Beyond the frontline: watching ISIS

[Bill Moore]

A pithy commentary by John Schindler of the US strategy and approach to countering Daesh / ISIS. Try this

Link:http://20committee.com/2014/11/14/wh...te-is-winning/

The “COIN” agenda proved effective at promoting the careers and fortunes of some U.S. Army officers and their think-tank hangers-on, yet quite ineffective at producing strategic victory. It is now time, indeed long overdue, to dispense with magical thinking about what the application of American military power might achieve in any lasting strategic or political sense in the Middle East.

Many of us concur with the author's assessment above. Those of us who tend to agree, also tend to believe that doing COIN for another 10 years wouldn't produce results that are more sustainable than we have today. Doing COIN for another 10 years would do the following: tie our forces down for 10 years, bleed us out economically, and cause us to forfeit higher priority strategic objectives around the globe. That doesn't mean we throw out hard learned lessons about COIN over the past decade, because we will certainly need those lessons in the future. There are elements in our COIN doctrine worth retaining, but our strategic approach to COIN needs a serious relook. The key is to develop realistic policy objectives that advance our interests, and not develop objectives that are beyond our capabilities to achieve.

To be blunt, we kill very effectively but we have precious little understanding of how to transform Muslim societies by force. Indeed, our efforts in that direction usually produce opposite outcomes, which should be easily predictable were we not besotted by lies about how others view us and what we seek to achieve.

In Iraq and Afghanistan our desired goals were to ultimately transform their societies. Obviously we didn't want to put another Saddam or Taliban government back in charge. However, that doesn't mean we had to pursue the neocon view of the world, which is that everyone desires to be like us. We just have to remove the evil forces that are preventing them from doing so. It is clear many people in Iraq and Afghanistan desired something different/better than Saddam and the Taliban, and the more educated may have even desired to move closer to a Western model, but they didn't speak for the masses. We took transformation to the extreme and tried to impose democracy by force. On top of that, we tried to do it on the cheap. The democracy we imposed was little more than mob rule, resulting in continued instability that created the conditions for extremism to grow in Iraq, and return in Afghanistan.

Realizing we over reached is insufficient if we're going to be successful in the future. There must be more salient lessons that we should take from these gallant efforts for the future. Clearly our opposite approach of hands off in Libya didn't fare so well, so is there a middle path that is feasible? In hindsight, what would have been reasonable goals in Afghanistan that would have advanced our interests in the region?

I believe we still think big and pursue grand visions, but we need to slow our roll and accept change takes time, and it will manifest differently in each country. Sustainable change must come from within, it can't be imposed by outsiders. We have this throughout history when Western colonies fought for their freedom, and Eastern European countries were freed from the grasp of the USSR, etc. Imposed change does not endure.

The first feasible step after the fighting is over is to establish order, and that doesn't mean imposing a foreign form of governance, especially a complex democratic government. Putting a strong man in charge is more humane than years of continual factional bloodshed. Then help government and society evolve over time by developing their human capital and other forms of development. Let them see what we and others do, then they'll pick and choose what they want to adapt as their way over time.

Simply put, we have no ability to change Muslim societies unless we are willing to stay the long haul and are eager to kill staggering numbers of people, many of them civilians, in horrible ways.

It is extremely arrogant of us to assume that Muslims would us to transform them anymore than we want Muslims to transform our society. Do we think the only way to achieve our ends is transforming their society? It is time for a complete relook of our approach. Until we develop a strategy that advances our interests, we should become comfortable with the unpleasant fact hat killing those who intend to harm us is a pragmatic course of action. It is not one we should shy away from, but also remaining cognizant that there may be a better way and we should continue to work on determining what that may be.