Quote Originally Posted by Compost View Post
It is depressing to read posts on this thread that seem resigned to the inevitability of more small wars destined to end in failure. Why not only small wars that can be structured and resourced to succeed.
Again, for me this comes back to decisions on where and when to engage.

For a war to succeed, large or small, the goals have to be clear, specific, practical, and - with the resources and time we are prepared to commit - achievable. We have to be clear on what we propose to achieve, how we propose to achieve it, and why it's important. That last point is critical, because even if resources are available, the will to allocate them will quickly fade if the conflict is not seen as essential.

If we chose to involve ourselves only where and to the extent that we really have to, we'd avoid a lot of problems, and a lot of wars.

You hear a lot of talk these days about complexity, and the mantra holds that the world and its conflicts have become more complex than they used to be. I'm not sure that's the case at all. A lot of the supposed "complexity" is something we impose with our own uncertain, vacuous, and ephemeral goals and limited commitment to those goals, which in turn is a function of the perception that those goals are not critically important to us as a nation. If you're not sure what you're trying to achieve or why or whether it makes any difference, everything looks complex. When you're messing in a situation you don't understand and where your need to be there is doubtful, things suddenly seem complex. If you know exactly what you want and why, the same situation becomes simpler.

One of the reasons we find these fights challenging and our opponents so resilient is simply the difference between involvement and commitment. We all know the old saying about the difference. Think of bacon and eggs: the chicken is involved, the pig is committed. We're the chicken, they're the pig. We can walk away with no great loss; they can't. This is not implicit in the situation, it's a function of where, when, and how we choose to involve ourselves.

Certainly there's infinite space for better strategy, better tactics, better understanding of the situation and the antagonist... but ultimately the first step toward getting small wars right is in re-evaluating the decision to get involved and the selection of the goals to be pursued. Get those wrong and it will be very difficult to dig out of the hole.