of...Andy commented:<br /><br />" Instead different parts of government had completely different expectations for what would happen after Saddam was gone - the biggest and most obvious disconnect was between DoD and DoS. I'm not sure how else one can explain how Defense and State were on such completely different sheets of music following the invasion. To me it says there wasn't a coherent strategy (radical or otherwise) other than "depose Saddam" and the result was that the various instruments of US power were unprepared for the aftermath of the invasion."<br /><br />As I commented above, I see this view as essentially the same as my own. Consider this from my post:<br /><br />"There is a decidedly "Marxist" as in exclusively materialist view in all this. Political values stand for nothing in comparison to either unrestrained violence or potential economic prosperity. Make it worth their while, allow the magic of the market do its work, and the conquered peoples would become happy consumers in no time. What could possibly be their reason to resist the corporate bounty offered them? Violence as the unstoppable force, followed by simplistic notions of economics with both displacing politics."<br /><br />This IS the dominate view among US elites today. The government is not the solution, it is the "problem". One sees this even with big "O" and his economic policy. To have expected the Bush administration to have coordinated various plans within the government and then implemented them is counter to their very approach to government. That would have been the Clinton/policy wonk response which Bush and his followers were loath to imitate.<br /><br />American exceptionalism ("too big to fail"), the unrestrained use of force/violence, and the "magic of the market" were the main characteristics of Bush's world view, just as they are for Obama . . . These assumptions drive US policy today just as they did in 2003.<br /><br />Dominating the Middle East is a strategic goal. How one achieves that is strategy and as I have pointed out the current US approach is not strategy at all but violence based on a set of highly questionable assumptions. It is looking at the strategic goal in terms of strategic theory which leads me (and Andy as well as shown above) to label this approach "incoherent".seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-4090901405076087542011-12-11T22:59:14.096-08:002011-12-11T22:59:14.096-08:00seydlitz-
Rummy was retained because he was willi...seydlitz-<br /><br />Rummy was retained because he was willing to run the wars Bush wished to prosecute. <br /><br />One can be a "tool" for one's own motives. As long as Rummy's own agenda was seemingly similar to Bush's (Andy's very accurate quote, "<i>The roads for all those goals met at one crossroads called "depose Saddam" before going their separate ways.</i>"), why would GWB care. Appearances were deceiving. Just because two or more individuals are fulling engaged in the same endeavor does not mean they are pursuing the same personal objective for the same personal reasons. In a very simplistic example, a plant manager schedules 4 hours overtime production to produce 100 more widgets to meet a special order. The workers putting in paid overtime are rarely doing it for the same reasons as the plant manager that scheduled the overtime. The salaried employees supervising those making time and a half will most likely have different motives and objectives as well. Yet there they all are staying late while 100 more widgets are produced, but not necessarily because they all primarily want more widgets produced. However, the plant manager had an objective, it was a clear objective, the activities of the employees were directed towards that objective and whatever their motives for working the extra 4 hours were, they supported the real objective.<br /><br />On numerous occasions, Rummy was an embarrassment. His "The Army you have" is not a lone example. He worked for an intellectual lightweight (GWB) who saw Rummy's behavior solely as supporting GWB's war. Rummy was not the kind who admitted to making an error (You simply whipped up "Unknown Unknowns to preclude that). GWB basked in the halo effect of that bogus infallibility. Just because Rummy would accept no alternate opinions from his subordinates does not mean he was not serving as a "tool" for GWB. Just two huge egos working in mutually supportive alternate realities.Aviator47https://www.blogger.com/profile/05585964386930142907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-6065516356789607642011-12-11T15:19:46.273-08:002011-12-11T15:19:46.273-08:00Al-
"I would offer that Rummy had no politic...Al-<br /><br />"I would offer that Rummy had no political or "strategic" goal. He simply found a "laboratory" in which to prove those inflexible generals and their doctrine wrong. I honestly think he was waging war for the sake of waging war - to prove his point. Wolfie, Feith, GWB and Cheney may have had some objectives, but Rummy was just plain arrogant and had to prove he was right."<br /><br />Nicely put, but are you arguing that Rummy was running essentially his own little fiefdom? While managing two wars? Disagree. Why did Bush hold on to him for so long? Because he was sooooo independent or because he was such a "tool"?seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-90208983797848583062011-12-11T14:59:42.693-08:002011-12-11T14:59:42.693-08:00Andy-
Thank you very much for commenting.
I do...Andy-<br /><br />Thank you very much for commenting. <br /><br />I don't think we're in disagreement.<br /><br />You commented:<br /><br />"My point is not that they didn't have goals, my point is that they had several and those goals were at cross purposes."<br /><br />Yes, agree, and those conflicting goals required the "total victory" as I have set it out. You can waste time refuting each individual argument, blind to the whole, or you can see the whole, the Gestalt of what I'm attempting to describe. Its the best model I've come up with. <br /><br />Strategy, as more than what WE have thought of or considered up to now. Strategy also in terms of "attitude", how we individually deal with authority? <br />Including lots of "chips on the shoulder" which given the technological platforms of our times can create real social problems. Essentially the individual capable of creating strategic effect? Scary? <br /><br />Yea, but not limited to that, including one's Weltanschauung as well. Value assumptions about the world . . . <br /><br />At precisely this point in time, why are we so divided? Why are we so blind?seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-66018978489495919642011-12-11T14:58:31.611-08:002011-12-11T14:58:31.611-08:00@Chief
"Clausewitz: Not sure if you're be...@Chief<br />"Clausewitz: Not sure if you're being willfully obtuse on this or what. Saddam stays, there is no COIN. Saddam goes, the Shia take over. No COIN, brilliantly executed or otherwise, prevents that."<br /><br />The problem in your assessment is that you see COIN as starting when the feet are on the ground and the shots are fired. But if you actually HAVE a political goal you want to realize, you start the planning and the actions much earlier than that. Which can include talking to the Shia religious leaders, making deals, agreements, promises. <br /><br />If I follow what I take as your line of argumentation, the Libya operation would have been perfect because one avoids all the trouble by not setting a foot on the ground. But that doesn't change the fact that the place can turn into a mess and then what? We've already seen arsenals being plundered. You will probably say that no, your line is that there shouldn't be an action to begin with in such areas, but that's really independent of COIN or no COIN. At that level, Libya is pretty no-COIN.<br /><br />"The current meme seems to be that we could have "succeeded" in Iraq if we'd just have "done it right". That's a fallacy and a pernicious one. Once we knocked the Saddam cork off the Iraqi bottle the Shiite genie was loose."<br /><br />That's what happens when you have no cork to replace it with and no means of control. I am no friend whatsoever of the invasion and the removal, but especially not because I had my doubts from the get-go that this was a particularly well thought-out operation. And even if there's been a plan, the question would have been if the US armed forces have the tools to implement it... I seem to be pretty much in line with Andy here - if you have no plan what to actually do and consequently no tool to actually do anything, the likelihood of the thing blowing up in your face is pretty high.<br /><br />When you play around with guns in the vicinity of flammables, you better have a plan as to how to contain and combat a fire, if it happens, and bring a fire extinguisher with you. If you don't, it's not that firefighting is useless, it's that by the time anyone is actually undertaking serious efforts, the fire is already so big there's no hope to contain it anymore. <br /><br />I have Iraqi Kurdish friends - when the invasion started, they said "Finally, something is happening". I said "The kurdish area was relatively safe and stable for a while now, I wouldn't take for granted that the situation improves now"Clausewitznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-92205869362247633052011-12-11T13:49:07.504-08:002011-12-11T13:49:07.504-08:00Clausewitz: Not sure if you're being willfully...Clausewitz: Not sure if you're being willfully obtuse on this or what. Saddam stays, there is no COIN. Saddam goes, the Shia take over. No COIN, brilliantly executed or otherwise, prevents that.<br /><br />The current meme seems to be that we could have "succeeded" in Iraq if we'd just have "done it right". That's a fallacy and a pernicious one. Once we knocked the Saddam cork off the Iraqi bottle the Shiite genie was loose. Short of a full-on colonial occupation - which we did try initially and got nothing but trouble for our pains - would have made the Bush faction's Chalabi/exile-ruler plans work.<br /><br />Seydlitz: I think our WW1 "strategy" wasn't really thought out. We entered on the Entente side largely because of well-executed Entente planning, and then frittered most of our "gains" away due to Wilson's diplomatic arrogance and incompetence.<br /><br />And the Second Gulf War? Well, start with that the entire farrago largely resulted from our incompetent meddling in the First (Iran-Iraq) Gulf War culminating in April Glaspie's carelessness in seeming to greenlight Saddam's invasion of Kuwait the resulting operation was competently run. But I wouldn't consider it any particular example of strategic genius, and the incompetent handling of the Shia uprising (whether you consider the incompetence the encouragement of it or the refusal to target the Iraqi helos after it began) is a pretty black mark on the "planning" aspect of it.<br /><br />And while the Cold War had a "strategy" - containment - that strategy doesn't seem to have been particularly rigorous or to have prevented the U.S. from mistaking local resistance movements from global Communist conspiracies. I'll credit the overall strategy, but, again, it had it's limits.<br /><br />So I'm not saying that the U.S. "can't" do strategic planning. I'm saying that we haven't done as much of this as a nation as powerful as we have been since 1945 might have done, so the fact that we're not doing this now is irking but not shocking. And that much of the "planning" has been ad hoc and somewhat less than thorough.<br /><br />So - I agree with you that we SHOULD be doing more. But I also agree with you that it is unlikely that we will...and that has a fair bit to do with our national lack of systematic strategic planning experience.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-90712993723801072302011-12-11T13:26:54.403-08:002011-12-11T13:26:54.403-08:00Andy: My point is not that they didn't have g...Andy: <i><b>My point is not that they didn't have goals, my point is that they had several and those goals were at cross purposes......The roads for all those goals met at one crossroads called "depose Saddam" before going their separate ways.</b></i><br /><br />Spot on. No one was at <b>THE</b> helm of the Ship of State. Rather, several thought they had their own helm. As anyone with any nautical experience can explain, there is a reason that <b>THE</b> helm is singular and described with a definite article.Aviator47https://www.blogger.com/profile/05585964386930142907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-68588741626702167642011-12-11T12:46:02.485-08:002011-12-11T12:46:02.485-08:00(cont)...
In short the nexus for all these goals ...(cont)...<br /><br />In short the nexus for all these goals was that Saddam had to go but there wasn't any coherent political goal for what should happen once that was done. In other words, the reasons for wanting Saddam gone varied widely. Various people in the administration had a laundry list of reasons - WMD, democracy, oil, bases, a reliable ally, etc. The roads for all those goals met at one crossroads called "depose Saddam" before going their separate ways. It doesn't appear to me that these goals were prioritized (except for WMD) and put into a coherent framework that the entire government could plan around in order to achieve some political goal beyond Saddam. Instead different parts of government had completely different expectations for what would happen after Saddam was gone - the biggest and most obvious disconnect was between DoD and DoS. I'm not sure how else one can explain how Defense and State were on such completely different sheets of music following the invasion. To me it says there wasn't a coherent strategy (radical or otherwise) other than "depose Saddam" and the result was that the various instruments of US power were unprepared for the aftermath of the invasion.Andynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-38463685494252969412011-12-11T12:45:35.106-08:002011-12-11T12:45:35.106-08:00Seydlitz,
The problem was in the very radical nat...Seydlitz,<br /><br /><em>The problem was in the very radical nature of the political goals along with the extensive resources achieving them would have required, not that they had no strategic goals at all. </em><br /><br />My point is not that they didn't have goals, my point is that they had several and those goals were at cross purposes. On the one hand you had the desire to promote the "Freedom Agenda" which played a large public role in President Bush's speeches prior to the war, while on the other hand you had Rummy telling the military not to plan for an occupation because we going to hand-off Iraqi governance to the coterie of Iraqi exiles and the State Department. Those two goals simply aren't compatible. <br /><br />I'm also not sure bases or oil was a big part of that picture even though they were probably one the wish lists of some in the administration. Based on declassified planning documents there was no plan for a long-term troop presence in Iraq, so if permanent bases were part of the plan then the DoD never got the memo.<br /><br />For oil, I'm not aware of anything that would suggest the Bush Administration actually tried to get exclusive access to Iraq's oil for the US. We didn't even get money from oil sales to "pay for" the war and that was one thing the administration publicly said it would do. As I recall the majority of the long-term contracts ended up going to French and Chinese companies. Again, it doesn't appear to me that the desire by some in the administration to get Iraq's oil ever made it past the wish-list stage in whatever passed for strategic planning inside the administration.Andynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-25945218672719017812011-12-11T12:35:22.829-08:002011-12-11T12:35:22.829-08:00seydlitz: The problem was in the very radical nat...seydlitz: <i><b>The problem was in the very radical nature of the political goals</b></i><br /><br />I would offer that Rummy had no political or "strategic" goal. He simply found a "laboratory" in which to prove those inflexible generals and their doctrine wrong. I honestly think he was waging war for the sake of waging war - to prove his point. Wolfie, Feith, GWB and Cheney may have had some objectives, but Rummy was just plain arrogant and had to prove he was right.Aviator47https://www.blogger.com/profile/05585964386930142907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-27666289792423671852011-12-11T12:04:47.413-08:002011-12-11T12:04:47.413-08:00Claus-
One could also argue that Containment took...Claus-<br /><br />One could also argue that Containment took that fundamental instability into account. At the same time, no system lasts forever . . .seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-62151833781181729032011-12-11T11:23:19.582-08:002011-12-11T11:23:19.582-08:00@Chief
"2. The Iraqi Shia-Iran connection wa...@Chief<br /><br />"2. The Iraqi Shia-Iran connection was of long standing and based on common interests and goals. What did we have to offer them to "drive a wedge" between the two factions? Power in Iraq for the Shia? Ummm...they were gonna get that, anyway."<br /><br />Nope. Not with Saddam in power. Which is why I say the failures you point out are failures of adressing COIN tenets too late, not failures of COIN itself.<br /><br />@seydlitz<br />"I would also add that the outcome of the Cold War was probably the most successful example of a basically coherent/long-term strategy in US history . . . "<br /><br />Well, there are also scholar who believe it had little to do with US strategy and more with the fact that the Soviet system was unsustainable in the long run anyway. Though that leaves to US strategy still some of the more precise details.Clausewitznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-19157280954757225052011-12-11T10:43:33.318-08:002011-12-11T10:43:33.318-08:00FDCHief-
"So not to be snarky, but...given t...FDCHief-<br /><br />"So not to be snarky, but...given that record to date, who would ever suspect that the U.S. COULD begin thinking "strategically" at this point?"<br /><br />I don't think you're snarky, but I do think your reading of US history misses the point.<br /><br />Al's mentioned WWII and Gulf War I which don't support your view.<br /><br />Now consider WWI, which you pass over without any comment. Why is that? We gained a good bit from that conflict at relatively little cost. I don't think the actual reason for the US declaring war on Germany had that much to do with the submarine threat or the Zimmermann telegram, but that the Allies were looking weak in April 1917 and the possibility of France and Britain loosing the war and defaulting on all those war loans scarred the financial sector. Not to mention the seizure of German chemical and industrial patents by the US ushered in the birth of the US chemical industry (Du Pont especially) as a major player. In all during 1917-18, the US waged "economic warfare" very effectively. Coming in as an "Associated power" allowed Wilson a place at the peace conference, but he could act independently at the same time. The US also gained much at the expense of not only Germany, but the Allies as well in Latin America, with US interests displacing the Europeans. So a basically sound strategy at little relative cost and great economic gains - which were imo the dominate US reasons for going into the war in the first place . . . <br /><br />I would also add that the outcome of the Cold War was probably the most successful example of a basically coherent/long-term strategy in US history . . .seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.com