Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
Ken, I interpreted your posting this as an indicator that you see war as less elegant tham some would wish it to be. I completely agree with that assessment. For that I would offer the Doug Feith school of thought as an example.
True. The fact that it is less elegant (Great phrase!) means that one should be judicious in applying it as a solution -- a factor Scheuer seems to miss as you note:
My problem with Scheuer's essay is that he offers no clear line of thought on the piece. Yes war is not a neat chess game. Yes we need capacity to wage war in a way that makes our enemies hesitant. No he does not identify or even hint against whom such a force could be applied to fight.

Part of the issue is that Scheuer was a manager not an operator and he certainly has little if any meaningful military experience...
Which I suspect is part of his problem.
What is therefore clear to him (at least I hope it was clear to him when he wrote this) is not clear to me.
Nor to me, I just put it down to a Ralph Peters-like hyperbolic wake up call.

Rex said:
There really aren't a lot of useful "get tougher/kill more people" counter-terrorism strategies. There are rather more "get smarter" ones (which involve as much issues of politics, diplomacy, and development), although they're complex, difficult, and don't always produce immediate results.
Quite true and I totally agree. Regrettably, the US psyche is strongly attuned to immediate results; thus I think that the judicious application of force when required should always be an option but have to acknowledge that we won't always do it wisely. Rex also said:
"Occupy Iran? Or perhaps Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco too, since much (or more) of the threat emanates from non-state groups there?...
I disagree with that aspect. Notably with "occupy" -- we shouldn't do that, we're not attuned to the requirements. The British do that sort of stuff fairly well but even they are not great at the job because it is quite difficult. Not to mention that occupying other nations is really dumb and to be avoided if at all possible. That is not a wise application of force.

I'm in agreement with Steve Metz -- it's not our thing; we need to apply force massively, we're good at that; do a lot of damage and not plan on a long term presence. That would annoy our 'friends' (but then we don't really have any of those in any event ) but it would certainly serve as a cautionary to others who might want to trifle with us. That's the epitome of the old 'walk softly and carry a big stick' and the new 'you're either with us or against us.'

I also disagree with this:
And then there is Iraq, where large-scale application of military force (albeit, now with COIN discrimination) has succeeded in creating a radical Islamist threat where one did not previously exist.
The threat, as you sort of note, was endemic to the area and that was true before we invaded. Thus, we did not create one; it existed and we simply bought some of it to a head or out in the open. Deliberately.

Iraq was just militarily and politically the best target in an attempt to short circuit that ideal you cited: "There are rather more "get smarter" ones (which involve as much issues of politics, diplomacy, and development), although they're complex, difficult, and don't always produce immediate results." and change the dwell time for change from three to five generations doing it your ideal way to just one or two of them doing it our abrupt way. We'll see how it works out.