And Libya goes on...

[carl]

If it would not have taken much, why are we the only ones who could have? Are we the only ones on the planet who have deployable military forces?

In a practical sense as it applied to Rwanda in 1994, yes. We were the only ones with enough airlift that, for us, it would not have taken much. For others it would have been impossible. We were the only ones with AC-130s and tools like that. We were the only ones. And we stood by and watched.

JMA: Of all the politicians, humans even, in the world, only Mr. Clinton would have watched the slaughter, done nothing, then showed up 4 years later in the very country where the slaughter occurred in order to score points.

[Fuchs]

Germany could have airlifted a whole brigade of paratroopers into Kigali in 48 hrs if there had been overflight permissions, a possibility to refuel on some airport and the political will to do it.

The Russians could easily have done the same with at least one division of paratroops - with armour!

The French were able to deploy a brigade plus they had a battalion almost "close" in Djibouti.

The British would have been able to air-lift a brigade paras or the RMs.

Several African countries would have been able to intervene as well.

[Ken White]

We were the only ones.

'We' are almost never the only ones...

And we stood by and watched.

'We' also stood by and watched WW II unfold from 1939 until nearly 1942. 'We' stood by and watched Mao take over China and watched their subsequent Cultural Revolution. 'We' watched Chechnya, too. I hear almost no one bemoaning the fact that we did not interfere -- because that's what we're talking about, interfering -- in China or Russia...

Some times not interfering is not really just standing by and watching and it frequently is the most sensible thing to do -- it may not always be the 'nicest' thing to but then the World isn't nice. It may not be the altruistic approach but then altruism is a personal characteristic; nations are not persons...

[carl]

Fuchs:

Germany: Three big ifs there. And if all the "ifs" had been "had beens" what percentage of Germany's airlift capacity would it have taken?

Russia: You're kidding right?

France: I believe they had forces in Rwanda at the time, but, according to the Mucyo report anyway, they were, shall we say, not inclined to do anything.

Great Britain: The same question about percentage of airlift capacity as applies to Germany.

African countries: How would those African countries have gotten there and how would they have been able to maintain forces if they had gotten them there? You could probably make the argument that Uganda did intervene and that stopped the killing, in Rwanda, for that moment.

We were the only country that had C-130s, C-5s, C-141s, KC-135s and KC-10s by the hundreds and hundreds therefore we were the only country for whom the effort would have been a relatively minor one, relatively.

[carl]

'We' are almost never the only ones...

In this case, I think we were.

'We' also stood by and watched WW II unfold from 1939 until nearly 1942. 'We' stood by and watched Mao take over China and watched their subsequent Cultural Revolution. 'We' watched Chechnya, too. I hear almost no one bemoaning the fact that we did not interfere -- because that's what we're talking about, interfering -- in China or Russia...

A difference in degree can add up to a difference in kind (I heard George Will say that once and I'm thrilled to use it). Refusing to stop the slaughter in Rwanda when we were well able to do so with relatively small effort, cannot be compared to us not stopping the famines and murders caused by Red Chinese government malevalence (sic). That is a fallacy in that you are not discrediting refusing to stop evil when you can, by equating it with the inability to stop evil when you physically cannot do so.

Some times not interfering is not really just standing by and watching and it frequently is the most sensible thing to do...

Sometimes too, it is just something to be ashamed of.

[Fuchs]

Russia: You're kidding right?

Not at all. Remember the year; 1994. Russia could easily have mobilised the military and aeroflot Il-76s for a massive airlift.

African countries: How would those African countries have gotten there and how would they have been able to maintain forces if they had gotten them there?

How an African army would have been maintained in the field? Guess how.
Tip: They need no sandbag fortress with air-conditioned containers and McDonalds franchise.

We were the only country that had C-130s, C-5s, C-141s, KC-135s and KC-10s by the hundreds and hundreds therefore we were the only country for whom the effort would have been a relatively minor one, relatively.

So what? A genocide like that does not happen every decade or even year. It doesn't matter whether you give a marching order to all your paras and all your air transport wings or just to a fraction of them.

The killing was done in large part with machetes, clubs or at most by ill-equipped, ill-organised, ill-led and ill-trained troops.
All you needed for an effective intervention was to send paras in.

Even Luxembourg could have made a difference; mobilise their infantry battalion, charter seven airliners, send them in and let them loose in platoon-sized teams to hunt down and disarm mobs and gangs.

[Ken White]

My observations from on the ground are that FSO cones are for the most part staffed by folks highly skilled in their particular specialty. 'Observe and report', analysis, negotiation, and communication skills as well as a certain gravitas appear to be highly valued across the board.

I agree. Thus the to me adverse effects of a personnel system seeking to lighten its work load are not too pernicious, mostly because Plan B, below, can mitigate the damage to quite an extent.

The question in my mind is should the executors of Plan B have to go to that extra trouble -- and it is trouble and it is extra in that they should not be the ones having to repair errors caused by theoretically supporting elements losing sight of their role. There are times when I believe the Per system has an Army to support it instead of the converse.

...Commanders have say for a multitude of good reasons....

State or DoD, that's Plan B...

So Ken,...how do we fix this given that soldiering is a young man's job

I have numerous fixes. Most cannot be applied in a nominal democracy...

What can be fixed is eliminate up or out and replace it with competence testing, determine age brackets for optimum -- that's optimum, not acceptable -- performance and enforce them (if we can enforce weight standards, we can enforce competence and age standards). Make the services smaller so you can pay more, recruit for quality, not to fill spaces (I'd rather go to war 20% short with good people than one man over with schlunks...). Improve training, embed the basics in IET, Officer and Enlisted. All doable even in an uber-democracy.

DoD has a very bad case of mission creep when it comes to DoS and USAID personnel functions?

That's a bug not a feature and its due to the default setting on the budget process in DC which creates the unbalanced system. It's really easily fixed but would require DoD giving up spaces, faces and dollars. It should be done BUT the prognosis is not good -- unless Congress gets a whole lot smarter They are a part of the problem because defense is American and Apple Pie, Foreign affairs and aid are a distraction from US domestic politics which add little or no revenue to Congressional reelection campaign funds. Defense spending buys jobs, foreign affairs take them away. So you have to fix Congress for full system repair.

Fortunately, I have a plan to get that done. Vote out all incumbents. every election -- then the political class will get the message and smarten up, read their oaths and fix things instead of trying to squat jumps on the phalli of the opposition party.

Should the specialties formerly known as CS and CSS be completely contracted out?

I'd say yes; many would say no -- the truth is probably somewhere in between. There are a LOT of unnecessary jobs being performed by persons in Uniform...

We also need to significantly address our logistic problem -- the tooth tail ratio is terribly out of balance, penalty of a 1917 personnel system, parochial branches and failure to adapt.

On the DoS and USAID side of things the exclusive pale, male, and Yale (DoS) and earth muffin (USAID) staffing pattern stereotypes who are afforded limited management/leadership training opportunities are not the answer that America needs either.

That may be true today, can't say, not out there -- but when I was, State was robust enough and the sharpest Commercial Counsellor I met was an SMU grad, the best First Sec was from FSU and a slew of Land Grant college guys and gals were there and doing good work. OTOH, the Yalies were indeed a problem. Douglas MacArthur II comes to mind...

As for US Aid, may be full of Earth Muffies now but back in the day they had some hard core tough guys and did super work. So did the USIA -- and the idiot trio of Clinton, Christopher and Albright dismantled 'em. That's about as dumb as Ford doing away with the Taurus....

The current promotion system sets the Army up to reward mediocrity by extensive emphasis on time sensitive gates. That is in effect a reward or compensation system but it is wrong headed. It keeps people it does not need now but may need at some unforeseen future effort and places these people in make work jobs to justify them. Wrong answers all round...

Bottom line on all the personnel questions is: Hire people who are capable of doing a job, train them well, leave them alone, overlook petty mistakes but fire or jail them summarily for three or more major screwups and do not reward time in service or grade -- reward competence.

To do less than any of that is to sculpt your personnel system to make it and the people hired easier to 'manage.'

...out in the field we are always open to ideas.

Been there. Used to be true. May still be but if so that openness is much less apparent than it used to be. I talk frequently to others also in the field and their assessment is not nearly as positive on that aspect as is yours...

Formal study, self study, coaching, and the encouragement of other career paths are the TTP's that I am familiar with and use...

Good for you. Seriously. Shame more people don't do that. Also seriously.

All things that apply to Libya (potentially) and any other place we may have to operate...

and there will be others...

[Ken White]

In this case, I think we were.

Fuchs is correct, others had the capability. Even had they not we could have done what I got to do in '64 -- hop on a US C-130 and ferry and jump Belgique paratroopers in the Congo. We've provided airlift for many people going many places we did not send ground troops. LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK.

The US avoided operating under the UN for many years and avoids a lot of interventions for one whopping big and very good reason -- US Troops become targets. We're the big kid on the block and everyone wants a piece. Bush 41 ignored that rule to go to Somalia (against DoD advice predicated on the target syndrome). That was bad enough then Clinton blew it up further with his diktat to "Get Aideed" -- all that ended up leaving the Somalis in arguably worse shape and us embarrassed and feeling a sense of futility. All because the media said we ought to do it so they 'd feel good.

The mood in the US after the Mogadishu screw up by Delta and the Rangers -- and make no mistake, they're the ones that screwed the pooch -- was totally opposed to any intervention anywhere. Rwanda was the victim of two pieces of bad luck: Timing and not one single US interest. You may think stopping genocide is in the interest of the US. The folks who'd have gotten killed and their parents, wives and kids might disagree.

A difference in degree can add up to a difference in kind (I heard George Will say that once and I'm thrilled to use it). Refusing to stop the slaughter in Rwanda when we were well able to do so with relatively small effort, cannot be compared to us not stopping the famines and murders caused by Red Chinese government malevalence (sic). That is a fallacy in that you are not discrediting refusing to stop evil when you can, by equating it with the inability to stop evil when you physically cannot do so.

No it's not a fallacy. A thing is either right or wrong. The issue with both China and Russia is not that we could not have stopped it because we could have -- the issue is the cost. What you're saying is if it appears * the cost won't be too high, we should go in, OTOH, if it might be too great, we just cannot.

So you're willing to interfere because the target is weak but not to do so if it is strong. I didn't present a fallacy because a wrong is a wrong -- you are engaging in moral equivalency -- do 'what's right' only if it might not hurt too much...

* I say "appears" because there's no way short of commitment to know what the cost will be. Both Afghanistan and Iraq looked easy. How can you say with any degree of assurance that stopping the killing in Rwanda would be a "relatively small effort?"

Sometimes too, it is just something to be ashamed of.

Oh? How so? Please tell me of what the US -- or I -- should be ashamed.

[davidbfpo]

From Bob's World (Post 159):

It is not in the interest of any Arab leader to contribute to a no fly zone..

If that is true, then I would not support a non-Arab NFZ. If the Gaddafi regime has failed the Arab League criteria for acceptability, with a referral to the UNSC, they can provide the lethal parts of a NFZ.

I fully accept Arab leaders have a strange stance today on Libya.

[Fuchs]

Strange, yes. Maybe they're smart. They somehow position themselves on the other side of the aisle than the evil, evil dictator.
It makes them almost look moderate.


Btw, I suspect that Al Jazeera did lay the basis for the recent uprisings. It would be interesting to get a short report about AJ's relations to Qatar's government in the past few weeks and about how much (and what kind of) pressure Qatar is getting because of AJ.

[carl]

Not at all. Remember the year; 1994. Russia could easily have mobilised the military and aeroflot Il-76s for a massive airlift.

Yes, I remember that 1994 was also the year that the Russians entered Grozny for the first time and had a bit of trouble. I also wonder how many of those IL-76s could actually fly at the time, or any Russian AF plane. Russia was strong on paper but in practice maybe not so much.

Besides, if I were going to pick a nation to mount a military intervention for a humanitarian purpose almost anybody except maybe North Korea would come before the Russkis.

How an African army would have been maintained in the field? Guess how.
Tip: They need no sandbag fortress with air-conditioned containers and McDonalds franchise.

That's true they don't need Mickey Ds. But they do need food, ammunition, fuel etc and they may have had trouble getting it there. Of course, that may not have been so much trouble for them as being African forces they may have just taken what they needed from the locals. You have more confidence in African forces than I do.

Even Luxembourg could have made a difference; mobilise their infantry battalion, charter seven airliners, send them in and let them loose in platoon-sized teams to hunt down and disarm mobs and gangs.

And Mexico and Fiji and Finland and Sarawak etc etc etc. But for all of them it would have been a major effort, for us, no.

[Dayuhan]

In a practical sense as it applied to Rwanda in 1994, yes. We were the only ones with enough airlift that, for us, it would not have taken much. For others it would have been impossible. We were the only ones with AC-130s and tools like that. We were the only ones. And we stood by and watched.

I'd have to agree with Ken and Fuchs. Others could have, and they also stood and watched. I'd also have to point out that every time the US steps up and carries the weight, we encourage others who could develop the capacity to make it easier for them to make a difference to sit back, decline to spend the money, and assume that the Americans will do it.

Of course timing matters. If the US expedition in Somalia had gone smoothly and that incident in Mogadishu had never happened, the US would have been a lot more inclined to act in Rwanda. If we hadn't overextended and gotten mired down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and if we hadn't run into an economic crisis, we'd be a lot more inclined to intervene in Libya today. That's not meant to criticize the US or suggest that we are unusually capricious. Every nation faces these patterns and these constraints. That's why it's fundamentally ineffective for the world to rely on one power to clean up everybody else's mess: realistically, there's a lot of mess out there and no power can be relied upon to have the resources, will, and domestic political support at any (or every) given time.

If this sort of thing is going to be done, there has to be a multilateral capacity for doing it, and everybody who thinks it needs to be done has to be prepared to contribute either force or money. There has to be provision for rapid decision making, even if that means that there won't always be consensus. That's not easy, but neither is it easy to expect one country to carry all the weight, unless of course you're the one sitting in the armchair or the back seat and pointing the finger. The US may need to exercise some leadership to promote the development of such capacity, and counterintuitive though it may be, part of that leadership may lie in refusal to do everything that people say needs to be done. If we step up and carry the weight every time, why should anyone else bother to try, or bother to develop the needed capacity?

If we're looking at Libya today, why would we assume the US must take the lead in any action against Gadhafi's forces? The vast majority of Libya's oil flows to Europe, the Europeans are in the neighborhood, and we've long heard how committed they are to democracy, human rights, and the proper behaviour of nations. They have air forces too, or so we are led to believe. If you look purely at what's available in the area, close enough to deploy, they probably have more than we do. Certainly the US could play a role, but how is it our responsibility to play the primary role?

That is some powerful stuff, it is the cornerstone of my heritage as an American citizen, and I embrace it.

I embrace it too, but I'm not prepared to assume that we should export it. Telling other people how to organize their governments is not, so far as I know, part of our heritage as American citizens. Not that we haven't tried it enough times, but we've had anything but universal success at it, and the effort is in no way implicit in what we are.

[Pete]

These calls for intervention in Libya bring to mind Colin Powell's comment to President Bush about the Pottery Barn before we went into Iraq -- "If you break it you own it."

[Dayuhan]

These calls for intervention in Libya bring to mind Colin Powell's comment to President Bush about the Pottery Barn before we went into Iraq -- "If you break it you own it."

Aside from that, every time the US intervenes in a place with oil it is widely assumed that there's a nefarious plan to gain ownership. That perception has been used effectively against us in the past, and will be again if we create the circumstances that encourage it.

[RJ]

As Dayahun posted

If we're looking at Libya today, why would we assume the US must take the lead in any action against Gadhafi's forces? The vast majority of Libya's oil flows to Europe, the Europeans are in the neighborhood, and we've long heard how committed they are to democracy, human rights, and the proper behaviour of nations. They have air forces too, or so we are led to believe. If you look purely at what's available in the area, close enough to deploy, they probably have more than we do. Certainly the US could play a role, but how is it our responsibility to play the primary role?

Fuchs - Where does Germany and France get most of thier petrol products?

France recognized the Rebels in Lybia. If Gadaffi routs them France is up to river with out a paddle as far as exports from Lybia goes. What is Germanys' position on the Gadaffi vs the People of Lybia's Rebel Forces?

I'm sure some one in Europe can look up and post the percentages each European Nation recieves in oil from each muslim hotspot in Africa and the Middle East.

I'd like to see those numbers. All of us in the west are in economies that are driven by oil. No power source has yet been developed that will replaced oil in any signifigant way for decades to come.

[Dayuhan]

It is true that Europe can replace Libyan crude with oil from other sources, but there would be some complications... especially for Italy, which takes the largest slice of Libya's exports, but for France and Germany as well. Libyan oil is light, sweet, and close; replacing it with lower grades would require retooling of refineries and sourcing equivalent grades might need a price premium. Increased dependence on Russia or on oil transiting through Russia also has some potential complications.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the Europeans will do. Probably just talk, but we will see. Presumably the Continent could grow a testicle (two would seem optimistic) if its interests are sufficiently impacted, but what level of impact would be sufficient remains unknown.

[Ken White]

These calls for intervention in Libya bring to mind Colin Powell's comment to President Bush about the Pottery Barn before we went into Iraq -- "If you break it you own it."

However, that's not what he said:

It is said that I used the “Pottery Barn rule.” I never did it; [Thomas] Friedman did it … But what I did say … [is that] once you break it, you are going to own it, and we’re going to be responsible for 26 million people standing there looking at us. And it’s going to suck up a good 40 to 50 percent of the Army for years. And it’s going to take all the oxygen out of the political environment. . .

(LINK).

I suspect he said what he did say it in an attempt to deter Bush from going to Iraq (he's one of those who absorbed the old US Army dictum to avoid a land war in Asia, the rule Gates thinks we should rediscover...). I know Powell knows better from a little talk he gave during his brief stint as the FORSCOM Cdr. It's really okay to go in and just break things and leave quickly in some circumstances. In many, it's advisable...

All it takes is a little finesse -- and some skill...

[Dayuhan]

All it takes is a little finesse -- and some skill...

I'm not even sure finesse is always required.

Breaking stuff, with our without finesse, communicates an immediate, tangible, and eminently comprehensible message: provoking us has consequences and they aren't desirable.

Not sticking around to fix stuff is often a very good idea. We usually can't fix things, and we can easily end up making them worse. When we try to fix things we communicate the message that we somehow are responsible for fixing things, and that we are accountable when the fix goes awry. We provide a static target for anyone who wants to have a go at an American and an ideal propaganda vehicle for those who want to portray us as a colonial occupier.

Go in, impose consequences on whoever did us dirty (if nobody did, we don't need to be there) and go away while we're still on top of the heap and people still fear us. Leaving while we're on top communicates that we don't really want to run the place, and that we can come back and do some stomping any time it suits us. Leaving when we're mired down and the other side is ascendant communicates defeat.

[Ken White]

I'm not even sure finesse is always required.

and even to that -- however, a little adroitness does tend to keep down own casualties...

Not sticking around to fix stuff is often a very good idea. We usually can't fix things, and we can easily end up making them worse.

True.

We provide a static target for anyone who wants to have a go at an American and an ideal propaganda vehicle for those who want to portray us as a colonial occupier.

Yes. plus been my observation that if someone is in dire need, they'll take help from anyone, even someone they normally dislike. Also noted that five minutes after the crisis is over and straits are no longer dire, guilt and distaste at self for needing helps start to bubble up. Twenty minuted late, that translates into resentment at the one who helped...

Amazing number of hands that fed get bitten.

Go in, impose consequences on whoever did us dirty (if nobody did, we don't need to be there)

True, particularly that latter.

Leaving when we're mired down and the other side is ascendant communicates defeat.

Yes -- that syndrome and misperception has helped put us where we are today.

[JMA]

I'd have to agree with Ken and Fuchs. Others could have, and they also stood and watched. I'd also have to point out that every time the US steps up and carries the weight, we encourage others who could develop the capacity to make it easier for them to make a difference to sit back, decline to spend the money, and assume that the Americans will do it.

Carl, I'm with you on this one. FWIW

You are absolutely correct that it would not have taken much to knock that genocide on the head. The UN was already there and they saw what was coming yet despite this their numbers were reduced. This IMHO is close to criminal negligence. From Wikipedia:

Despite emphatic demands from UNAMIR's commanders in Rwanda before and throughout the genocide, its requests for authorization to end it were refused, and its intervention capacity was reduced.

So one more time then from the Atlantic:

In reality the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements. It refused to use its technology to jam radio broadcasts that were a crucial instrument in the coordination and perpetuation of the genocide. And even as, on average, 8,000 Rwandans were being butchered each day, U.S. officials shunned the term "genocide," for fear of being obliged to act. The United States in fact did virtually nothing "to try to limit what occurred." Indeed, staying out of Rwanda was an explicit U.S. policy objective.

Then finally I believe that indifference degrades us as humans. I say OK turn your back and walk away but in so doing realise what that makes you as a person...

Indifference is not so much a gesture of looking away--of choosing to be passive--as it is an active disinclination to feel. Indifference shuts down the humane, and does it deliberately, with all the strength deliberateness demands. Indifference is as determined--and as forcefully muscular--as any blow.

From Holocaust Bystanders