Countering Lind-dinistas - if the mission is impossible, don't blame me

[Bill Moore]

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture if strategy is aligning ends, ways, and means using all elements of national power and our stated ends were stable democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan what exactly did our military fail to do when it comes to the use of military power to set conditions for this to happen?

I think most agree those ends are laughable, but that is what they were. I will be the first to self criticize and critic my military, but for criticism to be valuable it should be constructive. If our military did what differently exactly, then how would it have changed the outcome?

[TheCurmudgeon]

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture if strategy is aligning ends, ways, and means using all elements of national power and our stated ends were stable democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan what exactly did our military fail to do when it comes to the use of military power to set conditions for this to happen?

I think most agree those ends are laughable, but that is what they were. I will be the first to self criticize and critic my military, but for criticism to be valuable it should be constructive. If our military did what differently exactly, then how would it have changed the outcome?

That is the basic statement I would like to make.

[Dayuhan]

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture if strategy is aligning ends, ways, and means using all elements of national power and our stated ends were stable democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan what exactly did our military fail to do when it comes to the use of military power to set conditions for this to happen?

It would be interesting to have opinions on what conditions would have allowed those ends to be achieved, and whether those conditions were at any point achievable through the application of military force.

[AmericanPride]

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture if strategy is aligning ends, ways, and means using all elements of national power and our stated ends were stable democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan what exactly did our military fail to do when it comes to the use of military power to set conditions for this to happen?

I'll throw out a few ideas:

(1) Not emphasizing to the political leadership the military resources that would be required to conduct such a mission; one general did that in his testimony to Congress and was promptly fired. Everyone else subsequently cowered.
(2) Not having a long-term plan of occupation; in Iraq, the plan was to push the regime out of power and hope for spontaneous democratization, which failed to materialize after the whole Iraqi government was dismantled indiscriminately. And in Afghanistan, the reliance on the Northern Alliance and ANSF proved equally problematic in a state with very little history of centralized political control. Notwithstanding the political policies aimed at making good politics instead of good strategy, someone somewhere in the military bureaucracy should have placed a contingency plan of some kind on the shelf rather than wait until orders from their political masters.
(3) The ad-hoc and troublesome pattern of 6-18 month rotations that destroyed any operational continuity in whatever plan that was visualized.
(4) Focusing on the political end-state (democratization) at the expense of the military end-state (disarmanent and/or defeat of the opposition). Victory on the battlefield comes before the collection of the spoils of war!
(5) Minimizing the enormority of the conflicts at hand while gathering all the benefits (i.e. budget, new powers, etc) that came with it. Institutionally, DoD was never put on a 100% war-footing - there was still competing priorities with the "small wars" (i.e. in procurement) that shaped strategic decisions. Following procedures and future force visions were never completely subordinated to the war effort.

[AmericanPride]

Just some other thoughts on this conversation:

If war is policy by other means, then military officers, at least general officers, are also to some extent responsible for policy. GOs are not simply managers of a large military enterprise only concerned with how military resources are managed, thus absolving them of all responsibility when policy fails, but also have significant input into how those resources should be managed, and towards what ends they are utilized. We should be careful about constructing a myth with the 'stabbed-in-the-back' theme between the military and the political leadership.

And, as many have mentioned in this thread already, since the war effort is subordinate to the political ends, the concept of the 'strategic corporal', et al, is not a perversion of political-military relationships, but that relationship taken to its logical extreme in an era of satured information where now tactical decisions have a direct impact on the political ends itself. But this is also to some extent the nature of 'small wars' that focus on combating non-state actors embedded in the social and political fabric of the operating area; securing local alliances or providing services and infrastructure can shape the battle as much as eliminating key leaders or capturing enemy equipment.

I also disagree that understanding war is exclusive or independent of political science or sociology; we have already agreed that war is a political act, and it is also intensely human endeavor, which places it firmly within both fields of study. There is no excuse in the modern, complex world for senior military officials to be ignorant of either science; this only reinforces the argument that military leaders bear responsibility to some extent for the failures of the wars.

Perhaps the problem is that our generals are managers, not leaders.

[TheCurmudgeon]

AP, just a quick reply. My intent would not be to claim anyone "stabbed us in the back", only that claims that better tactics or promotion system would have changed the outcome.

I am on the fence about what a general "should" know about sociology and political science versus what they probably did know based on the training they received prior to 9/11. I think we learned that we need a better understanding of the human domain. Not sure if complaining about how things should have been is helpful. But I do plan to emphasis the positive changes that are occurring as a result of this experience.

You could add micro economics to the things generals should know. Luckily at least one General in theater understood the economic consequences of our actions. He was ultimately recognized and moved up. Whether he is a hero of a false demagogue is now a matter of debate.

[slapout9]

Look at South Korea..... the Captain is in jail and the prime Minister resigned...we need that here. Look what happens when the Generals Phuc-Dup and loose and they did loose.... look what happens....... they get promoted and a gold plated pension.

Every General Officer should be fired and loose his pension if he looses a War. In fact ALL PENSIONS AND BENEFITS SHOULD STOP IMMEDIATELY. I participated in a study in the early 70's either Army or DOD don't remember which one but here was the NEW MILITARY DEAL 6 years you get 60 thousand when you ETS. 10 years 100k, 20 years 200k. No permanent pension and no medical benefits unless injured on active duty.

If you want to fight then you better win and at the end you get a bonus and a well deserved thank you. Accountability it works because it will help create Honor and Respect something that is sadly missing in Government Institutions including the Higher Ranks of the Military.

[Fuchs]

There is a critical problem in your proposal:

It would motivate the generals whose reputation is at stake to push harder and harder, again and again for some more Friedman unit in order to avoid punishment.

What you're proposing is essentially a bonus system, after all: The pensions turn into a bonus system the moment the general becomes responsible for the war. High performance - high bonus. Failure - no bonus.

I know a governmental agency tasked to support high tech start-ups with equity capital for loans or economic policy purposes.
Its management board also gets bonuses.
Some of the start-ups supported are zombies. They keep getting fresh money in order to avoid that the management board needs to write off previous investments in these failures.



I wrote reputation on top because they wouldn't necessarily lose money. Many flag rank officers (especially those who really lead a campaign) will later 'earn' money with books, speeches, 'consulting' or from the arms industry directly.

[slapout9]

There is a critical problem in your proposal:

It would motivate the generals whose reputation is at stake to push harder and harder, again and again for some more Friedman unit in order to avoid punishment.

What you're proposing is essentially a bonus system, after all: The pensions turn into a bonus system the moment the general becomes responsible for the war. High performance - high bonus. Failure - no bonus.

I know a governmental agency tasked to support high tech start-ups with equity capital for loans or economic policy purposes.
Its management board also gets bonuses.
Some of the start-ups supported are zombies. They keep getting fresh money in order to avoid that the management board needs to write off previous investments in these failures.



I wrote reputation on top because they wouldn't necessarily lose money. Many flag rank officers (especially those who really lead a campaign) will later 'earn' money with books, speeches, 'consulting' or from the arms industry directly.

1-It isn't my system, it was real a study that was done.

2-The time issues you bring up could be dealt with. Warden in particular teaches that there must be a limit on time as well as money and bloodshed.

3-I agree about the book contracts, speeches, etc. but at least that would not be Tax Payers money.

Bottom line until there is some form of accountability with some real sanctions nothing much will change IMO. Why should there be? It is a gravy train if you happen to be on it. We have created a Military 1%.

[wm]

I should like to point out here that those in command . . .had no right to exercise a decisive influence on the conduct of the war, but . . . [a senior commander], being responsible for the execution of orders, could make representations if he found the conditions imposed on him too disadvantageous . . . .

This is from the memoir of Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the German High Seas Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in WW1. In the chapter from which this quotation is taken, he is discussing the German leadership's deliberations regarding unrestricted submarine warfare.

Sounds like he is advocating a remonstration by the military regarding the paucity of resources (ways and means) to achieve the required end, but he is also suggesting that commenting on the ends is not with the military's brief. But that was a senior officer from Imperial Germany, not from the US Army of the 21st century. Still, I submit that the principle of civilian control may be so ingrained in the US military that senior officers may well have a similar point of view as that expressed by Admiral Scheer.

Folks should be careful what they wish for. Without this deep seated respect for civilian control found in the US Military, the country's changes in government might not have been as stables as they have been.

[AmericanPride]

wm,

I appreciate your concern, however I wonder if the division in civil-military relations is either artificial or too stringently policed. Do civilians really control the military?

First, 32 of 43 presidents (74.4%) had military service prior to becoming president. Twelve (27.9%) were generals. While these experiences can be separated institutionally, I don't think they can be demarcated on a personal level, meaning that their military experiences, perspectives, skills influenced their policy decisions. On a lower level, the military already influences policy through political actions as a bureaucracy (i.e. the timely announcement of delaying a carrier's refit during the sequestration debate; selective intelligence reporting, etc) or through the revolving door of retiring officials, lobbyists, think tanks, and corporate executives. The military may not decide which country to attack next, but it exercises significant influence on nearly every other policy decision. Is that civilian 'control'?

Second, what about the 'insurgent' approach to influencing civil-military relations and policy decisions? I.e. social media mobilization of veterans to effect a political decision. I think it's now possible that this relationship can be usurped from the bottom-up given the right conditions; i.e. strong moral outrage and mass action mobilized through social media.

Third, it's in military action that the President exercises the most unrestrained executive power contingent only on the cooperation of the military leadership. In this sense, the designation of the President as a 'civilian' is really rather arbitrary insofar he simply does not hold a military rank, but for all other intents and purposes his power is as absolute as any king or dictator restrained only by the increasingly subjective constraint of "lawful orders". The President can invade a country without a declaration of war, detain and surveil US citizens without warrant, and even order their deaths -- all by military actions. By most accounts, the invasion of Iraq was illegal but the military did not object - so where does that leave the assignment of accountability and responsibility?

So, I question the practical realities of the extent of civilian control and wonder where it's boundaries ought to be drawn to optimize military effectiveness and protection of democratic integrity. In the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, did the protection of the norm of 'civilian control' exercise such a decisive impact on the senior leaders' incentives that they simply failed to object to bad policy and/or strategy? Or did they perceive opportunities for advancement from a parochial and/or institutional perspective when presented with the policy?

[Bill Moore]

I'll throw out a few ideas:

(1) Not emphasizing to the political leadership the military resources that would be required to conduct such a mission; one general did that in his testimony to Congress and was promptly fired. Everyone else subsequently cowered.
(2) Not having a long-term plan of occupation; in Iraq, the plan was to push the regime out of power and hope for spontaneous democratization, which failed to materialize after the whole Iraqi government was dismantled indiscriminately. And in Afghanistan, the reliance on the Northern Alliance and ANSF proved equally problematic in a state with very little history of centralized political control. Notwithstanding the political policies aimed at making good politics instead of good strategy, someone somewhere in the military bureaucracy should have placed a contingency plan of some kind on the shelf rather than wait until orders from their political masters.
(3) The ad-hoc and troublesome pattern of 6-18 month rotations that destroyed any operational continuity in whatever plan that was visualized.
(4) Focusing on the political end-state (democratization) at the expense of the military end-state (disarmanent and/or defeat of the opposition). Victory on the battlefield comes before the collection of the spoils of war!
(5) Minimizing the enormority of the conflicts at hand while gathering all the benefits (i.e. budget, new powers, etc) that came with it. Institutionally, DoD was never put on a 100% war-footing - there was still competing priorities with the "small wars" (i.e. in procurement) that shaped strategic decisions. Following procedures and future force visions were never completely subordinated to the war effort.

AP,

First off apologies for the delay in responding. I don't think any of the above comments reflect on our professional military education. Not to defend the numerous military errors that were made by an excessively conventional military whose leaders at the operational level failed to adapt to their environment, we ultimately failed at the strategic level and even if our officers were better at the operational level (and they need to be) I believe we still would have failed because our strategic aims were unrealistic and our civilian leaders as you stated above didn't mobilize sufficient forces or ask Americans to pay for the war (war tax). It was a half hearted effort politically.

Taking your points one by one,

1) Some uniformed leaders spoke up, and as you said they were not listened to by the likes of Rumfield. This doesn't represent a failure of our military education system. Other factors point to where our education should be improved, but this isn't it.

2) Absolutely, but I suspect if we dug into this we didn't have a plan based on civilian guidance. Also hard to develop an occupation plan when you didn't have the forces to facilitate effective occupation operations.

3) Different schools of thought on this, but according to some studies soldiers begin losing their combat effectiveness if they're in combat more than 6 months at a time. This may not apply to the non-combat arms types, and the conclusion of these studies may be flawed, but at least there was a reason for it. Also doubt we could have retained our recruitment levels if Joe, Mike, Bob, etc. thought they were going to be deployed for multiple years without a break. The professional force has a lot of advantages, but also some disadvantages if you think you need to employ them like conscripts. I think the real argument isn't so much the annual rotations (quicker for SOF), but the lack of continuity in approach/objectives between the different units.

4) Agree that we pursued a very politically correct doctrine that didn't address the reality of the enemy has a vote, and the reality that not everyone in the world desires to be like us. I still it is imperative that the political objective be supreme and that all military operations ultimately support achieving that objective. If the political objective was flawed and I believe it was critically flawed and couldn't be achieved, then our military operations were doomed to fail before they started. I also think you may be under estimating how much fighting we did, but to what end? The same can be said about our aid projects, a lot done, but to what end? Both were executed based on false assumptions. Our biggest fault was not admitting it sooner. We kick ourselves for pulling out of Beirut and Somalia after minor set backs, but maybe in hindsight we should applaud the strategic decision makers that realized the limited utility of military force in these situations and decided to cut our loses? I don't know, but being stubborn is not the same as being courageous, and in fact it can be cowardly.

5) Generally agree, but the reality is we are/were the global cop and the security interests/threats we had prior to 9/11 never went away, so based on the scope of our self-imposed responsibilities we couldn't afford to focus entirely on OIF and OEF-A, but we definitely could have done more and should have in my opinion. We executed both wars on the cheap relying our asymmetric advantage in kinetic fight, while forgetting that advantage would do little for us once we transitioned into the occupation phase. We shocked and awed ourselves more than our adversaries. On the other hand, I disagree with Secretary Gates comments about the Pentagon not purchasing the mine resistant vehicles quick enough. I think they're were good reasons for doing so, because those vehicles were hardly decisive and simply reinforced our bad tactics of drive by COIN. If you want to defeat IEDs you need to control the populace and terrain, and that means sending in sufficient forces to do so. We never had the political will or wisdom to do this, and instead passed blame to the Pentagon for not wanting to dedicate limited funds (again no war tax) on a vehicle that had limited utility.

[AmericanPride]

1) Some uniformed leaders spoke up, and as you said they were not listened to by the likes of Rumfield. This doesn't represent a failure of our military education system. Other factors point to where our education should be improved, but this isn't it.

I think it raises some important issues regarding the dynamics of the civil-military relationship and the actions available to military officers who find themselves in this situation. I don't think military education is the fix for this - though perhaps better institutional communication and civilian education (on both sides) would facilitate more functional relationships.

Absolutely, but I suspect if we dug into this we didn't have a plan based on civilian guidance. Also hard to develop an occupation plan when you didn't have the forces to facilitate effective occupation operations.

I'd be interested to know what plans, if any, existed before 2003 or 2001 regarding executing an occupation of Iraq. And this goes back to point one - this a political question or a military question?

I think the real argument isn't so much the annual rotations (quicker for SOF), but the lack of continuity in approach/objectives between the different units.

Let me clarify that I do not mean that individual soldier rotations should be extended. But there has to be a way organizationally to maintain continuity - I don't know what that looks like or what we've done in the past. Maybe that means small unit formations (battalion and below) rotate in theater as a unit on a regular schedule (6-12 months), while headquarters formations remain in place and rotate servicemembers individually.

Just a few random thoughts.

[Bill Moore]

AP,

Overall it is a policy question and then the strategy (whole of government) to achieve the policy goals. I can't describe what I was privy to until I validate it is now unclassified (I assume it is, and has already been written about), but overall I think our strategy was based on an assumption that the Iraqi people would embrace us, embrace democracy, and that the transition would be easy because this is the natural drift of civilization. We just needed to remove Saddam to let it blossom. If that was the underlying assumption then we didn't need a plan, we just needed to remove Saddam.

There is no excuse for poor officership in combat, but my point remains no matter how great our officers could have been it wouldn't make a difference if the policy objective and underlying assumption were deeply flawed from day 1. GEN Petraeus has a famous quote that goes along the line of "tell me how this ends" which indicates he experienced similar frustrations with the policy goals.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Link to finished product.

http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/dem...obayashi-maru/

[JMA]

Well done Stan, good article. I responded as follows:

Mark May 6, 2014 at 2:28 pm ·
Rather than add the task of achieving “political objectives by other means” to the already long list of skills required by the officer corps would it not be more intelligent – in the light of near universal failure of national building efforts – to just accept it is not a military task?

A significant contributing factor in the demise of the British military has been the 'can do' response to any challenge by the military to the politicians when it was quite clear the objective could not be achieved. Is the same problem happening in the US?

Link to finished product.

http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/dem...obayashi-maru/