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| Home Front: Politix |
| Can We Still Win Wars? |
| 2012-05-21 |
| VDH Given that the United States fields the costliest, most sophisticated, and most lethal military in the history of civilization, that should be a silly question. We have enough conventional and nuclear power to crush any of our enemies many times over. Why then did we seem to bog down in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan? The question is important since recently we do not seem able to translate tactical victories into long-term strategic resolutions. Why is that? What follows are some possible answers. No—We Really Do Win Wars Perhaps this is a poorly framed question: the United States does win its wars—if the public understands our implicit, limited strategic goals. In 1950 we wanted to push the North Koreans back across the 38th parallel and succeeded; problems arose when Gen. MacArthur and others redefined the mission as on to the Yalu in order to unite the entire Korean peninsula, a sort of Roman effort to go beyond the Rhine or Danube. Once we redefined our mission in 1951 as one more limited, we clearly won in Korea by preserving the South. In Vietnam, the goal of establishing a viable South was achieved by 1974. Congress, not the president or the military, felt the subsequent peace-keeping commitments and air support were too costly. They allowed a renewed Northern invasion that led to a second and lost war, and then were surprised that the North Vietnamese proved to be not campus radicals but hardcore Stalinists. Panama, Grenada, and Serbia were successful small enterprises. In the first Gulf War, the strategic aim was to oust Saddam from Kuwait—or so we said. That succeeded, though it did not solve the problem of what Saddam would in the future do with his vast oil revenues. In the second war, the mission was to remove him, birth a democracy, and then leave Iraq better than before. That more ambitious aim too succeeded—not, however, without enormous costs. Our strategic objective in Afghanistan was to oust the Taliban and ensure that it did not return to host terrorists on Afghan soil. The former mission was done over a decade ago, the latter hinges on the Afghans themselves after we leave. We vowed to rid Libya of Gaddafi and we did—and did not exactly promise that what followed would be immediately better than what we removed. In such special pleading, the U.S. has won its wars as it has defined them. Note the great success of the Cold War that ended with the destruction of the Soviet Empire. RTWT |
| Posted by:Beavis |
#1 "Our strategic objective in Afghanistan was to oust the Taliban and ensure that it did not return to host terrorists on Afghan soil.""These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate." 'Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, said yesterday that he expected moderate Taliban leaders to play a crucial role in any new administration in Afghanistan, and made it clear that US military action against Osama bin Laden should be "short and targeted". By October of 2001 the Bush administration's message re US strategic and political objectives had already become contradictory and incoherent. War is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will. When one side can't even articulate its will for fear of giving offense to the enemy, it cannot win a war. The political decision not to win trumps every tactical military advantage. The was successful military action in Afghanistan. But the result is that Western troops are stationed in Afghanistan in order to serve the 'Noble People of Afghanistan.' |
| Posted by: Glolumble Sproing5279 2012-05-21 15:25 |