Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
I am getting tired of the Lind’s of the world who feel that the fact we could not create a stable democracy in either Iraq or Afghanistan as a failure of Army Leadership. My response is that the military could not create such a political entity because it is impossible to do. You cannot create a stable democracy where the conditions do not exist to support it. You certainly cannot do it by external force of arms.

My basic argument I have. Three points:

1. The requisites for democratization did not exist in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

2. Attempting to create a democracy where one was not possible created instability perpetuating the conflict

3. COIN could not overcome 1 and 2. Pop-Centric COIN is correct, but it cannot create legitimacy. It must adapt to the desires of the population.

The three arguments support the final point that the failure was never on the part of the military. The mission was de facto impossible. Therefore, to look to reform the military based on the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan is folly. The military is good at what it is designed to do. It is not good at social engineering, nor should it be.

What I am looking for is any references or anecdotes to support any of the three arguments.

I am also happy to listen to counter-arguments, as I would like to address them as well.

Thanks

Stan aka the curmudgeon
I have a bit of a counter-argument for you. In general, I agree with most of your points... but I cannot understand how you do not view this as at least a partial failure of our military leadership. Particularly in light of the other points you make, specifically calling the mission "impossible."

1. Accepting your premise that the mission is "impossible," the question that naturally arises to my mind is who is it that should know what constitutes an impossible mission for the military?

2. If you do not know that an impossible mission is, in fact, impossible, whose fault is that?

3. If you do know that a mission you are given is impossible, but you decide to give it the old college try anyway, as opposed to, say, resigning in protest that your boss is about to spend a lot of blood and treasure in pursuit of something that you know to be impossible, whose fault is that?

The answer to all of the above is Army and Marine leadership. The answer to (1) is simply a matter of employing your troops in line with their capabilities. If you willingly employ your troops out of line with their capabilities, you should expect either failure or a miracle, the former being significantly more likely. The answer to (2) has to do with professional competence. If you don't understand that a mission is impossible, why not? Should (a) the fact that it is impossible have been obvious to you from the outset, or (b) is it that what you were doing was so far outside of both your own and others' past experience that you could not reasonably have been expected to understand the enormity of the endeavor? The answer to (3) has to do with moral courage. If you did understand the impossibility of your task, why didn't you fall on your own sword to prevent it from happening?

Personally, I think that the right answer is probably mostly in line with 2(b). However, even if that's the case, it doesn't absolve our senior leadership in totality, though more so than the other cases. In the case of 2(b), I'd say it makes them guilty of extreme over-optimism. As in, the sort of optimism which would lead someone to believe that they can cross the Pacific Ocean in a single bound...

If it's not 2(b), but one of the other cases, that leads to significantly different conclusions...