The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[TheCurmudgeon]

Curmudgy,
I don't think you had joined this discussion group at the time so you are probably not familiar with some of Warden's earlier comments that I posted from years ago when this Fiasco first started.

1- when we first went into Iraq he warned that we should be careful about being jubilant to soon because "All we have is a beachhead in the middle of 1 billion undefeated Muslims" turned out to be pretty accurate.

2-I posted a copy of a letter to the editor that wrote warning of the dire consequence that would happen when we decided to disband the Iraqi Army which would leave the entire country in an unstable situation. Again turned our to be pretty accurate.

3-But I agree he probably doesn't think much about the way we are thinking of insurgencies because it is not working! Whether we like it or not the " Enemy Is Still A System" and he is smart enough to know that we are not going to turn the Sunni into Democrats nor the Shia into Republicans and have a nice democracy in the Middle East. What is possible is to use American Airpower to support local Arab Armies to achieve our true interest in the region.

You are correct that I am not familiar with his earlier works. They may sway my opinion, but I doubt it.

The reason we are not "Winning" is because we are incapable of achieving the political objective. See http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/dem...obayashi-maru/. You cannot kill or bomb your way out of an insurgency. It is a political beast from start to finish. Military types don't like to think that all problems cannot be solved with high explosives, so they deride this fact, but they cannot change it.

The prescription he offers is not going to "Win" anything but a longer war. That is the reality. Too many people want simple explanations to complex problems. That has been our problem since 2001. I am sorry, but reality is knocking on the door. It is not a pretty reality. It is not one that can be solved by air power. It is just a dark, ugly reality that humans are the way they are.

The good Colonel seems to forget Clausewitz' maxim that war is merely political policy conducted by other means. Bombing is not going to achieve the political policy objective of a democratic Iraq secure within its traditional borders. We screwed the pooch on that in 2003-4.

There are two ways this plays out. Either 1) we replace the dictator we overthrew with a dictator who is capable of viciously suppressing sectarian differences, or 2) the state of Iraq ceases to be. That is the political reality that we have been fighting against for over ten years. Better targeting or thinking of the enemy as a system are merely better tactics. Tactics alone cannot achieve strategic objectives. They certainly cannot achieve the desired political objectives