Posted on 03/09/2020 5:38:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
In February of 1862, Ulysses S. Grant forced the surrender of Confederate forces at Fort Donelson in Kentucky. His demands shocked his Confederate opponents and military observers from across the world accustomed to more chivalrous commanders.
That demand was for a simple unconditional surrender. Turn your army over to the mercy of the victor with no guarantees of treatment.
Two years later General Grant turned his two most celebrated subordinates, William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan, loose on the remaining sources of supplies in the South. By 1865, the heart of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, plus Georgia and the Carolinas were a howling wasteland bereft of crops, livestock, infrastructure, and also the will to resist.
Sherman’s maxim “war is hell” did not reflect a bloodthirsty or cruel nature so much as a key reality. To obtain a complete victory as Grant and Lincoln expected, one must have the willingness to use the most extreme measures possible. Sherman understood that you have to make war terrible enough to kill the will to keep fighting.
That requires not only a powerful fighting force, but also a civilian and government will to go to those measures.
Both the United States and the Confederate States understood that victory for one required annihilation of the other. Both populations willingly underwent the horror required to bring about and to defend against that fated result.
Another important modern example of commitment to total victory and extermination of the enemy regime is World War II. The evil of National Socialism combined with American rage over Pearl Harbor ensured that Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill could confidently rely on public opinion to back any measure necessary to end the war as quickly as possible. Entire cities in Europe and Asia virtually disappeared, but this did ensure a quicker ending to one of the world’s most costly wars.
For nearly two decades, U.S. military forces have battled the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan. Few would argue that the United States lacked sufficient reason to storm Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. Recent Soviet experiences there with heavy conventional forces likely suggested that the US follow the example of Joshua and use smaller and more agile forces to defeat those who supported the attacks on America.
Over that time, U.S. and allied forces have re-experienced the frustrations experienced by Great Power leaders from Alexander the Great to Mikhail Gorbachev. British poet Rudyard Kipling, often portrayed as a cheerleader of empire, penned this warning in the 1800s, “When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains/And the women come out to cut up what remains/Jest roll on your rifle and blow out your brains/An go to yer Gawd like a soldier.”
Though on the wrong side of ideas since the election of Donald Trump, Max Boot was right in his books to question whether or not the Civil War and World War II served as the best examples of an American way of war. In his view America, like other Great Powers, engaged in countless small wars and corrective actions extensively.
Boot claimed that small wars, such as the Quasi Naval War with France or actions against Tripoli by Presidents Jefferson and Madison are actually America’s preferred method of using force to achieve defense and security ends. The definitive endings of the Civil War and World War II actually dangerously mislead the public and wrongfully tarnish the image of any military efforts that do not end in complete capitulation from the enemy.
Additionally, the survival of enemy regimes does not necessarily indicate that they “won” the war.
Unconditional surrender requires the complicity of the defeated. Robert E. Lee weighed the sting of surrender against the perpetual agonies that continued flight to guerrilla war in the Appalachians would have wrought. Emperor Hirohito resisted the national suicide impulses of his military leaders in his decision to give in to superior Allied arms.
It’s important to recognize the willingness of the defeated to give up without taking credit away from the valiant and hard earned efforts of the victors.
President Donald Trump has made “winning” a definitive theme in his own engagements and his presidency as a whole. As the U.S. exits Afghanistan on his watch, the president has an important task in creating a responsible definition of victory in this and future such conflicts.
Some opponents, especially in non-industrialized countries, have little to lose. Sun Tzu emphasizes the need to target what one’s enemy holds most dear in an effort to win. Fighters in Afghanistan live in Spartan circumstances. Most have almost nothing to lose except their honor and pride.
Defeating such a people to the point of surrender requires a Carthago delenda est mentality. Every individual and stronghold must be annihilated. If a single edible plant springs up, it must be cut down. Starvation and deprivation become weapons of war.
It’s not a criticism of Americans that the country is unwilling to pursue this level of conflict. That said, leaving Afghanistan is not a defeat if the action meets reasonable war aims.
Historians regard the Korean War as a “tie,” which is unfair to both the military and President Harry Truman. His war aims lay in defending South Korea. Defeating Communist China and North Korea would have required a regional nuclear conflict that could have fatally poisoned both South Korea and Japan. While North Korea is a nuisance, it has never again seriously attacked its southern neighbor. In this light, one can call the Korean War a victory.
Whether or not Afghanistan is a victory depends on the future. Should the Taliban and their allies reject terror in the long term out of exhaustion and fear of a U.S. return to active operations, count it as a win for American arms. Likely this was the best outcome the country could have hoped for short of imposing a currently unimaginable escalation of violence.
And Grant probably would have approved.
Like a bad marriage, just leave already.
“Turn your army over to the mercy of the victor with no guarantees of treatment.”
Sounds good on paper. But there are problems. First, they don’t understand the overall concept of winning or losing. In their belief, if they die fighting the infidel, they are rewarded. They can’t lose, so they don’t try. If one looks at the amount of time this has been going on, about 600 years after the birth of Christ, I’m sure you can see the problem.
Secondly, they are spreading into countries world wide and, also, by spreading their manure about the religion of peace. Islamist Sayyid Qutb wrote that Islam is the religion of peace in the sense of submitting all of mankind to Allah. Well, there goes the first amendment.
Thirdly, to accomplish this effort to just one religion is going to have to come from the top. So they will have to be in charge and rule with sharia law which is combative in itself. At the moment there are too many other religions to do that as they will disagree and argue (fight) to maintain their religion. But isn’t that where we are right now? Waiting for them to out reproduce other people of other religions in individual countries? Look at London, England. They have a mayor that believes sharia law should be implemented in 20% of the country. How long will it be till enough of the islamists vote that in. Then they can have their civil war like the revolutionary one we had with them in the 1700’s.
rwood
Why not exit and use Taliban bases as testing grounds for new remote fighting technology.
The ragheads have been fighting each other for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This is their mindset and nothing we do is going to change it.
IMHO, everybody would be better off if we left them to their own evil devices.
Afghanistan is a tar baby.
The Rooskies and the Brits can testify to that.
We were there to get bin laden. He was in Pakistan. Why are we there? Get out.
Opium?
“Should the Taliban and their allies reject terror in the long term out of exhaustion and fear of a U.S. return to active operations, count it as a win for American arms.”
The Taliban have since signing “the deal” made a partnership with ISIS-in-Afghanistan, for ISIS to do the attacking the Taliban have agreed to do no longer “against U.S. forces” - for a while. And why not? They do not differ from ISIS on any radical fundamentalist religious point but merely how each is organized. ISIS beheads the infidels, and the Taliban merely murders or executes them.
The essential flaw in “the deal” is the same as in the armistice signed with North Korea. In both cases the side we were defending was not part of, not a party to “the deal”. The government of South Korea was not a party to the armistice signed with North Korea and the Afghan government was not a party to the recent “deal” signed with the Taliban. In both cases, that flaw lends support to the side we were fighting that the side we were supporting is not the legitimate government of the nation where the fighting has taken place. THAT IS the position of North Korea and it is the position of the Taliban, and the Taliban believe the U.S. willingness to sign a one-on-one deal with them confirms that.
From the Taliban’s perspective now, it is not whether or not THEY will again occupy Afghanistan, but whether the present government of Afghanistan will let the Taliban walk into control, politically, or will the Taliban over run them militarily once all U.S. troops leave. From the Taliban perspective they have “made peace” (achieved surrender of U.S. claims for militarily supporting any parties in Afghanistan) with the U.S. and the U.S. only, not with the government of Afghanistan, which they will never do. From their perspective any negotiations with the government of Afghanistan is about just how it will surrender control to them.
The difference between our situations in Korea and Afghanistan is that we have remained in Korea helping to prevent the North Korean dictatorship from doing that which the Taliban intend to do. In that way it - Korea - has been an honorable peace for us, as was the peace we forced on Germany and Japan.
In this:
“Boot claimed that small wars, such as the Quasi Naval War with France or actions against Tripoli by Presidents Jefferson and Madison are actually America’s preferred method of using force to achieve defense and security ends. The definitive endings of the Civil War and World War II actually dangerously mislead the public and wrongfully tarnish the image of any military efforts that do not end in complete capitulation from the enemy. “
Max Boot was wrong. There is no “preferred” U.S. method of war.
Conditions and context of a war are everything and in that you cannot mix apples and oranges and declare the way of resolving them should only be some “preferred” way. The conditions and context, even in Max Boot’s examples, differed by the determination and abilities of our opponents rendering the situation to just what it would take to get them to agree to our aims. The German Reich and Hirohito’s Japan were not like the Bey of Tripoli - who was not even in their league.
Alexander the Great handled Afghanistan in short order. Any village,town or city that resisted every living thing in it was put to the sword. But if they behaved the people had business as usual. A few incidents like that a d the whole countryside became docile. The same technique worked well for the Mongols too. When dealing with barbarians you out barbarian them.
That has been the goal since WW2 and advances in technology have done wonders to reduce those kind of horrific numbers.
Remember, Sadaam's plan was to inflict casualties, so the press and Americans would be horrified at the number of body bags coming home and protest the war to end.
Smarter commanders, and our emerging technologies negated that.
Afghanistan is a dog's breakfast and has been since the dawn of time. Tribal feudalism combined with Koranic infatuation have brought us to the point we are at. Terrain so rough, our tech is negated by the rudimentary tactics of the Taliban.
Unless we are willing to use the tactics of Grant in the South, Pershing against the Moros in the Philippines, and even the Marines in the Pacific, there is no final 'winning'.
My tag line says "Nuke", but in Afgahanistan, I'll settle for MOABs if we kill all 25 million of the vermin.
The only way to beat mooselimb terrorists is to kill them...ALL.
The choice is kill them or die.
In WWII we bombed and slaughtered tens of millions of civilians and we had a choice, but the alternative was defeat, and we choose...brutal victory.
We nuked two japanese cities and hundreds of thousands of civilians were incinerated and millions developed cancer and other follow on diseases. We won and saved many American lives.
If you have no stomach for victory, you must be ready to accept defeat, and then allah akbar.
No, he was in Ashcanistan before he left for Pokiestan.
The Afgans screwed it up there and let him get away to Pokiestan.
“Why are we there?”
Getting Bin Laden was only part of the process. We knew he wasn’t there that much but we went in to get Al Qaeda out also. They are still there, so, so are we.
rwood
Both the United States and the Confederate States understood that victory for one required annihilation of the other.
North Vietnam won with this idea, the Confederacy lost.
All that said, history has shown that “great powers” never seem to be happy with the ways their wars in or with Afghanistan turn out. A “victory” in Afghanistan might be declared as the moment no more American lives are lost there.
Find them via drones and obliterate then from the air. Not worth American lives.
“....obliterate then from the air...”
There are 1.8 billion in the world, roughly 24% of the global population. The largest infestation is in Indonesia with over 209 million. In America, the largest group of them are in New Jersey and D.C. and they total at 3.45 million.
It’s obvious we can’t take them out by force completely, They have to be made unlawful and handled on a case by case basis....a few hundred here and there. And all the terrorist training camps in the US need to be closed along with proper education in schools.
So it isn’t impossible, but it’s going to take a few lifetimes of steady work.
And for those that say I am talking about religious persecution, this is not a religion, it is a sect. And the most evil in history. Ethnic cleansing is their idea, not mine.
rwood
We have to concern ourselves with the currently proposed communist takeover from the Bernie’s of the world and his Antifa buddies. As well as their Muslim buddies. What side will the military take. As when Obama was president he turned the military against Americanism. Trump is turning the military around. But it could quickly slip back if Bernie is the President. So who’s side is the military on?
“So who’s side is the military on?”
You answered your own question...whoever is in charge. Anything else is a revolution.
rwood
I’m for liberty. It trumps it all, no pun intended. If my liberty is in question I will fight to protect it. It’s what we are all about in the USA.
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