If America Had Kept 10,000 Troops in Iraq = No Islamic State?

 

Daniel L. Davis

October 30, 2015

 

Since the Islamic State (ISIS) rose to prominence in 2014 and captured huge swaths of territory in both Syria and Iraq, conventional wisdom in Washington has held that President Barack Obama contributed to its rise by his “failure” to keep 10,000 American troops [4] in Iraq at the end of 2011. This narrative is based on emotion and conjecture which ignores the military and political realities that existed in Iraq in 2011.  The belief that 10,000 American training and support troops could have prevented entire Iraqi divisions from melting in the face of several thousand irregular ISIS troops was never realistic. But perhaps a better example of why those troops would not have prevented the rise of ISIS is to look at what the troops that were kept in Afghanistan proved unable to do.

There are currently approximately 13,000 U.S. and NATO troops [5] stationed in Afghanistan.  In October of last year there were still over 34,000 troops [6]. Yet even these tens of thousands of soldiers had no impact whatever on the resurgence of the Taliban. The rise of both ISIS and the Taliban are based in large measure on the utterly incompetent and corrupt nature of the Baghdad and Kabul governments. But it is past time that we recognize and accept the fact that part of the blame for the rise of these insurgent groups has been – not the limited number of troops we kept on the ground – but on our sometimes blind reliance on military means to solve complex historical, cultural, and economic problems. The case of the Taliban’s rebirth is instructive.

We are often told that the Taliban arose from the post 9/11 ashes because President George w. Bush “took his eye off the ball [7]” by diverting resources from Afghanistan to invade Iraq in March 2003.  Yet this rendering of events likewise fails to examine the conditions at the time. The problem wasn’t that the President diverted resources to attack Iraq (which was, to be sure, a foolish decision), but that we left combat troops there even after the threat had been eliminated.

In the summer of 2001 the Taliban was annihilated – not ‘defeated’ – but wiped out as an organization.  At that moment there was no reason to leave any U.S. or NATO troops on the ground. We should have redeployed combat forces at that time and transitioned to a diplomatic mission focused on rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and economy, assisting where necessary in the rebuilding of their form of government (but leaving it mainly to the Afghan people to determine).

But we didn’t leave. We chose to remain. Even as late as 2006, when I was first deployed to Afghanistan, the security situation was so benign I was able to travel, without body armor, in a standard pickup truck to attend a graduation ceremony of Afghan police candidates in the northern city of Mazer-e Sharif – being invited to visit the inner courtyard of the famous Blue Mosque [8] by the local Imam.  

The infamous Afghan surge of 2009-10 did to the insurgency what kerosene does when thrown on an open fire. Over 100,000 U.S. and NATO combat troops deployed into the country to ostensibly quell the rising insurgency but succeeded only in seeing the violence explode to then-unprecedented levels. Today there are still 13,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, yet the presence of those troops have done nothing to prevent the continued strengthening of the Taliban. 100,000 troops was not enough to militarily defeat the Taliban and terrorist threats. What possible rationale could be put forth to plausibly suggest one tenth that number could?
The evidence and wreckage of the failure of the military-focused policy in Afghanistan is blatant and overwhelming: the Taliban are stronger now [9] than at any time since 2001, the Afghan security forces suffer casualties at unsustainably high rates [10], the drug industry – which effectively did not exist [11] prior to our invasion – is huge and out of control [12], Afghan civilians suffer more killed and wounded [13] than at any time in the war, NATO rebuilding efforts have been abysmal failures [14], and the government in Kabul is the world’s 172d most corrupt [15] (of 175) in the world.

Yet despite this overwhelming, graphic, and unambiguous evidence of strategic failure, still proponents of military-first policy continue in the ascendance and all other options are derided as unrealistic. Until America’s foreign policy and defense leaders admit the obvious failure of the guiding philosophies they have followed, the U.S. is likely to continue making bad situations worse, deepening the harm to American interests abroad and damage to our allies.

Daniel L. Davis retired from the US Army as a Lt. Col. after 21 years of active service.  He was deployed into combat zones four times in his career, beginning with Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and then to Iraq in 2009 and Afghanistan twice (2005, 2011).  He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Valor at the Battle of 73 Easting in 1991, and awarded a Bronze Star Medal in Afghanistan in 2011.


 http://www.nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/if-america-had-kept-10000-troops-iraq-no-islamic-state-14212


 Links:
[1] http://www.nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/if-america-had-kept-10000-troops-iraq-no-islamic-state-14212
[2] http://www.nationalinterest.org/profile/daniel-l-davis
[3] http://twitter.com/share
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/26/was-obama-wrong-to-withdraw-troops-from-iraq/
[5] http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2015_10/20151007_2015-10-rsm-placemat.pdf
[6] http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2014_10/20141014_141006-ISAF-Placemat-final.pdf
[7] http://articles.latimes.com/2004/apr/13/local/me-boxer13
[8] http://www.rferl.org/content/timeless_beauty_afghanistan_blue_mosque/24204654.html
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-united-nations.html?_r=0
[10] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/05/03/afghan-security-forces-suffer-record-casualties/26828193/
[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/taliban-s-ban-on-poppy-a-success-us-aides-say.html
[12] http://nypost.com/2015/05/05/afghan-poppy-farmers-say-new-seeds-will-boost-opium-output/
[13] http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/civilian-casualties-at-record-high-in-afghanistan/
[14] http://www.stripes.com/sopko-faults-leadership-for-abysmal-failure-in-afghanistan-nation-building-1.314825
[15] http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/the_long_view_for_afghanistan_toppling_corruption_takes_time_effort_and_tar
[16] https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/9574048005/sizes/l
[17] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/isis
[18] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/isil
[19] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/islamic-state
[20] http://www.nationalinterest.org/tag/us-military
[21] http://www.nationalinterest.org/topic/security
[22] http://www.nationalinterest.org/region/middle-east

DANGER: Avoid U.S. Troops in Syrian-Iraqi Civil War Trap

"Margin of Victory" Coming Soon from the Naval Institute Press!

www.usni.org/store/books/forthcoming-titles/margin-victory

A fan writes:

Dr. Macgregor,

I saw the AHC Greatest Tank Battles episode with your comments and ordered Warrior's Rage. I am filled with admiration for your leadership. I have coached high school basketball for over thirty years and one coach's cliche kept occurring to me: Players win games. Coaches lose them. I guess in the Army it would be: Shooters win wars. Generals screw up the end game. Reading your book it seeded to me that over-coaching is not confined to sports. I was an Air National Guard comm officer for thirteen years and, although we never saw combat, I saw enough of the politics to find myself nodding in agreement with your description of the cronyism at the top. I've ordered two more of your books and am awaiting delivery with high expectations. Thank you for your service and your humble heroism.

 Macgregor responds:

Thanks for the kind note.  You are absolutely right. Warrior’s Rage confirms your thesis. The battle of 73 Easting is another reminder that without effective strategic direction, capable soldiers, sergeants, lieutenants and captains can win battles like 73 Easting, but wars can still be lost.  

The role of human capital—the native intelligence and cultural orientation to discipline, organization and action—is decisive.  Generals think they win battles.  They rarely do.  It’s the quality of the force in profoundly human terms; soldiers inside the right organization with the right technology that wins battles. In my new book, Margin of Victory (out in 2016 from NIP) I argue that wars are decided in the decades before they begin, not by the sudden appearance of a new, technological “Silver Bullet” or the presence of a few strong personalities in the senior ranks during a single battle.

How effectively national political and military leaders adjust the framework of organization, technology and human capital to relentless change in society, technology, and world affairs determines whether the nation-state prevails or perishes in defeat. For the moment, the senior military leadership is failing to adjust and the political leadership is disengaged.

Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I wish you all the best.

Cheers,

Doug Macgregor

Our armed forces are legacies of the Second World War with a departmental scheme designed in 1947 to obstruct the emergence of a national unified military command structure. This dysfunctional, service-centric arrangement is reinforced by a congress without the understanding or the interest to extract real capability from an overly expensive military establishment. A strong Chief Executive with an interest in return on investment (ROI) and an understanding of product innovation could cut the Gordian Knot in short order, but I don’t see one on the horizon.  

For the moment, we have an enormous Marine Corps determined to replace the US Army and a shrinking US Army determined to become a second Marine Corps! Carl Forsling did a fine job of characterizing the problem in his recent article: http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/09/25/a_marines_view_of_the_army_vision_108510.html

“The Army Vision, more than the other services’ planning documents, suffers from a problem the U.S. military has faced many times before. The services are in competition with each other for slices of a pie in a zero sum game. What the services choose to focus on competing individually is much different than would they would each be assigned were the choice made by someone trying to actually optimize the nation’s defense portfolio.  Is 450,000 the proper size for the Army and 182,000 the proper size for the Marine Corps? I don’t know, and I suspect we really never will, because the capabilities of our armed forces, as determined in an environment of internecine competition, are driving the nation’s defense strategy, vice the other way around. The Army Vision is just the newest example of this problem. While duplication of effort was tolerable when the Defense Department was flush with money, in an era of cutbacks, the Defense Department will find itself foundering budget-wise, and possibly in combat as well.”

No one cares to raise tough questions about the strategic utility of large airborne or amphibious forces. No one wants to deal with the multiple air forces inside the US military. In my new book, I address the issue in the conclusions after demonstrating that every major scientific-industrial power discovered during the 20^th Century the necessity for a national military “High Command” and supporting GS system.  I hope we don’t have to experience decisive defeat to learn this “lesson,” but it seems we may. 

Thanks to the 1947 National Security Act, the senior leaders of the armed services possess the authority and the funding to determine what they will buy and how they will fight with minimal interference from the president or Congress. The Goldwater-Nichols Act created unified commands on the strategic level, but left the money and, ultimately, the power entirely in the hands of the service chiefs.^[i]

 

The missing link is the national machinery—an American military high command—to direct the strategic preparation and conduct of military operations, to allocate strategic resources, and define strategic military needs. Similar proposals for a unified American military high command and staff organization were presented on 25 February 1943 by officers in the War Department. According to the study’s authors, the recommendations “were based on the acknowledgment that all of our U.S. war experiences to date (from Pearl Harbor to the present date) point to the necessity for unity of command on all levels.”[ii]

The machinery that answers this requirement is a national defense staff with a defense chief. Together with his staff, the Chief of Defense would answer directly to the secretary of defense and the president for the day-to-day administration of the armed forces, as well as for the warfighting readiness and development of the capabilities residing in all of the services. The Chief of Defense would exercise operational control over the armed services and issue directives on behalf of the commander-in-chief, the president, for the strategic planning and development of the armed forces.  The Chief’s directives would have the effect of binding law. 

 EXCERPT from the Concluding Chapter: Margin of Victory: 5 Battles that changed the Face of Modern War, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, March 2016).

U.S. Army Crosses Danube in Hungary in Show of Force

The best we can offer is a small unit of armored trucks. The truck mounted infantry are cooperating with Hungarian forces to combat “Hybrid Warfare.” Right.

 

“Forty-one armored Stryker vehicles and 500 soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, known as the Dragoons, began crossing the Danube River on a Hungarian pontoon bridge Thursday morning in Gyor, Hungary. Over 96 hours, the regiment’s reconnaissance squadron has been making a very public road march through Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.”

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2015/09/17/u-s-army-crosses-danube-in-hungary-in-show-of-force/

 

All warfare is Hybrid in character.  There is no such thing as a pure form of warfare. The notion that US and allied forces should focus on the “Low-Intensity” end of warfare ignores the Russian capacity to rapidly escalate. American military capabilities should be based on sober threat analyses, not illusions. The Stryker Parade won’t fool anyone in Moscow.

 

The Russians don’t do many things well, but the Russians have been subverting, destabilizing, invading and conquering their neighbors since Peter the Great. The idea that we are seeing something new in the form of “little green men” is a measure of how little Americans know about Russia. Soviet military planners incorporated the use of fifth column forces into their theater level operational planning during the Cold War as they did during WW II. 

Town Hall, America: State of Affairs on Iran Nuclear Deal

 

By Sinclair Broadcast Group Staff 

Wednesday, September 9th 2015

 

 

 

 WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — After a day of rallies and protests on Capitol Hill, legislators are getting ready to vote on whether or not they agree with the proposed Iran nuclear agreement.

Late Wednesday, House Republican leaders stalled talks after claiming the White House had not disclosed side agreements that were made on the impending deal.

According to legislation passed earlier this year, leaders on the hill have little more than a week do approve or disapprove it.

In a town hall debate, a group of panelists discussed the Iran nuclear deal, and the impact the decision will have with Sinclair Broadcast Group's Senior Political Reporter Scott Thuman.

During the discussion, heated at times, the group of current and former legislators along with a retired army colonel and political activist went back and forth over the pros and cons of the deal.

"We aren't going to get a perfect deal," asserted former Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia."There is no better alternative."

"We are going to have to give something, to get something that matters."

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) said his experience as a CIA operative for nearly a decade leads him to believe the Iranian government is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

"This is far from a perfect deal. I think it could be better," he said, noting trust issues with the Iranians as a factor in his decision.

"We can't trust the Iranians that they are going to follow suit with this deal."

Retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor disagreed, stating the deal, "allows us to move away from a path of confrontation," adding "at this stage of the game, we walk - we lose it."

Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he believes a deal will give Iran a shot at bolstering their power in the Middle East. "We do not have the kind of verification or inspection we are supposed to have," he said, also asserting the dangers of lifting sanctions and providing Iran access to billions in funds.

Moran said he sees no other option, believing that the U.S. could face backlash should lawmakers vote against the deal, "I don't see any alternative to this deal that 95% of the other world powers have agreed to. The U.S. loses credibility in terms of its world leadership."

Rep. Hurd though, stated it would be hard to believe that European leadership would not reconsider their position should Congress go against the deal, "If the Europeans decide to choose Iran over the United Sates - how bad have our relationships gotten if our partners side with Iran over us?"

http://wjla.com/news/political/town-hall-america-state-of-affairs-on-iran-nuclear-deal