Redstate

By streiff Posted in War — Comments (21) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

As long as we have no personal knowledge of war, [a]ll appears so simple, all the requisite branches of knowledge appear so plain, all the combinations so unimportant, that, in comparison with them, the easiest problem in higher mathematics impresses us with a certain scientific dignity. But if we have seen war, all becomes intelligible; and still, after all, it is extremely difficult to describe what it is which brings about this change, to specify this invisible and completely efficient Factor.

So begins Carl von Clausewitz describing the idea of Friction and demonstrating that his classic tome, Vom Kreige, is as apropos today as when it was written.

Read on.

Much has been made of the multitude of failures by the Bush Administration in Iraq and the left and the media, to the extent one can reasonably distinguish between the two, have succeeded in creating a meme where otherwise informed people simply parrot the slogan without having devoted even nanoseconds to considering its truth or falsity.

Recently Dr. David C. Hendrickson and Dr. Robert W. Tucker collaborated on a monograph for the Army’s Strategic Studies Institute in which they examine some of the most commonly mentioned failures.

Their critique is not that the critics of the administration are wrong in saying a lot of things have gone poorly in Iraq, but rather the alternatives offered by those critics, or by anyone else, would probably have produced results that were no better, and in many cases worse, than the current situation.

Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction, which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war.

For instance, Hendrickson and Tucker examine the conventional wisdom that too few troops were available to restore order in Iraq after the invasion. This is the issue that caused the martyrdom of GEN Shinseki for his nebulous prognostication of the necessity of “several hundred thousand” troops.

In particular, they take to task the end-all-be-all warplan hyped by Anthony Zinni as having been the result of a “decade” of analysis on his “Get-Rid-Of-Rumsfeld Tour”. (Note: This paper was published some months before the “Revolt of the Generals” kerfuffle.) His plan called for over 400,000 troops to participate in the invasion and the authors rightfully point out that the statutory limitation of 24-months for involuntary mobilization of Guard and Reserve members would have required us to bet that the war, including the security operations in the aftermath, could be concluded within 24 months. And they conclude, when looking at the situation as a whole it was not a sound bet.

So had the Administration used a DESERT STORM equivalent force of 500,000 or so, it would now be in an exceedingly tight place where all the combat structure in the Guard and the Reserve had exhausted its involuntary mobilization period and the duties in Iraq would fall completely on the Regular Army and Marines. It is hard to believe this would be touted as a success, even by the same people who are proclaiming the original decision to be a failure.

Indeed, they point out:

The assumption that the United States would have won the hearts and minds of the population had it maintained occupying forces of 300,000 as opposed to 140,000 must seem dubious in the extreme. Certain things could have done it better, like protecting critical infrastructure, securing arms depots, guarding borders, or processing prisoners, but the larger force would also have enabled the United States to do more things that would have inflamed rather than quelled the insurgency.

This is pretty much the Murtha position, though he appears to try to have it both ways by saying there were not enough troops in the beginning but there are too many now.

Suppose now a traveller, who, towards evening, expects to accomplish the two stages at the end of his day's journey, four or five leagues, with post horses, on the high road—it is nothing. He arrives now at the last station but one, finds no horses, or very bad ones; then a hilly country, bad roads; it is a dark night, and he is glad when, after a great deal of trouble, he reaches the next station, and finds there some miserable accommodation.

They further speculate that even had the level of post-war violence been foreseen it is doubtful that it could have been avoided:

What is misleading about this interpretation is not the contention that CENTCOM ought to have had a well-developed plan to deal with the looting, but the assumption that it would have successfully mastered the problem had it done so. This seems implausible. The criticism too readily assumes that if problems are foreseen, there must in principle be a solution to them.

Again, friction rears its head.

They address the issue of the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, and conclude, as I did, that this criticism simply doesn’t hold water:

It is, in any case, difficult to think of a preceding case in which an invader sought to rely upon the army it defeated for the maintenance of order, and one should not exclude the possibility that U.S. forces would have been providing arms and equipment to forces thoroughly infiltrated by the insurgency.[…]

Certainly there was nothing to be gained from any measure smacking of a gratuitous humiliation, but that does not mean that a reconstituted army would have acted as a loyal servant of the occupation. Given the U.S. experience with forces that have been vetted and trained, this seems altogether unlikely.

Again, not that there was no negative impact from the decision but the alternative proposed by critics was not only unlikely but it would reasonably have been expected to cause even greater difficulties.

So in war, through the influence of an infinity of petty circumstances, which cannot properly be described on paper, things disappoint us, and we fall short of the mark.

On the subject of the insurgency, they conclude that yes, we could have forseen it, and yes we didn’t properly understand its nature, but that the outcome has probably not been influenced by those missteps:

Before the war, the U.S. military had expected a formal surrender from units that would remain intact; instead, Iraqi military units simply dissolved. Many soldiers just went home, relieved that their service was at an end. Many others, it is apparent, faded underground with the intention of continuing resistance.

Because those Iraqi forces willing to continue the fight against the United States were not defeated, it is often assumed that U.S. forces might have followed a strategy that could have defeated them. Like the strategy for dealing with anarchy, however, this, too, is implausible. […]

Whatever the true number of insurgents, there seems little doubt that U.S. forces fell into the trap of believing their own propaganda—failing in particular to understand that most insurgents were probably motivated by a nationalistic or religious revulsion against the invader or feelings of revenge for a wrong done a kinsman rather than by attachment to Saddam or al-Qaeda. It was clearly a mistake to misperceive the size and motives of the insurgency, but it is not so clear that there was a solution to the problem once its scale had been fully appreciated.

It seems to be a peculiarly American trait that we demand perfection in all our endeavors and are bitterly disappointed when that perfection does not occur. While the British national character is associated with the idea of “muddling through” we demand that our wars, like our commercial projects, arrive on time, under budget, and meeting specs. We ignore the advice proffered by von Moltke, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy” or as rendered into American English by GEN Tommy Franks, “The enemy gets a vote.”

To expect a war to be carried off flawlessly, as indeed some regulars on this list seem to expect, flies in the face of human experience. To believe that there are correct, school solution answers to the problems armies and governments at war face is simply pollyannish.

The fact is that every decision made in war, from the squad leader through the president of the United States, is made with inadequate time and resources, under conditions of imperfect knowledge, and based on a set of assumptions about the enemy which may or may not be true, and is the result of a series of tradeoffs. Sometimes the circumstances run in your favor. Sometimes they don't. This war is different from no other.

Friction, that inevitable and unpredictable outcome of men attempting to impose their will on events and each other, is ever present. It cannot be overcome. It cannot be avoided. It just is.

Clausewitz does point to a way of dealing with friction which is fairly congruent to the path chosen, knowingly or unknowingly, by the administration,

[…] In war, on the other hand, the commander of an immense whole finds himself in a constant whirlpool of false and true information, of mistakes committed through fear, through negligence, through precipitation, of contraventions of his authority, either from mistaken or correct motives, from ill will, true or false sense of duty, indolence or exhaustion, of accidents which no mortal could have forseen. In short, he is the victim of a hundred thousand impressions, of which the most have an intimidating, the fewest an encouraging tendency. By long experience in war, the tact is acquired of readily appreciating the value of these incidents; high courage and stability of character stand proof against them, as the rock resists the beating of the waves. He who would yield to these impressions would never carry out an undertaking, and on that account perseverance in the proposed object, as long as there is no decided reason against it, is a most necessary counterpoise. Further, there is hardly any celebrated enterprise in war which was not achieved by endless exertion, pains, and privations; and as here the weakness of the physical and moral man is ever disposed to yield, therefore only an immense force of will which manifests itself in perseverance, admired by present and future generations, can conduct us to the aim.