Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
America Has
Been Launching Wars and Losing Them for Virtually the Entire 21st Century
November 29, 2016
President-elect
Donald Trump’s message for the nation’s senior military leadership is
ambiguously unambiguous. Here is he on 60 Minutes just days
after winning the election.
Trump:
"We have some great generals. We have great generals."
Lesley
Stahl: "You said you knew more than the generals about ISIS."
Trump:
"Well, I'll be honest with you, I probably do because look at the job
they've done. OK, look at the job they've done. They haven't done the
job."
In reality,
Trump, the former reality show host, knows next to nothing about ISIS, one of
many gaps in his education that his impending encounter with actual reality is
likely to fill. Yet when it comes to America’s generals, our
president-to-be is onto something. No doubt our three- and four-star
officers qualify as “great” in the sense that they mean well, work hard, and
are altogether fine men and women.
That they have not “done the job,” however,
is indisputable -- at least if their job is to bring America’s wars to a timely
and successful conclusion.
Trump’s
unhappy verdict -- that the senior U.S. military leadership doesn’t know how to
win -- applies in spades to the two principal conflicts of the post-9/11 era:
the Afghanistan War, now in its 16th year, and the Iraq War, launched in 2003
and (after a brief hiatus) once more grinding on. Yet the verdict applies
equally to lesser theaters of conflict, largely overlooked by the American
public, that in recent years have engaged the attention of U.S. forces, a list
that would include conflicts in Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
Granted, our
generals have demonstrated an impressive aptitude for moving pieces around on a
dauntingly complex military chessboard. Brigades, battle groups, and
squadrons shuttle in and out of various war zones, responding to the needs of
the moment. The sheer immensity of the enterprise across the Greater
Middle East and northern Africa -- the sorties flown [3], munitions expended [4], the
seamless deployment and redeployment of thousands of troops over thousands of
miles, the vast stockpiles of material positioned, expended, and continuously
resupplied -- represents a staggering achievement. Measured by these or similar
quantifiable outputs, America’s military has excelled. No other military
establishment in history could have come close to duplicating the logistical
feats being performed year in, year out by the armed forces of the United
States.
Nor should
we overlook the resulting body count. Since the autumn of 2001, something
like 370,000 [5] combatants and
noncombatants have been killed in the various theaters of operations where U.S.
forces have been active. Although modest by twentieth century standards, this
post-9/11 harvest of death is hardly trivial.
Yet in
evaluating military operations, it’s a mistake to confuse how much with how
well. Only rarely do the outcomes of armed conflicts turn on
comparative statistics. Ultimately, the one measure of success that
really matters involves achieving war’s political purposes. By that
standard, victory requires not simply the defeat of the enemy, but
accomplishing the nation’s stated war aims, and not just in part or temporarily
but definitively. Anything less constitutes failure, not to mention utter waste
for taxpayers, and for those called upon to fight, it constitutes cause for
mourning.
By that
standard, having been “at war” for virtually the entire twenty-first century,
the United States military is still looking for its first win. And
however strong the disinclination to concede that Donald Trump could be right
about anything, his verdict on American generalship qualifies as apt.
A
Never-Ending Parade of Commanders for Wars That Never End
That
verdict brings to mind three questions. First, with Trump a rare exception, why
have the recurring shortcomings of America’s military leadership largely
escaped notice? Second, to what degree does faulty generalship suffice to
explain why actual victory has proven so elusive? Third, to the extent that
deficiencies at the top of the military hierarchy bear directly on the outcome
of our wars, how might the generals improve their game?
As to the
first question, the explanation is quite simple: During protracted wars,
traditional standards for measuring generalship lose their salience.
Without pertinent standards, there can be no accountability. Absent
accountability, failings and weaknesses escape notice. Eventually, what
you’ve become accustomed to seems tolerable. Twenty-first century Americans
inured to wars that never end have long since forgotten that bringing such
conflicts to a prompt and successful conclusion once defined the very essence
of what generals were expected to do.
Senior
military officers were presumed to possess unique expertise in designing
campaigns and directing engagements. Not found among mere civilians or
even among soldiers of lesser rank, this expertise provided the rationale for
conferring status and authority on generals.
In earlier
eras, the very structure of wars provided a relatively straightforward
mechanism for testing such claims to expertise. Events on the battlefield
rendered harsh judgments, creating or destroying reputations with brutal
efficiency.
Back then,
standards employed in evaluating generalship were clear-cut and uncompromising.
Those who won battles earned fame, glory, and the gratitude of their
countrymen. Those who lost battles got fired or were put out to pasture.
During the
Civil War, for example, Abraham Lincoln did not need an advanced degree in
strategic studies to conclude that Union generals like John Pope, Ambrose
Burnside, and Joseph Hooker didn’t have what it took to defeat the Army of
Northern Virginia. Humiliating defeats sustained by the Army of the
Potomac at the Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville made that
obvious enough. Similarly, the victories Ulysses S. Grant and William T.
Sherman gained at Shiloh, at Vicksburg, and in the Chattanooga campaign
strongly suggested that here was the team to which the president could entrust
the task of bringing the Confederacy to its knees.
Today, public drunkenness [6], petty corruption [7], or sexual shenanigans [8] with
a subordinate might land generals in hot water. But as long as they avoid
egregious misbehavior, senior officers charged with prosecuting America’s wars
are largely spared judgments of any sort. Trying hard is enough to get a
passing grade.With the country’s political leaders and public conditioned to
conflicts seemingly destined to drag on for years, if not decades, no one
expects the current general-in-chief in Iraq or Afghanistan to bring things to
a successful conclusion. His job is merely to manage the situation until
he passes it along to a successor, while duly adding to his collection of
personal decorations and perhaps advancing his career.
Today, for
example, Army General John Nicholson commands U.S. and allied forces in
Afghanistan. He’s only the latest in a long line of senior officers to
preside over that war, beginning with General Tommy Franks in 2001 and
continuing with Generals Mikolashek, Barno, Eikenberry, McNeill, McKiernan,
McChrystal, Petraeus, Allen, Dunford, and Campbell. The title carried by
these officers changed over time. So, too, did the specifics of their
“mission” as Operation Enduring Freedom evolved into Operation Freedom’s
Sentinel. Yet even as expectations slipped lower and lower, none of the
commanders rotating through Kabul delivered. Not a single one has, in our
president-elect’s concise formulation, “done the job.” Indeed, it’s
increasingly difficult to know what that job is, apart from preventing the
Taliban from quite literally toppling the government.
In Iraq,
meanwhile, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend currently serves as the --
count ‘em -- ninth American to command U.S. and coalition forces in that
country since the George W. Bush administration ordered the invasion of
2003. The first in that line, (once again) General Tommy Franks,
overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime and thereby broke Iraq. The next
five, Generals Sanchez, Casey, Petraeus, Odierno, and Austin, labored for eight
years to put it back together again.
At the end
of 2011, President Obama declared that they had done just that and terminated
the U.S. military occupation. The Islamic State soon exposed Obama’s
claim as specious when its militants put a U.S.-trained Iraqi army to flight
and annexed large swathes[9] of
that country’s territory. Following in the footsteps of his immediate
predecessors Generals James Terry and Sean MacFarland, General Townsend now
shoulders the task of trying to restore Iraq’s status as a more or less
genuinely sovereign state. He directs what the Pentagon calls Operation
Inherent Resolve, dating from June 2014, the follow-on to Operation New Dawn
(September 2010-December 2011), which was itself the successor to Operation
Iraqi Freedom (March 2003-August 2010).
When and
how Inherent Resolve will conclude is difficult to forecast. This much we
can, however, say with some confidence: with the end nowhere in sight, General
Townsend won’t be its last commander. Other generals are waiting in the
wings with their own careers to polish. As in Kabul, the parade of U.S.
military commanders through Baghdad will continue.
For some
readers, this listing of mostly forgotten names and dates may have a soporific
effect. Yet it should also drive home Trump’s point. The United
States may today have the world’s most powerful and capable military -- so at
least we are constantly told. Yet the record shows that it does not have
a corps of senior officers who know how to translate capability into successful
outcomes.
Draining
Which Swamp?
That brings
us to the second question: Even if commander-in-chief Trump were somehow
able to identify modern day equivalents of Grant and Sherman to implement his
war plans, secret or otherwise, would they deliver victory?
On that
score, we would do well to entertain doubts. Although senior officers
charged with running recent American wars have not exactly covered themselves
in glory, it doesn’t follow that their shortcomings offer the sole or even a
principal explanation for why those wars have yielded such disappointing
results. The truth is that some wars aren’t winnable and shouldn’t be
fought.
So, yes,
Trump’s critique of American generalship possesses merit, but whether he knows
it or not, the question truly demanding his attention as the incoming
commander-in-chief isn’t: Who should I hire (or fire) to fight my wars?
Instead, far more urgent is: Does further war promise to solve any of my
problems?
One mark of
a successful business executive is knowing when to cut your losses. It’s also
the mark of a successful statesman. Trump claims to be the former.
Whether his putative business savvy will translate into the world of statecraft
remains to be seen. Early signs are not promising.
As a
candidate, Trump vowed to [10] “defeat
radical Islamic terrorism,” destroy ISIS, “decimate al-Qaeda,” and “starve
funding for Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah.” Those promises imply a
significant escalation of what Americans used to call the Global War on
Terrorism.
Toward that
end, the incoming administration may well revive some aspects of the George W.
Bush playbook, including repopulating the military prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and “if it’s so important [11] to
the American people,” reinstituting torture. The Trump administration
will at least consider re-imposing sanctions on countries like Iran. It
may aggressively exploit the offensive potential of cyber-weapons, betting that
America’s cyber-defenses will hold.
Yet
President Trump is also likely to double down on the use of conventional
military force. In that regard, his promise [12] to
“quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS” offers a hint of what is to
come. His appointment of the uber-hawkish Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as
his national security adviser and his rumored selection of retired Marine Corps
General James (“Mad Dog”) Mattis as defense secretary suggest that he means
what he says. In sum, a Trump administration seems unlikely to
reexamine the conviction that the problems roiling the Greater Middle East will
someday, somehow yield to a U.S.-imposed military solution. Indeed, in
the face of massive evidence to the contrary, that conviction will deepen, with
genuinely ironic implications for the Trump presidency.
In the
immediate wake of 9/11, George W. Bush concocted a fantasy of American soldiers
liberating oppressed Afghans and Iraqis and thereby “draining the swamp [13]” that
served to incubate anti-Western terrorism. The results achieved proved
beyond disappointing, while the costs exacted in terms of lives and dollars
squandered were painful indeed. Incrementally, with the passage of time,
many Americans concluded that perhaps the swamp most in need of
attention was not on the far side of the planet but much closer at hand --
right in the imperial city nestled alongside the Potomac River.
To a very
considerable extent, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, preferred candidate of the
establishment, because he advertised himself as just the guy disgruntled
Americans could count on to drain that swamp.
Yet here’s
what too few of those Americans appreciate, even today: war created that swamp
in the first place. War empowers Washington. It centralizes.
It provides a rationale for federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new
powers. It makes government bigger and more intrusive. It
lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes tens of
billions of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to
sustaining the swamp, nothing works better than war.
Were Trump
really intent on draining that swamp -- if he genuinely seeks to “Make America
Great Again” -- then he would extricate the United States from war.
His liquidation [14] of
Trump University, which was to higher education what Freedom’s Sentinel and
Inherent Resolve are to modern warfare, provides a potentially instructive
precedent for how to proceed.
But don’t
hold your breath on that one. All signs indicate that, in one fashion or
another, our combative next president will perpetuate the wars he’s inheriting.
Trump may fancy that, as a veteran of Celebrity Apprentice (but
not of military service), he possesses a special knack for spotting the next
Grant or Sherman. But acting on that impulse will merely replenish the
swamp in the Greater Middle East along with the one in Washington. And
soon enough, those who elected him with expectations of seeing the much-despised
establishment dismantled will realize that they’ve been had.
Which
brings us, finally, to that third question: To the extent that deficiencies at
the top of the military hierarchy do affect the outcome of wars, what can be
done to fix the problem?
The most
expeditious approach: purge all currently serving three- and four-star
officers; then, make a precondition for promotion to those ranks confinement in
a reeducation camp run by Iraq and Afghanistan war amputees, with a curriculum
designed by Veterans for Peace [15].
Graduation should require each student to submit an essay reflecting on these
words of wisdom from U.S. Grant himself: “There never was a time when, in
my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.”
True, such
an approach may seem a bit draconian. But this is no time for half-measures --
as even Donald Trump may eventually recognize.
Andrew J.
Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations emeritus at
Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies. His new book is America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military
History [16] (Random House, 2016).
[18]
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/andrew-bacevich
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[3] http://www.afcent.af.mil/Portals/82/Users/221/33/733/05%20-%2031%20May%202016%20Airpower%20Summary.pdf?ver=2016-06-18-072912-443
[4] http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2016/01/07/how-many-bombs-did-the-united-states-drop-in-2015/
[5] http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/us/air-force-removed-general-over-drunken-behavior-in-moscow.html
[7] http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-howgeneral-william-e-kip-ward-lost-one-of-the-armys-most-distinguished-generals-lost-his-prestigious-command-2012-8
[8] http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-army-sinclair-demoted-20140620-story.html
[9] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states
[10] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-terrorism-speech-227025
[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html
[12] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/18/donald-trump-promises-to-bomb-the-hell-out-of-isis-in-new-radio-ad/
[13] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1357781/US-asks-Nato-for-help-in-draining-the-swamp-of-global-terrorism.html
[14] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/source-trump-nearing-settlement-in-trump-university-fraud-cases/2016/11/18/8dc047c0-ada0-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html
[15] https://www.veteransforpeace.org/
[16] http://www.amazon.com/Americas-War-Greater-Middle-East-ebook/dp/B0174PRIY4
[17] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on America Has Been Launching Wars and Losing Them for Virtually the Entire 21st Century
[18] http://www.alternet.org/
[19] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[3] http://www.afcent.af.mil/Portals/82/Users/221/33/733/05%20-%2031%20May%202016%20Airpower%20Summary.pdf?ver=2016-06-18-072912-443
[4] http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2016/01/07/how-many-bombs-did-the-united-states-drop-in-2015/
[5] http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/us/air-force-removed-general-over-drunken-behavior-in-moscow.html
[7] http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-howgeneral-william-e-kip-ward-lost-one-of-the-armys-most-distinguished-generals-lost-his-prestigious-command-2012-8
[8] http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-army-sinclair-demoted-20140620-story.html
[9] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states
[10] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-terrorism-speech-227025
[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html
[12] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/18/donald-trump-promises-to-bomb-the-hell-out-of-isis-in-new-radio-ad/
[13] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1357781/US-asks-Nato-for-help-in-draining-the-swamp-of-global-terrorism.html
[14] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/source-trump-nearing-settlement-in-trump-university-fraud-cases/2016/11/18/8dc047c0-ada0-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html
[15] https://www.veteransforpeace.org/
[16] http://www.amazon.com/Americas-War-Greater-Middle-East-ebook/dp/B0174PRIY4
[17] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on America Has Been Launching Wars and Losing Them for Virtually the Entire 21st Century
[18] http://www.alternet.org/
[19] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
