Posted on 05/24/2002 6:18:20 AM PDT by xsysmgr
Kind-hearted people might, of course, think there were some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine that this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed.
— Clausewitz
To attack or not to attack? That is the question with respect to Iraq. The Bush administration makes no secret of its desire to topple Saddam Hussein before he develops nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel and possibly strike America. Given the chaotic nature of war, if we deploy troops onto Iraqi soil for the purposes of destroying its military, ousting its government, and installing a new one, almost anything can happen. The Arab and/or Muslim worlds could unite against us. Saudi Arabia and Egypt could express their indignation by blocking the Suez Canal or other vital shipping lanes. Iran, Syria, and others could take to the battlefield in support of their Muslim brethren. The Palestinians could ignite another hot war with Israel. Arafat could be martyred. China might avail itself of America's distraction by invading Taiwan, and North Korea could make a similar move on South Korea.
Wouldn't now be a good time to begin restoring the American military to its former glory after the crippling cutbacks that occurred under President Clinton?
Of course we are no longer under pressure to match the Soviet Union grunt for grunt and tank for tank, but even before September 11, our military was struggling to maintain its peacetime operations tempo. Many people are getting impatient for the Bush administration to rebuild the military as President Bush vowed he would. Where is the build-up? Where is the recruiting drive? Where is the request for meaningful budget increases? Why are we not replacing at least some of the countless troops, ships, tanks, and aircraft that were so unceremoniously downsized by the Clinton administration? The military was denuded in the 1990's as a result of a multicultural, anti-war philosophy that prevailed within the Clinton administration and the Democratic party. The Bush administration and many other pro-military Republicans hold another worldview that is equally opposed to a large military.
I fear that President Bush and his military advisers are opposed to expending resources to rebuild the military because they have been seduced by a notion that has tempted, to some degree, the leaders of every powerful tribe or nation since the beginning of time: They believe that America's military technology and know-how have somehow transcended the very nature of warfare, and that we can win any war (Read: We can coerce any foreign culture to conform to our national will) using only limited military action. In other words, they do not believe there is a need to prepare for the possibility of a total war in the Middle East, Taiwan, Korea, or anywhere else because they believe that the idea of total war is passé.
That is why Secretary Rumsfeld's "top-down review" did not result in a rebuilding of the armed forces — because the Bush administration believes that American-style warfare no longer requires large occupation forces. That is why administration officials can so openly and casually discuss the pros and cons of attacking Iraq — because they believe that, if they should decide to attack, they can do so almost on a whim, without having to set aside a year or two to rebuild the military. And that is why President Bush can speak so confidently of total victory in the war on terrorism while the military continues to shrink — he believes that well-planned, well-fought, limited engagements can somehow achieve a total victory.
But are President Bush and his advisers correct? Have our wits and technology rendered total war a thing of the past? Can we simultaneously win the war on terrorism and protect our other global interests by talking tough and carrying a small stick? I don't think so. In the long run, to fight and possibly win the war on terrorism while deterring wars in Taiwan, Korea, and elsewhere will require a massive military machine capable of forcing our will upon our enemies and potential enemies. A small force specializing in limited warfare simply cannot achieve that end. Fighting limited wars against populous, culturally driven enemies is like trying to hold back the tide. It is Sisyphean. By definition, limited war can achieve only limited results. If we are going to win a total victory in the war on terrorism while deterring other major wars around the globe, we will first have to rid ourselves of our aversion to total war.
By "total" war, I mean the kind of warfare that not only destroys the enemy's military forces, but also brings the enemy society to an extremely personal point of decision, so that they are willing to accept a reversal of the cultural trends that spawned the war in the first place. A total-war strategy does not have to include the intentional targeting of civilians, but the sparing of civilian lives cannot be its first priority. By contrast, "limited" war is the use of surgical military force to accomplish discreet foreign-policy goals without mobilizing the entire nation, and while minimizing casualties. The purpose of "total" war is to permanently force your will onto another people group, while the purpose of "limited" war is to temporarily deter or discourage an enemy, or to impede the policy of another country long enough to accomplish particular goals. Limited war pits combatants against combatants, while total war pits nation against nation, even culture against culture.
Over-confidence in one's military technology and ability to manipulate other cultures can lead otherwise good leaders to apply limited-war tactics even when the situation calls for total war. This should have been America's primary lesson from Vietnam, where it became patently obvious that you cannot win a total victory by fighting a limited war. In Vietnam, America wanted a total victory — we wanted to impose our will onto the North Vietnamese and alter the course of their very culture — but we were unwilling to fight a total war. We were unwilling to invade, occupy and rebuild North Vietnamese society, and so we fought a war that was designed not to defeat the North, but to keep them at bay. The result of that effort speaks for itself.
As we have seen in Afghanistan, limited warfare, which is always marked by an over-reliance on technology and air power, does not destroy the enemy as much as it disperses him. This was a second important lesson from Vietnam that we really didn't learn. According to historian John G. Stoessinger, the United States dropped the equivalent of 300 Hiroshima-sized bombs on Indochina, leaving 20 million craters that changed the Vietnamese landscape forever. Yet we failed to overcome the will of the North Vietnamese. Why? Because bombs do not change cultures. The primary effects of bombs are to destroy critical infrastructure, and to encourage enemy forces to take cover. If troops do not advance to kill the enemy face to face and occupy his terrain, then the enemy will simply resurface, more determined than ever, and regroup to fight and kill another day. Smart bombs make bombing more efficient, but they don't change the overall equation. Hence, the al Qaeda and Taliban forces that have fled our precision bombing raids in Afghanistan will likely return to reestablish their training camps when the dust settles, and many Americans who are now serving there with such distinction will have to return to disperse them again and again.
Americans may well decide that we are unwilling to wage total war against the nations that harbor and enable terrorists, and that we must settle for less than total victory in this "asymmetrical" struggle. That is our prerogative. But by not rebuilding our military, our government is taking total war, or even the threat of total war, almost completely off the table. This will not go unnoticed by our enemies. The superior tactics and technology of our small force will no doubt yield impressive battlefield results in the current war and in future conflicts, but in the long run our small-force philosophy will create the vacuum that several freedom-hating cultures have been waiting for. And our children or our grandchildren will have to face the reality of total war because we were too arrogant to face it.
— Adam Mersereau left the Marine Corps as a First Lieutenant in 1995 and is now an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia.
Under Clinton we went from 18 army divisions to 10. If we engage in Iraq, and something goes awry elsewhere, we can do nothing.
To expand the Army, would require, say, 200,000 men. Where would they come from??? Enlistments??? Bush knows full well that he would have to resort to a draft and that would be the death knell for his second term.
Reality is a stern task master and Bush refuses to do what has to be done.
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