Warfare Old as the Ages
Thanks to my daughter-in-law I’ve finally gotten around to reading Colonel Thomas X. Hammes’ book The Sling and the Stone. Col. Hammes has drawn a lot of attention with his thesis that modern warfare has entered a new era. He calls it 4th Generation Warfare or 4GW and believes pentagon planners completely missed the change, focusing on high tech weaponry more appropriate for confrontation between two super powers than the low to medium intensity wars we are actually seeing. He thinks they’ve been ignoring the manpower intensive “boots on the ground” capabilities we really need in such conflicts. He gets it wrong. 4GW is just a catchy new term for something that should be old hat for anyone with a sense of history.
Not that the Colonel ignores history. He just thinks it began where he started reading. He credits Mao with inventing the strategy of avoiding a stronger enemy, protecting your army at all cost, and attacking only where your opponent is weak. Apparently he never played chess. He ought to read about George Washington if he wants to know how to win a war while losing all the battles. While he’s at it he could take up Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He might find Marshal Kutuzov’s campaign against Napoleon instructive. By the time Bonaparte withdrew from Moscow his army was already beaten. For that matter a little Russian history might be in order for any aspiring military strategist. Peter I became the Great using tactics not unlike Kutuzov’s to defeat a superior Swedish Army under Charles XII. He just kept falling back and scorching the earth until Charles was exhausted. Marshal Zhukov too capitalized on Russian capacity to endure suffering at Stalingrad, the single most important allied victory of WWII. The German 6th Army surrendered with 95 combat divisions, the same number the United States mobilized for the war. Russian winters didn’t win those wars. Russian armies did, and each time they beat enemies that were initially superior.
Colonel Hammes blames an American defeat in Vietnam on a pentagon that failed to understand the nature of the war they were fighting. He credits Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap with better generalship in orchestrating an insurgency. It isn’t true. Giap’s ultimate conquest of the south had to do with geography and history. The three American presidents involved in the Vietnam War all had it well within their power to quickly dispatch North Vietnam but for one small problem, a common border with China. They all remembered vividly what had happened the last time an American Army stood poised on a Chinese border. It is no stretch to say that South Vietnam’s fate was sealed in 1951 when a Chinese army crossed the Yalu into Korea. No rational American president wants a major land war in Asia. A clear cut victory in South Vietnam would have required an invasion of the north and none of them were prepared to take the risk of a significant unintended escalation.
So Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all opted for the only strategy available, a war of attrition. That strategy works only if you can convince your opponent he will eventually lose, and there is a limit to the price he is willing to pay. It has worked twice for American Presidents. It did not work in Vietnam, but not because General Westmoreland or his presidents failed to understand the war they were fighting. George Washington won because George III concluded the colonies weren’t worth the drain on his treasury. Louis XVI bankrupted his to support the American rebels and some historians think it cost him his head. Abraham Lincoln won when Robert E. Lee decided not to break up the Army of Northern Virginia into guerilla bands, surrendering instead at Appomattox. The American Revolution ended because King George thought the cost too high. The American Civil War ended because General Lee thought the cost too high. The Vietnam War ended because President Nixon thought the cost too high.
None of this is particularly insightful but it is worth remembering as we wage The Long War and continue to arm ourselves for threats that may arise in coming years. There are several lessons to be learned and relearned. One is that high tech weaponry comes in darned handy in any sort of war when you have it and your opponent doesn’t. It made short work of both Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar. I can imagine that our casualty toll in the insurgencies that followed the ouster of those two villains might be far higher without things like aerial reconnaissance drones and night vision equipment.
Another is that, nasty as they are, suicide assassins and guerrilla squads operating in twos and threes have far less military significance than conventional armies do. What lethality they can deliver tends to be against soft targets, most often their own people. That’s no way to win hearts and minds. That seems to be a key.
One more is that Ho Chi Minh had no personal price to pay, not even a political price, and was in a position to exact an unlimited price from his people. Modern terrorists are often willing to sacrifice their own lives just as common soldiers have always been willing to sacrifice theirs, but those who sponsor them should not get a free pass. We may yet pay a terrible price for allowing Taliban remnants to conduct raids into Afghanistan from a sanctuary across the Pakistan border. Syrian and Iranian leadership should also be called to task for their meddling in Iraq. They must be made to pay a price.
But it seems to me the most important lesson, and the most obvious, is that we cannot place American troops indefinitely in the forefront of counterinsurgency operations in a foreign country. It is the nature of such operations that they sometimes go on for decades, sometimes even generations. The American public will not and should not tolerate such commitments, not in low intensity conflicts such as Afghanistan or Iraq, and certainly not in the higher intensity conditions we faced in Vietnam. If we are to engage in these operations on behalf of a weak or failed government we must have mechanisms in place to enable them to quickly resume responsibility for their own internal security. If outside actors interfere we must be prepared to deal with them.
Unfortunately in the aftermath of the Vietnam debacle we were so caught up in political recriminations we never made a cool headed review of what went wrong with the South Vietnamese government or how we might have prevented it. By the time American combat forces had been on the ground for seven years (or longer depending on what forces you count) RVN troops should have been prepared to defend the country. Why weren’t they? The military took long hard looks at their respective combat performances but if anyone took overall responsibility for the (more important) political and economic factors it isn’t clear to me. We seem to be paying more attention to those issues in the two current conflicts but after more than four years it isn’t clear that we are being any more successful.
But it isn’t really anything new. We’ve been talking about “nation building” for years. Two hundred years ago the solution was based on Empire. Empire is no longer acceptable but what do we replace it with? War hasn’t changed. Politics has, unless of course you accept Clausewitz’ idea that they are the same thing. Still, nobody that counts has really missed it. The question at hand is what do we do about it?
The good news is that although both Iraq and Afghanistan are bordered by meddling neighbors, none are prepared for direct military intervention as was the case in South Vietnam. Excepting Pakistan none of them happen to share a border with China. That means they have to be careful just how far they push the US. It may be possible to produce stable governments with only internal security to worry about. If South Vietnam had faced only the Viet Cong they might well have survived. They could not stand alone against an invading army from the north. Despite Iranian posturing, not even a nuclear armed Iran is likely to commit its army in a high risk attempt to dominate either Iraq or Afghanistan. Syria is in no position to intervene. Turkey is a greater potential threat but they are interested only in pacifying Kurds who threaten their own border security. Besides, Turkey wants to be admitted to the European Union, a very strong brake on any Turkish military adventurism. There is nothing 4th generation about any of this either. Genghis Kahn would have understood these politics.
Today’s generals seem to understand too. So do the other major players except for those who don’t wish to understand. Looking at a map of Iraq showing the progression of territory where responsibility has been slowly but steadily turned over to Iraqi forces over the past eighteen months is encouraging. If it continues, and that’s a big if, the US could conceivably begin substantial and orderly troop reductions early next year. If that is not possible by the time George Bush leaves office in January, 2009, a new president may very well order a withdrawal regardless of the consequences.
Either way the Long War is likely to continue until one side or the other decides it isn’t worth the cost. I have always thought economic factors would ultimately dictate the outcome. Since the final goal of Muslim extremists is world domination and destruction the West may concede a battle or two but will never accept final defeat. Most of the Muslim world remains mired in third world poverty. To escape it they will have to impose order among themselves. Prosperity is mushrooming all around them. Sooner or later like Lee, even Palestinians will conclude the cost is too high.
Not that the Colonel ignores history. He just thinks it began where he started reading. He credits Mao with inventing the strategy of avoiding a stronger enemy, protecting your army at all cost, and attacking only where your opponent is weak. Apparently he never played chess. He ought to read about George Washington if he wants to know how to win a war while losing all the battles. While he’s at it he could take up Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He might find Marshal Kutuzov’s campaign against Napoleon instructive. By the time Bonaparte withdrew from Moscow his army was already beaten. For that matter a little Russian history might be in order for any aspiring military strategist. Peter I became the Great using tactics not unlike Kutuzov’s to defeat a superior Swedish Army under Charles XII. He just kept falling back and scorching the earth until Charles was exhausted. Marshal Zhukov too capitalized on Russian capacity to endure suffering at Stalingrad, the single most important allied victory of WWII. The German 6th Army surrendered with 95 combat divisions, the same number the United States mobilized for the war. Russian winters didn’t win those wars. Russian armies did, and each time they beat enemies that were initially superior.
Colonel Hammes blames an American defeat in Vietnam on a pentagon that failed to understand the nature of the war they were fighting. He credits Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap with better generalship in orchestrating an insurgency. It isn’t true. Giap’s ultimate conquest of the south had to do with geography and history. The three American presidents involved in the Vietnam War all had it well within their power to quickly dispatch North Vietnam but for one small problem, a common border with China. They all remembered vividly what had happened the last time an American Army stood poised on a Chinese border. It is no stretch to say that South Vietnam’s fate was sealed in 1951 when a Chinese army crossed the Yalu into Korea. No rational American president wants a major land war in Asia. A clear cut victory in South Vietnam would have required an invasion of the north and none of them were prepared to take the risk of a significant unintended escalation.
So Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all opted for the only strategy available, a war of attrition. That strategy works only if you can convince your opponent he will eventually lose, and there is a limit to the price he is willing to pay. It has worked twice for American Presidents. It did not work in Vietnam, but not because General Westmoreland or his presidents failed to understand the war they were fighting. George Washington won because George III concluded the colonies weren’t worth the drain on his treasury. Louis XVI bankrupted his to support the American rebels and some historians think it cost him his head. Abraham Lincoln won when Robert E. Lee decided not to break up the Army of Northern Virginia into guerilla bands, surrendering instead at Appomattox. The American Revolution ended because King George thought the cost too high. The American Civil War ended because General Lee thought the cost too high. The Vietnam War ended because President Nixon thought the cost too high.
None of this is particularly insightful but it is worth remembering as we wage The Long War and continue to arm ourselves for threats that may arise in coming years. There are several lessons to be learned and relearned. One is that high tech weaponry comes in darned handy in any sort of war when you have it and your opponent doesn’t. It made short work of both Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar. I can imagine that our casualty toll in the insurgencies that followed the ouster of those two villains might be far higher without things like aerial reconnaissance drones and night vision equipment.
Another is that, nasty as they are, suicide assassins and guerrilla squads operating in twos and threes have far less military significance than conventional armies do. What lethality they can deliver tends to be against soft targets, most often their own people. That’s no way to win hearts and minds. That seems to be a key.
One more is that Ho Chi Minh had no personal price to pay, not even a political price, and was in a position to exact an unlimited price from his people. Modern terrorists are often willing to sacrifice their own lives just as common soldiers have always been willing to sacrifice theirs, but those who sponsor them should not get a free pass. We may yet pay a terrible price for allowing Taliban remnants to conduct raids into Afghanistan from a sanctuary across the Pakistan border. Syrian and Iranian leadership should also be called to task for their meddling in Iraq. They must be made to pay a price.
But it seems to me the most important lesson, and the most obvious, is that we cannot place American troops indefinitely in the forefront of counterinsurgency operations in a foreign country. It is the nature of such operations that they sometimes go on for decades, sometimes even generations. The American public will not and should not tolerate such commitments, not in low intensity conflicts such as Afghanistan or Iraq, and certainly not in the higher intensity conditions we faced in Vietnam. If we are to engage in these operations on behalf of a weak or failed government we must have mechanisms in place to enable them to quickly resume responsibility for their own internal security. If outside actors interfere we must be prepared to deal with them.
Unfortunately in the aftermath of the Vietnam debacle we were so caught up in political recriminations we never made a cool headed review of what went wrong with the South Vietnamese government or how we might have prevented it. By the time American combat forces had been on the ground for seven years (or longer depending on what forces you count) RVN troops should have been prepared to defend the country. Why weren’t they? The military took long hard looks at their respective combat performances but if anyone took overall responsibility for the (more important) political and economic factors it isn’t clear to me. We seem to be paying more attention to those issues in the two current conflicts but after more than four years it isn’t clear that we are being any more successful.
But it isn’t really anything new. We’ve been talking about “nation building” for years. Two hundred years ago the solution was based on Empire. Empire is no longer acceptable but what do we replace it with? War hasn’t changed. Politics has, unless of course you accept Clausewitz’ idea that they are the same thing. Still, nobody that counts has really missed it. The question at hand is what do we do about it?
The good news is that although both Iraq and Afghanistan are bordered by meddling neighbors, none are prepared for direct military intervention as was the case in South Vietnam. Excepting Pakistan none of them happen to share a border with China. That means they have to be careful just how far they push the US. It may be possible to produce stable governments with only internal security to worry about. If South Vietnam had faced only the Viet Cong they might well have survived. They could not stand alone against an invading army from the north. Despite Iranian posturing, not even a nuclear armed Iran is likely to commit its army in a high risk attempt to dominate either Iraq or Afghanistan. Syria is in no position to intervene. Turkey is a greater potential threat but they are interested only in pacifying Kurds who threaten their own border security. Besides, Turkey wants to be admitted to the European Union, a very strong brake on any Turkish military adventurism. There is nothing 4th generation about any of this either. Genghis Kahn would have understood these politics.
Today’s generals seem to understand too. So do the other major players except for those who don’t wish to understand. Looking at a map of Iraq showing the progression of territory where responsibility has been slowly but steadily turned over to Iraqi forces over the past eighteen months is encouraging. If it continues, and that’s a big if, the US could conceivably begin substantial and orderly troop reductions early next year. If that is not possible by the time George Bush leaves office in January, 2009, a new president may very well order a withdrawal regardless of the consequences.
Either way the Long War is likely to continue until one side or the other decides it isn’t worth the cost. I have always thought economic factors would ultimately dictate the outcome. Since the final goal of Muslim extremists is world domination and destruction the West may concede a battle or two but will never accept final defeat. Most of the Muslim world remains mired in third world poverty. To escape it they will have to impose order among themselves. Prosperity is mushrooming all around them. Sooner or later like Lee, even Palestinians will conclude the cost is too high.
posted by Onfoot at 11:35 AM
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