The Best Trained, Most Professional Military...Just Lost Two Wars?

[Surferbeetle]

Some of your comments had no context, so I didn't understand what you were implying, but comments on a couple.

My comments and list are what I see as GWOT* deeds/deliverables and secondary & tertiary effects resulting from our involvement in the region. I mean to contrast this with the lost war/lost way narrative which I disagree with.

Saddam and his sons are dead, and good on us, but killing them did not require a major occupation, an excessive de-bathification program, and a largely failed nation building effort.

I agree that we as a coalition overpaid for the results we see at this time.

Once Saddam was dead and the sanctions lifted I believe the Iraqis would have gotten their oil production back up to pre-Saddam years on their own (Western corporations would be allowed to provide technical expertise).

Can't say regarding the counterfactual you lay out here, however I followed the bidding for various oil and gas fields....western corporations seemed to predominate in Kurdistan while a very interesting variety of corporations won blocks in the rest of the country. Think I posted some newslinks on SWJ regarding this...will look and get back to you.

The 50% internet penetration in itself is not a positive if 50% of them are using it to inform their views from disinformation on radical websites promoting ethnic hatred. That probably isn't happening, but still referring to internet penetration as a positive without understanding its impact seems a bit of reach.

My first year (03-04) was spent out and about most everyday working with my Iraqi counterparts in utilities and infrastructure. My observations were primarily of engineers, accountants, admin staff, technicians, and blue collar workers...a subset of the population to be sure but I viewed them as a representative slice of the middle class. During my time there I witnessed an 'info wave' as goods and ideas flooded into a 'lacking' northern Iraq. It was a mostly positive experience, and I noted that the engineers in Kurdistan (who had access to these things prior to '03) were well ahead of those where I was at.

Admittedly these are limited and empirical observations, however bottom line, I see internet penetration as a force for good. I fully understand the other side/security concerns and am not attempting to discount the harm resulting from 'misuse' (as I see it) of this technology.

However, despite our win and we did win, we pushed Iraq into, or much closer to, Iran's sphere of influence, and ethnic violence is still very active, and the risk of civil war has not been erased. We won, but what the results of that win is too early to assess.

Broadly true, and I agree that it is too early to fully assess things.

This article would be an example of the current dynamic at work.

Iraq suffers from its chaotic foreign policy, Ranj Alaaldin, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 October 2012 04.46 EDT, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ional-interest

Is an Iranian economy in shambles really in our long term interest? We did the same to Iraq, and when we removed Saddam we had to deal with that economic shamble in addition to an insurgency, a civil war, and transnational terrorism. It was assessed by some experts that weaker economy actually made Saddam more powerful. It seems feasible that a country with a strong and diversified economy would be more difficult for the government to control, because government handouts would be less valuable as a tool to control the masses.

You raise some solid points regarding a strong and diversified economy's ability to empower its citizens. I wonder however about the ability of trouble makers, for lack of a more detailed breakout, to siphon off of a vibrant economy and thus pursue problematic/regionally destabilizing courses of action. I also wonder about the opportunity costs of a war with Iran, the obvious point being a stronger economy would allow things to drag on resulting in greater opportunity costs

This will be true only if they liberalize and allow their human capital to increase. If the result of Arab Spring is Sharia law and more oppression then I think we and they will all be greatly disappointed.

I would argue that another war, or a bungled western economic recovery would result in the opportunity cost of failing to appropriately steady those who would welcome western efforts to do so.

In your opinion what is the SOF model?

The SOF business model, as I see it, is a product of GWOT.

Broadly it provides our nation with an expanded and consistent/industrial security spectrum/adjustable yield...massive retaliation to individual retaliation...24/7, anywhere. Nukes, GPF/USAF/USN, USMC, and SOF are that spectrum.

The SOF model appears to use drones to coordinate and enable a number of efforts that were not linked previously or linked in time previously.

It appears to be very heavy on direct action and very light on 'SF' as I was taught/observed it as a youngster.

I think the GPF still has many weak senior leaders who are failing to adapt, and can't think beyond the bounds of outdated doctrine (to include our COIN doctrine).

Yes...but the why is interesting to consider.

I believe that the COIN model is a militarized, autocratic, frankenstein version of what happens in everyday western democratic and chaotic/mostly rank-less civilian life which is closer to a 'policing and development' model.

With respect, many active military have lost touch with civilian life and this is part of the difficulty in translating 'COIN' to the military so that they are able to implement it. JRTC, NTC, and Hohenfels are some of the places where I was taught and attempted to teach this military model before being sent out to implement it...so I also admit that I am part of this problem.

The US military is amazing...but...not everybody is a banker, mayor, city manager, city attorney, city accountant, city engineer, etc...

As for the SOF model, we have "a" CT model, but is it the best model possible? We also have a Cold War UW/FID model that we try to apply to every security problem. My point is I hope we don't have a SOF model, but rather an adaptive SOF that constantly evolves and unlike GPF isn't constrained by doctrine.

Again, I would suggest that MAD is our coldwar business model (conceived and born during that time) and that a new post-coldwar business model is the GWOT SOF model that I have attempted to describe.

This is not to say that there was not a SOF model prior to GWOT, but what I see today appears to be different from yesterday and institutionally blessed as opposed to the arguably red-headed stepchild of yesterday...(again, not deliberately attempting to be needlessly provocative)

*GWOT is no longer 'official' but it's my shorthand for our efforts post 9/11