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

[TheCurmudgeon]

I take issue with the will part of your argument. First off the Bush administration argued we were not an occupation force (we were) in either Afghanistan or Iraq, so the responsibilities of an occupying power were not accepted at the political level. I suspect that will continue to be the case.

While I would argue that some in the military knew exactly what was to come in both Iraq and Afghanistan and chose to ignore it during the planning, execution and what came after, that is not the point of what I am getting at.

Second there was, and to some extent continues to be a debate on the roles of the military and the roles of the State Department (State has a lot of big ideas, a lot of hope, but very little capacity to do anything on this scale), but they still oppose the Army doing this, and they carry some weight on Capital Hill.

Assuming we were given the mission there would be the will to get done, and the solution wouldn't be advise and assist BDEs. It would be much more complicated and robust. We would have to have a civilian corp of experts that would probably come from our reserves and national guard to facilitate the construction of a political system that never existed in the first place. Many would have to be civilians that are temporarly deputized (for lack of a better term) because their skill sets wouldn't be resident in the ranks.

OK, this is what I was thinking. A constabulary "force" for lack of a better term under the auspices of the State Department. It could be made up of current reserve forces (designated for dual use) including Civil Affairs, MPs, Medical units, Engineers, and the like. It would need some very specialized capabilities that it would pull from State. It would not be the Peace Corps with weapons. Its mission would be limited to stability and humanitarian assistance (not nation building or social restructuring). It would be built around a preferred political solution but would have the flexibility (given that they have the go ahead from Washington) to allow traditional governments to remain in power as long as they were not the problem in the first place. It would be capable of defending itself against lightly armed company size elements.

Based on the above parameters, what would such a force require (other than funding)?

I still think Iraq and Afghanistan are aberrations instead of the new norm. I suspect for the next decade or so we'll be less ambitious and more reasonable when we design our objectives. We're capable of assisting governments who desire to change (Eastern European governments, Burma, etc.), but forcing undesired political system change is probably not something we want to invest in.

I disagree with and agree with this assessment. Baring a major collapse of the current world systems small wars, humanitarian interventions, and stabilization will be more prevalent in the future than near peer wars. We will, by necessity, be less inclined to get involved in the next few cases, but it is man's curse that he forgets. I would prefer not to forget what we have learned in the last ten years.