Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, An Invitation to Collective Suicide
By Andrew Bacevich
Posted on December 3, 2015, Printed on December 3, 2015
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176076/
Lets consider the two parties in Washington. Im not referring to the
Republican and Democratic ones, but our capitals war parties (there being
no peace party, of course). They might be labeled the More War Party and the
Much (or Much, Much) More War Party. Headed by President Obama, the first is
distinctly a minority grouping. In a capital city in which, post-Paris, war
seems to be the order of the day, its the party of relative restraint, as
the president has clearly grasped the obvious: for the last 14 years, the
more wholeheartedly the U.S. has gone into any situation in the Greater
Middle East, militarily speaking, the worse it has turned out.
Having promised to get us out of two wars and being essentially assured of
leaving us in at least three (and various other conflicts on the side), he
insists that a new invasion or even a large-scale infusion of American
troops, aka boots on the ground, in Syria or Iraq is a no-go for him. The
code word he uses for his version of more war -- since less war is simply
not an option on that table in Washington where all options are evidently
kept -- is "intensification." Once upon a time, it might have been called
"escalation" or "mission creep." The president has pledged to merely
"intensify" the war hes launched, however reluctantly, in Syria and the one
hes re-launched in Iraq. This seems to mean more of exactly what hes
already ordered into the fray: more air power, more special forces boots
more or less on the ground in Syria, more special ops raiders sent into
Iraq, and perhaps more military advisers ever nearer to the action in that
country as well. This is as close as youre likely to get in present-day
America, at least in official circles, to an antiwar position.
In the Much (or Much, Much) More War party, Republicans and Democrats alike
are explicitly or implicitly criticizing the president for his weak
policies and for leading from behind against the Islamic State. They
propose solutions ranging from instituting "no-fly zones" in northern Syria
to truly intensifying U.S. air strikes, to sending in local forces backed
and led by American special operators (à la Afghanistan 2001), to sending in
far more American troops, to simply putting masses of American boots on the
ground and storming the Islamic States capital, Raqqa. After fourteen years
in which so many similar "solutions" have been tried and in the end failed
miserably in the Greater Middle East or North Africa, all of it, as if brand
new, is once again on that table in Washington.
Aside from long-shots Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, any candidate likely to
enter the Oval Office in January 2017 will be committed to some version of
much-more war, including obviously Donald Trump, Marco (clash of
civilizations) Rubio, and Hillary Clinton, who recently gave a hawkish
speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on her version of war policy
against the Islamic State. Given that stark reality, this is a perfect
moment to explore what much-more war (call it, in fact, World War IV)
might actually mean and how it might play out in our world -- and
TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich is the perfect person to do it. Tom
Beyond ISIS
The Folly of World War IV
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Assume that the hawks get their way -- that the United States does whatever
it takes militarily to confront and destroy ISIS. Then what?
Answering that question requires taking seriously the outcomes of other
recent U.S. interventions in the Greater Middle East. In 1991, when the
first President Bush ejected Saddam Husseins army from Kuwait, Americans
rejoiced, believing that they had won a decisive victory. A decade later,
the younger Bush seemingly outdid his father by toppling the Taliban in
Afghanistan and then making short work of Saddam himself -- a liberation
twofer achieved in less time than it takes Americans to choose a president.
After the passage of another decade, Barack Obama got into the liberation
act, overthrowing the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in what appeared to be
a tidy air intervention with a clean outcome. As Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton memorably put it, We came, we saw, he died. End of story.
In fact, subsequent events in each case mocked early claims of success or
outright victory. Unanticipated consequences and complications abounded.
Liberation turned out to be a prelude to chronic violence and upheaval.
Indeed, the very existence of the Islamic State (ISIS) today renders a
definitive verdict on the Iraq wars over which the Presidents Bush presided,
each abetted by a Democratic successor. A de facto collaboration of four
successive administrations succeeded in reducing Iraq to what it is today: a
dysfunctional quasi-state unable to control its borders or territory while
serving as a magnet and inspiration for terrorists.
The United States bears a profound moral responsibility for having made such
a hash of things there. Were it not for the reckless American decision to
invade and occupy a nation that, whatever its crimes, had nothing to do with
9/11, the Islamic State would not exist. Per the famous Pottery Barn Rule
attributed to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, having smashed Iraq to
bits a decade ago, we can now hardly deny owning ISIS.
That the United States possesses sufficient military power to make short
work of that caliphate is also the case. True, in both Syria and Iraq the
Islamic State has demonstrated a disturbing ability to capture and hold
large stretches of desert, along with several population centers. It has,
however, achieved these successes against poorly motivated local forces of,
at best, indifferent quality.
In that regard, the glibly bellicose editor of the Weekly Standard, William
Kristol, is surely correct in suggesting that a well-armed contingent of
50,000 U.S. troops, supported by ample quantities of air power, would make
mincemeat of ISIS in a toe-to-toe contest. Liberation of the various ISIS
strongholds like Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq and Palmyra and Raqqa, its
capital, in Syria would undoubtedly follow in short order.
In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris, the American mood is strongly
trending in favor of this sort of escalation. Just about anyone who is
anyone -- the current occupant of the Oval Office partially excepted --
favors intensifying the U.S. military campaign against ISIS. And why not?
What could possibly go wrong? As Kristol puts it, "I dont think theres
much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad
there."
Its an alluring prospect. In the face of a sustained assault by the
greatest military the world has ever seen, ISIS foolishly (and therefore
improbably) chooses to make an Alamo-like stand. Whammo! We win. They lose.
Mission accomplished.
Of course, that phrase recalls the euphoric early reactions to Operations
Desert Storm in 1991, Enduring Freedom in 2001, Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and
Odyssey Dawn, the Libyan intervention of 2011. Time and again the
unanticipated side effects of U.S. military action turned out to be very bad
indeed. In Kabul, Baghdad, or Tripoli, the Alamo fell, but the enemy
dispersed or reinvented itself and the conflict continued. Assurances
offered by Kristol that this time things will surely be different deserve to
be taken with more than a grain of salt. Pass the whole shaker.
Embracing Generational War
Why this repeated disparity between perceived and actual outcomes? Why have
apparent battlefield successes led so regularly to more violence and
disorder? Before following Kristols counsel, Americans would do well to
reflect on these questions.
Cue Professor Eliot A. Cohen. Shortly after 9/11, Cohen, one of this
countrys preeminent military thinkers, characterized the conflict on which
the United States was then embarking as World War IV. (In this
formulation, the Cold War becomes World War III.) Other than in certain
neoconservative quarters, the depiction did not catch on. Yet nearly a
decade-and-a-half later, the Johns Hopkins professor and former State
Department official is sticking to his guns. In an essay penned for the
American Interest following the recent Paris attacks, he returns to his
theme. It was World War IV in 2001, Cohen insists. It is World War IV
today. And to our considerable benefit he spells out at least some of the
implications of casting the conflict in such expansive and evocative terms.
Now I happen to think that equating our present predicament in the Islamic
world with the immensely destructive conflicts of the prior century is dead
wrong. Yet its a proposition that Americans at this juncture should
contemplate with the utmost seriousness.
In the United States today, confusion about what war itself signifies is
widespread. Through misuse, misapplication, and above all misremembering, we
have distorted the term almost beyond recognition. As one consequence, talk
of war comes too easily off the tongues of the unknowing.
Not so with Cohen. When it comes to war, he has no illusions. Addressing
that subject, he illuminates it, enabling us to see what war entails. So in
advocating World War IV, he performs a great service, even if perhaps not
the one he intends.
What will distinguish the war that Cohen deems essential? Begin with
endurance, he writes. This war will probably go on for the rest of my
life, and well into my childrens. Although American political leaders seem
reluctant to explain just how high the stakes are, Cohen lays them out in
direct, unvarnished language. At issue, he insists, is the American way of
life itself, not simply in the sense of rock concerts and alcohol in
restaurants, but the more fundamental rights of freedom of speech and
religion, the equality of women, and, most essentially, the freedom from
fear and freedom to think.
With so much on the line, Cohen derides the Obama administrations tendency
to rely on therapeutic bombing, which will temporarily relieve the itch,
but leave the wounds suppurating. The time for such half-measures has long
since passed. Defeating the Islamic State and kindred movements will
require the U.S. to kill a great many people. To that end Washington needs
a long-range plan not to contain but to crush the enemy. Even with such
a plan, victory will be a long way off and will require a long, bloody, and
costly process.
Cohens candor and specificity, as bracing as they are rare, should command
our respect. If World War IV describes what we are in for, then eliminating
ISIS might figure as a near-term imperative, but it can hardly define the
endgame. Beyond ISIS loom all those continually evolving kindred movements
to which the United States will have to attend before it can declare the war
itself well and truly won.
To send just tens of thousands of U.S. troops to clean up Syria and Iraq, as
William Kristol and others propose, offers at best a recipe for winning a
single campaign. Winning the larger war would involve far more arduous
exertions. This Cohen understands, accepts, and urges others to acknowledge.
And here we come to the heart of the matter. For at least the past 35 years
-- that is, since well before 9/11 -- the United States has been at war in
various quarters of the Islamic world. At no point has it demonstrated the
will or the ability to finish the job. Washingtons approach has been akin
to treating cancer with a little bit of chemo one year and a one-shot course
of radiation the next. Such gross malpractice aptly describes U.S. military
policy throughout the Greater Middle East across several decades.
While there may be many reasons why the Iraq War of 2003 to 2011 and the
still longer Afghanistan War yielded such disappointing results,
Washingtons timidity in conducting those campaigns deserves pride of place.
That most Americans might bridle at the term timidity reflects the extent
to which they have deluded themselves regarding the reality of war.
In comparison to Vietnam, for example, Washingtons approach to waging its
two principal post-9/11 campaigns was positively half-hearted. With the
nation as a whole adhering to peacetime routines, Washington neither sent
enough troops nor stayed anywhere near long enough to finish the job. Yes,
we killed many tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, but if winning World
War IV requires, as Cohen writes, that we break the back of the enemy,
then we obviously didnt kill nearly enough.
Nor were Americans sufficiently willing to die for the cause. In South
Vietnam, 58,000 G.I.s died in a futile effort to enable that country to
survive. In Iraq and Afghanistan, where the stakes were presumably much
higher, we pulled the plug after fewer than 7,000 deaths.
Americans would be foolish to listen to those like William Kristol who, even
today, peddle illusions about war being neat and easy. They would do well
instead to heed Cohen, who knows that war is hard and ugly.
What Would World War IV Look Like?
Yet when specifying the practical implications of generational war, Cohen is
less forthcoming. From his perspective, this fourth iteration of existential
armed conflict in a single century is not going well. But apart from greater
resolve and bloody-mindedness, what will it take to get things on the right
track?
As a thought experiment, lets answer that question by treating it with the
urgency that Cohen believes it deserves. After 9/11, certain U.S. officials
thundered about taking the gloves off. In practice, however, with the
notable exception of policies permitting torture and imprisonment without
due process, the gloves stayed on. Take Cohens conception of World War IV
at face value and that will have to change.
For starters, the country would have to move to something like a war
footing, enabling Washington to raise a lot more troops and spend a lot more
money over a very long period of time. Although long since banished from the
nations political lexicon, the M-word -- mobilization -- would make a
comeback. Prosecuting a generational war, after all, is going to require the
commitment of generations.
Furthermore, if winning World War IV means crushing the enemy, as Cohen
emphasizes, then ensuring that the enemy, once crushed, cannot recover would
be hardly less important. And that requirement would prohibit U.S. forces
from simply walking away from a particular fight even -- or especially --
when it might appear won.
At the present moment, defeating the Islamic State ranks as Washingtons
number one priority. With the Pentagon already claiming a body count of
20,000 ISIS fighters without notable effect, this campaign wont end anytime
soon. But even assuming an eventually positive outcome, the task of
maintaining order and stability in areas that ISIS now controls will remain.
Indeed, that task will persist until the conditions giving rise to entities
like ISIS are eliminated. Dont expect French President François Hollande or
British Prime Minister David Cameron to sign up for that thankless job. U.S.
forces will own it. Packing up and leaving the scene wont be an option.
How long would those forces have to stay? Extrapolating from recent U.S.
occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, something on the order of a
quarter-century seems like a plausible approximation. So should our 45th
president opt for a boots-on-the-ground solution to ISIS, as might well be
the case, the privilege of welcoming the troops home could belong to the
48th or 49th occupant of the White House.
In the meantime, U.S. forces would have to deal with the various and sundry
kindred movements that are already cropping up like crabgrass in country
after country. Afghanistan -- still? again? -- would head the list of places
requiring U.S. military attention. But other prospective locales would
include such hotbeds of Islamist activity as Lebanon, Libya, Palestine,
Somalia, and Yemen, along with several West African countries increasingly
beset with insurgencies. Unless Egyptian, Pakistani, and Saudi security
forces demonstrate the ability (not to mention the will) to suppress the
violent radicals in their midst, one or more of those countries could also
become the scene of significant U.S. military action.
Effective prosecution of World War IV, in other words, would require the
Pentagon to plan for each of these contingencies, while mustering the assets
needed for implementation. Allies might kick in token assistance -- tokenism
is all they have to offer -- but the United States will necessarily carry
most of the load.
What Would World War IV Cost?
During World War III (aka the Cold War), the Pentagon maintained a force
structure ostensibly adequate to the simultaneous prosecution of two and a
half wars. This meant having the wherewithal to defend Europe and the
Pacific from communist aggression while still leaving something for the
unexpected. World War IV campaigns are unlikely to entail anything on the
scale of the Warsaw Pact attacking Western Europe or North Korea invading
the South. Still, the range of plausible scenarios will require that U.S.
forces be able to take on militant organizations C and D even while guarding
against the resurgence of organizations A and B in altogether different
geographic locations.
Even though Washington may try whenever possible to avoid large-scale ground
combat, relying on air power (including drones) and elite Special Operations
forces to do the actual killing, post-conflict pacification promises to be a
manpower intensive activity. Certainly, this ranks as one of the most
obvious lessons to emerge from World War IVs preliminary phases: when the
initial fight ends, the real work begins.
U.S. forces committed to asserting control over Iraq after the invasion of
2003 topped out at roughly 180,000. In Afghanistan, during the Obama
presidency, the presence peaked at 110,000. In a historical context, these
are not especially large numbers. At the height of the Vietnam War, for
example, U.S. troop strength in Southeast Asia exceeded 500,000.
In hindsight, the Army general who, before the invasion of 2003, publicly
suggested that pacifying postwar Iraq would require several hundred
thousand troops had it right. A similar estimate applies to Afghanistan. In
other words, those two occupations together could easily have absorbed
600,000 to 800,000 troops on an ongoing basis. Given the Pentagons standard
three-to-one rotation policy, which assumes that for every unit in-country,
a second is just back, and a third is preparing to deploy, youre talking
about a minimum requirement of between 1.8 and 2.4 million troops to sustain
just two medium-sized campaigns -- a figure that wouldnt include some
number of additional troops kept in reserve for the unexpected.
In other words, waging World War IV would require at least a five-fold
increase in the current size of the U.S. Army -- and not as an emergency
measure but a permanent one. Such numbers may appear large, but as Cohen
would be the first to point out, they are actually modest when compared to
previous world wars. In 1968, in the middle of World War III, the Army had
more than 1.5 million active duty soldiers on its rolls -- this at a time
when the total American population was less than two-thirds what it is today
and when gender discrimination largely excluded women from military service.
If it chose to do so, the United States today could easily field an army of
two million or more soldiers.
Whether it could also retain the current model of an all-volunteer force is
another matter. Recruiters would certainly face considerable challenges,
even if Congress enhanced the material inducements for service, which since
9/11 have already included a succession of generous increases in military
pay. A loosening of immigration policy, granting a few hundred thousand
foreigners citizenship in return for successfully completing a term of
enlistment might help. In all likelihood, however, as with all three
previous world wars, waging World War IV would oblige the United States to
revive the draft, a prospect as likely to be well-received as a flood of
brown and black immigrant enlistees. In short, going all out to create the
forces needed to win World War IV would confront Americans with
uncomfortable choices.
The budgetary implications of expanding U.S. forces while conducting a
perpetual round of what the Pentagon calls overseas contingency operations
would also loom large. Precisely how much money an essentially global
conflict projected to extend well into the latter half of the century would
require is difficult to gauge. As a starting point, given the increased
number of active duty forces, tripling the present Defense Department budget
of more than $600 billion might serve as a reasonable guess.
At first glance, $1.8 trillion annually is a stupefyingly large figure. To
make it somewhat more palatable, a proponent of World War IV might put that
number in historical perspective. During the first phases of World War III,
for example, the United States routinely allocated 10% or more of total
gross domestic product (GDP) for national security. With that GDP today
exceeding $17 trillion, apportioning 10% to the Pentagon would give those
charged with managing World War IV a nice sum to work with and no doubt to
build upon.
Of course, that money would have to come from somewhere. For several years
during the last decade, sustaining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan pushed the
federal deficit above a trillion dollars. As one consequence, the total
national debt now exceeds annual GDP, having tripled since 9/11. How much
additional debt the United States can accrue without doing permanent damage
to the economy is a question of more than academic interest.
To avoid having World War IV produce an endless string of unacceptably large
deficits, ratcheting up military spending would undoubtedly require either
substantial tax increases or significant cuts in non-military spending,
including big-ticket programs like Medicare and social security -- precisely
those, that is, which members of the middle class hold most dear.
In other words, funding World War IV while maintaining a semblance of fiscal
responsibility would entail the kind of trade-offs that political leaders
are loathe to make. Today, neither party appears up to taking on such
challenges. That the demands of waging protracted war will persuade them to
rise above their partisan differences seems unlikely. It sure hasnt so far.
The Folly of World War IV
In his essay, Cohen writes, we need to stop the circumlocutions. Of those
who would bear the direct burden of his world war, he says, we must start
telling them the truth. Hes right, even if he himself is largely silent
about what the conduct of World War IV is likely to exact from the average
citizen.
As the United States enters a presidential election year, plain talk about
the prospects of our ongoing military engagement in the Islamic world should
be the order of the day. The pretense that either dropping a few more bombs
or invading one or two more countries will yield a conclusive outcome
amounts to more than an evasion. It is an outright lie.
As Cohen knows, winning World War IV would require dropping many, many more
bombs and invading, and then occupying for years to come, many more
countries. After all, its not just ISIS that Washington will have to deal
with, but also its affiliates, offshoots, wannabes, and the successors
almost surely waiting in the wings. And dont forget al-Qaeda.
Cohen believes that we have no alternative. Either we get serious about
fighting World War IV the way it needs to be fought or darkness will envelop
the land. He is undeterred by the evidence that the more deeply we insert
our soldiers into the Greater Middle East the more concerted the resistance
they face; that the more militants we kill the more we seem to create; that
the inevitable, if unintended, killing of innocents only serves to
strengthen the hand of the extremists. As he sees it, with everything we
believe in riding on the outcome, we have no choice but to press on.
While listening carefully to Cohens call to arms, Americans should reflect
on its implications. Wars change countries and people. Embracing his
prescription for World War IV would change the United States in fundamental
ways. It would radically expand the scope and reach of the national security
state, which, of course, includes agencies beyond the military itself. It
would divert vast quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes. It would
make the militarization of the American way of life, a legacy of prior world
wars, irreversible. By sowing fear and fostering impossible expectations of
perfect security, it would also compromise American freedom in the name of
protecting it. The nation that decades from now might celebrate VT Day --
victory over terrorism -- will have become a different place, materially,
politically, culturally, and morally.
In my view, Cohens World War IV is an invitation to collective suicide.
Arguing that no alternative exists to open-ended war represents not
hard-nosed realism, but the abdication of statecraft. Yet heres the
ultimate irony: even without the name, the United States has already
embarked upon something akin to a world war, which now extends into the far
reaches of the Islamic world and spreads further year by year.
Incrementally, bit by bit, this nameless war has already expanded the scope
and reach of the national security apparatus. It is diverting vast
quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes even as it normalizes the
continuing militarization of the American way of life. By sowing fear and
fostering impossible expectations of perfect security, it is undermining
American freedom in the name of protecting it, and doing so right before our
eyes.
Cohen rightly decries the rudderless character of the policies that have
guided the (mis)conduct of that war thus far. For that critique we owe him a
considerable debt. But the real problem is the war itself and the conviction
that only through war can America remain America.
For a rich and powerful nation to conclude that it has no choice but to
engage in quasi-permanent armed conflict in the far reaches of the planet
represents the height of folly. Power confers choice. As citizens, we must
resist with all our might arguments that deny the existence of choice.
Whether advanced forthrightly by Cohen or fecklessly by the militarily
ignorant, such claims will only perpetuate the folly that has already lasted
far too long.
Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular, is professor emeritus of history
and international relations at Boston University. He is the author of Breach
of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, among other
works. His new book, Americas War for the Greater Middle East (Random
House), is due out in April 2016.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Tomorrows Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and
Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government:
Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2015 Andrew J. Bacevich
© 2015 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176076
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, An Invitation to Collective Suicide
By Andrew Bacevich
Posted on December 3, 2015, Printed on December 3, 2015
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176076/
Lets consider the two parties in Washington. Im not referring to the
Republican and Democratic ones, but our capitals war parties (there being
no peace party, of course). They might be labeled the More War Party and the
Much (or Much, Much) More War Party. Headed by President Obama, the first is
distinctly a minority grouping. In a capital city in which, post-Paris, war
seems to be the order of the day, its the party of relative restraint, as
the president has clearly grasped the obvious: for the last 14 years, the
more wholeheartedly the U.S. has gone into any situation in the Greater
Middle East, militarily speaking, the worse it has turned out.
Having promised to get us out of two wars and being essentially assured of
leaving us in at least three (and various other conflicts on the side), he
insists that a new invasion or even a large-scale infusion of American
troops, aka boots on the ground, in Syria or Iraq is a no-go for him. The
code word he uses for his version of more war -- since less war is simply
not an option on that table in Washington where all options are evidently
kept -- is "intensification." Once upon a time, it might have been called
"escalation" or "mission creep." The president has pledged to merely
"intensify" the war hes launched, however reluctantly, in Syria and the one
hes re-launched in Iraq. This seems to mean more of exactly what hes
already ordered into the fray: more air power, more special forces boots
more or less on the ground in Syria, more special ops raiders sent into
Iraq, and perhaps more military advisers ever nearer to the action in that
country as well. This is as close as youre likely to get in present-day
America, at least in official circles, to an antiwar position.
In the Much (or Much, Much) More War party, Republicans and Democrats alike
are explicitly or implicitly criticizing the president for his weak
policies and for leading from behind against the Islamic State. They
propose solutions ranging from instituting "no-fly zones" in northern Syria
to truly intensifying U.S. air strikes, to sending in local forces backed
and led by American special operators (à la Afghanistan 2001), to sending in
far more American troops, to simply putting masses of American boots on the
ground and storming the Islamic States capital, Raqqa. After fourteen years
in which so many similar "solutions" have been tried and in the end failed
miserably in the Greater Middle East or North Africa, all of it, as if brand
new, is once again on that table in Washington.
Aside from long-shots Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, any candidate likely to
enter the Oval Office in January 2017 will be committed to some version of
much-more war, including obviously Donald Trump, Marco (clash of
civilizations) Rubio, and Hillary Clinton, who recently gave a hawkish
speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on her version of war policy
against the Islamic State. Given that stark reality, this is a perfect
moment to explore what much-more war (call it, in fact, World War IV)
might actually mean and how it might play out in our world -- and
TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich is the perfect person to do it. Tom
Beyond ISIS
The Folly of World War IV
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Assume that the hawks get their way -- that the United States does whatever
it takes militarily to confront and destroy ISIS. Then what?
Answering that question requires taking seriously the outcomes of other
recent U.S. interventions in the Greater Middle East. In 1991, when the
first President Bush ejected Saddam Husseins army from Kuwait, Americans
rejoiced, believing that they had won a decisive victory. A decade later,
the younger Bush seemingly outdid his father by toppling the Taliban in
Afghanistan and then making short work of Saddam himself -- a liberation
twofer achieved in less time than it takes Americans to choose a president.
After the passage of another decade, Barack Obama got into the liberation
act, overthrowing the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in what appeared to be
a tidy air intervention with a clean outcome. As Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton memorably put it, We came, we saw, he died. End of story.
In fact, subsequent events in each case mocked early claims of success or
outright victory. Unanticipated consequences and complications abounded.
Liberation turned out to be a prelude to chronic violence and upheaval.
Indeed, the very existence of the Islamic State (ISIS) today renders a
definitive verdict on the Iraq wars over which the Presidents Bush presided,
each abetted by a Democratic successor. A de facto collaboration of four
successive administrations succeeded in reducing Iraq to what it is today: a
dysfunctional quasi-state unable to control its borders or territory while
serving as a magnet and inspiration for terrorists.
The United States bears a profound moral responsibility for having made such
a hash of things there. Were it not for the reckless American decision to
invade and occupy a nation that, whatever its crimes, had nothing to do with
9/11, the Islamic State would not exist. Per the famous Pottery Barn Rule
attributed to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, having smashed Iraq to
bits a decade ago, we can now hardly deny owning ISIS.
That the United States possesses sufficient military power to make short
work of that caliphate is also the case. True, in both Syria and Iraq the
Islamic State has demonstrated a disturbing ability to capture and hold
large stretches of desert, along with several population centers. It has,
however, achieved these successes against poorly motivated local forces of,
at best, indifferent quality.
In that regard, the glibly bellicose editor of the Weekly Standard, William
Kristol, is surely correct in suggesting that a well-armed contingent of
50,000 U.S. troops, supported by ample quantities of air power, would make
mincemeat of ISIS in a toe-to-toe contest. Liberation of the various ISIS
strongholds like Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq and Palmyra and Raqqa, its
capital, in Syria would undoubtedly follow in short order.
In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris, the American mood is strongly
trending in favor of this sort of escalation. Just about anyone who is
anyone -- the current occupant of the Oval Office partially excepted --
favors intensifying the U.S. military campaign against ISIS. And why not?
What could possibly go wrong? As Kristol puts it, "I dont think theres
much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad
there."
Its an alluring prospect. In the face of a sustained assault by the
greatest military the world has ever seen, ISIS foolishly (and therefore
improbably) chooses to make an Alamo-like stand. Whammo! We win. They lose.
Mission accomplished.
Of course, that phrase recalls the euphoric early reactions to Operations
Desert Storm in 1991, Enduring Freedom in 2001, Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and
Odyssey Dawn, the Libyan intervention of 2011. Time and again the
unanticipated side effects of U.S. military action turned out to be very bad
indeed. In Kabul, Baghdad, or Tripoli, the Alamo fell, but the enemy
dispersed or reinvented itself and the conflict continued. Assurances
offered by Kristol that this time things will surely be different deserve to
be taken with more than a grain of salt. Pass the whole shaker.
Embracing Generational War
Why this repeated disparity between perceived and actual outcomes? Why have
apparent battlefield successes led so regularly to more violence and
disorder? Before following Kristols counsel, Americans would do well to
reflect on these questions.
Cue Professor Eliot A. Cohen. Shortly after 9/11, Cohen, one of this
countrys preeminent military thinkers, characterized the conflict on which
the United States was then embarking as World War IV. (In this
formulation, the Cold War becomes World War III.) Other than in certain
neoconservative quarters, the depiction did not catch on. Yet nearly a
decade-and-a-half later, the Johns Hopkins professor and former State
Department official is sticking to his guns. In an essay penned for the
American Interest following the recent Paris attacks, he returns to his
theme. It was World War IV in 2001, Cohen insists. It is World War IV
today. And to our considerable benefit he spells out at least some of the
implications of casting the conflict in such expansive and evocative terms.
Now I happen to think that equating our present predicament in the Islamic
world with the immensely destructive conflicts of the prior century is dead
wrong. Yet its a proposition that Americans at this juncture should
contemplate with the utmost seriousness.
In the United States today, confusion about what war itself signifies is
widespread. Through misuse, misapplication, and above all misremembering, we
have distorted the term almost beyond recognition. As one consequence, talk
of war comes too easily off the tongues of the unknowing.
Not so with Cohen. When it comes to war, he has no illusions. Addressing
that subject, he illuminates it, enabling us to see what war entails. So in
advocating World War IV, he performs a great service, even if perhaps not
the one he intends.
What will distinguish the war that Cohen deems essential? Begin with
endurance, he writes. This war will probably go on for the rest of my
life, and well into my childrens. Although American political leaders seem
reluctant to explain just how high the stakes are, Cohen lays them out in
direct, unvarnished language. At issue, he insists, is the American way of
life itself, not simply in the sense of rock concerts and alcohol in
restaurants, but the more fundamental rights of freedom of speech and
religion, the equality of women, and, most essentially, the freedom from
fear and freedom to think.
With so much on the line, Cohen derides the Obama administrations tendency
to rely on therapeutic bombing, which will temporarily relieve the itch,
but leave the wounds suppurating. The time for such half-measures has long
since passed. Defeating the Islamic State and kindred movements will
require the U.S. to kill a great many people. To that end Washington needs
a long-range plan not to contain but to crush the enemy. Even with such
a plan, victory will be a long way off and will require a long, bloody, and
costly process.
Cohens candor and specificity, as bracing as they are rare, should command
our respect. If World War IV describes what we are in for, then eliminating
ISIS might figure as a near-term imperative, but it can hardly define the
endgame. Beyond ISIS loom all those continually evolving kindred movements
to which the United States will have to attend before it can declare the war
itself well and truly won.
To send just tens of thousands of U.S. troops to clean up Syria and Iraq, as
William Kristol and others propose, offers at best a recipe for winning a
single campaign. Winning the larger war would involve far more arduous
exertions. This Cohen understands, accepts, and urges others to acknowledge.
And here we come to the heart of the matter. For at least the past 35 years
-- that is, since well before 9/11 -- the United States has been at war in
various quarters of the Islamic world. At no point has it demonstrated the
will or the ability to finish the job. Washingtons approach has been akin
to treating cancer with a little bit of chemo one year and a one-shot course
of radiation the next. Such gross malpractice aptly describes U.S. military
policy throughout the Greater Middle East across several decades.
While there may be many reasons why the Iraq War of 2003 to 2011 and the
still longer Afghanistan War yielded such disappointing results,
Washingtons timidity in conducting those campaigns deserves pride of place.
That most Americans might bridle at the term timidity reflects the extent
to which they have deluded themselves regarding the reality of war.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805082964/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805082964/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20In
comparison to Vietnam, for example, Washingtons approach to waging its two
principal post-9/11 campaigns was positively half-hearted. With the nation
as a whole adhering to peacetime routines, Washington neither sent enough
troops nor stayed anywhere near long enough to finish the job. Yes, we
killed many tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, but if winning World
War IV requires, as Cohen writes, that we break the back of the enemy,
then we obviously didnt kill nearly enough.
Nor were Americans sufficiently willing to die for the cause. In South
Vietnam, 58,000 G.I.s died in a futile effort to enable that country to
survive. In Iraq and Afghanistan, where the stakes were presumably much
higher, we pulled the plug after fewer than 7,000 deaths.
Americans would be foolish to listen to those like William Kristol who, even
today, peddle illusions about war being neat and easy. They would do well
instead to heed Cohen, who knows that war is hard and ugly.
What Would World War IV Look Like?
Yet when specifying the practical implications of generational war, Cohen is
less forthcoming. From his perspective, this fourth iteration of existential
armed conflict in a single century is not going well. But apart from greater
resolve and bloody-mindedness, what will it take to get things on the right
track?
As a thought experiment, lets answer that question by treating it with the
urgency that Cohen believes it deserves. After 9/11, certain U.S. officials
thundered about taking the gloves off. In practice, however, with the
notable exception of policies permitting torture and imprisonment without
due process, the gloves stayed on. Take Cohens conception of World War IV
at face value and that will have to change.
For starters, the country would have to move to something like a war
footing, enabling Washington to raise a lot more troops and spend a lot more
money over a very long period of time. Although long since banished from the
nations political lexicon, the M-word -- mobilization -- would make a
comeback. Prosecuting a generational war, after all, is going to require the
commitment of generations.
Furthermore, if winning World War IV means crushing the enemy, as Cohen
emphasizes, then ensuring that the enemy, once crushed, cannot recover would
be hardly less important. And that requirement would prohibit U.S. forces
from simply walking away from a particular fight even -- or especially --
when it might appear won.
At the present moment, defeating the Islamic State ranks as Washingtons
number one priority. With the Pentagon already claiming a body count of
20,000 ISIS fighters without notable effect, this campaign wont end anytime
soon. But even assuming an eventually positive outcome, the task of
maintaining order and stability in areas that ISIS now controls will remain.
Indeed, that task will persist until the conditions giving rise to entities
like ISIS are eliminated. Dont expect French President François Hollande or
British Prime Minister David Cameron to sign up for that thankless job. U.S.
forces will own it. Packing up and leaving the scene wont be an option.
How long would those forces have to stay? Extrapolating from recent U.S.
occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, something on the order of a
quarter-century seems like a plausible approximation. So should our 45th
president opt for a boots-on-the-ground solution to ISIS, as might well be
the case, the privilege of welcoming the troops home could belong to the
48th or 49th occupant of the White House.
In the meantime, U.S. forces would have to deal with the various and sundry
kindred movements that are already cropping up like crabgrass in country
after country. Afghanistan -- still? again? -- would head the list of places
requiring U.S. military attention. But other prospective locales would
include such hotbeds of Islamist activity as Lebanon, Libya, Palestine,
Somalia, and Yemen, along with several West African countries increasingly
beset with insurgencies. Unless Egyptian, Pakistani, and Saudi security
forces demonstrate the ability (not to mention the will) to suppress the
violent radicals in their midst, one or more of those countries could also
become the scene of significant U.S. military action.
Effective prosecution of World War IV, in other words, would require the
Pentagon to plan for each of these contingencies, while mustering the assets
needed for implementation. Allies might kick in token assistance -- tokenism
is all they have to offer -- but the United States will necessarily carry
most of the load.
What Would World War IV Cost?
During World War III (aka the Cold War), the Pentagon maintained a force
structure ostensibly adequate to the simultaneous prosecution of two and a
half wars. This meant having the wherewithal to defend Europe and the
Pacific from communist aggression while still leaving something for the
unexpected. World War IV campaigns are unlikely to entail anything on the
scale of the Warsaw Pact attacking Western Europe or North Korea invading
the South. Still, the range of plausible scenarios will require that U.S.
forces be able to take on militant organizations C and D even while guarding
against the resurgence of organizations A and B in altogether different
geographic locations.
Even though Washington may try whenever possible to avoid large-scale ground
combat, relying on air power (including drones) and elite Special Operations
forces to do the actual killing, post-conflict pacification promises to be a
manpower intensive activity. Certainly, this ranks as one of the most
obvious lessons to emerge from World War IVs preliminary phases: when the
initial fight ends, the real work begins.
U.S. forces committed to asserting control over Iraq after the invasion of
2003 topped out at roughly 180,000. In Afghanistan, during the Obama
presidency, the presence peaked at 110,000. In a historical context, these
are not especially large numbers. At the height of the Vietnam War, for
example, U.S. troop strength in Southeast Asia exceeded 500,000.
In hindsight, the Army general who, before the invasion of 2003, publicly
suggested that pacifying postwar Iraq would require several hundred
thousand troops had it right. A similar estimate applies to Afghanistan. In
other words, those two occupations together could easily have absorbed
600,000 to 800,000 troops on an ongoing basis. Given the Pentagons standard
three-to-one rotation policy, which assumes that for every unit in-country,
a second is just back, and a third is preparing to deploy, youre talking
about a minimum requirement of between 1.8 and 2.4 million troops to sustain
just two medium-sized campaigns -- a figure that wouldnt include some
number of additional troops kept in reserve for the unexpected.
In other words, waging World War IV would require at least a five-fold
increase in the current size of the U.S. Army -- and not as an emergency
measure but a permanent one. Such numbers may appear large, but as Cohen
would be the first to point out, they are actually modest when compared to
previous world wars. In 1968, in the middle of World War III, the Army had
more than 1.5 million active duty soldiers on its rolls -- this at a time
when the total American population was less than two-thirds what it is today
and when gender discrimination largely excluded women from military service.
If it chose to do so, the United States today could easily field an army of
two million or more soldiers.
Whether it could also retain the current model of an all-volunteer force is
another matter. Recruiters would certainly face considerable challenges,
even if Congress enhanced the material inducements for service, which since
9/11 have already included a succession of generous increases in military
pay. A loosening of immigration policy, granting a few hundred thousand
foreigners citizenship in return for successfully completing a term of
enlistment might help. In all likelihood, however, as with all three
previous world wars, waging World War IV would oblige the United States to
revive the draft, a prospect as likely to be well-received as a flood of
brown and black immigrant enlistees. In short, going all out to create the
forces needed to win World War IV would confront Americans with
uncomfortable choices.
The budgetary implications of expanding U.S. forces while conducting a
perpetual round of what the Pentagon calls overseas contingency operations
would also loom large. Precisely how much money an essentially global
conflict projected to extend well into the latter half of the century would
require is difficult to gauge. As a starting point, given the increased
number of active duty forces, tripling the present Defense Department budget
of more than $600 billion might serve as a reasonable guess.
At first glance, $1.8 trillion annually is a stupefyingly large figure. To
make it somewhat more palatable, a proponent of World War IV might put that
number in historical perspective. During the first phases of World War III,
for example, the United States routinely allocated 10% or more of total
gross domestic product (GDP) for national security. With that GDP today
exceeding $17 trillion, apportioning 10% to the Pentagon would give those
charged with managing World War IV a nice sum to work with and no doubt to
build upon.
Of course, that money would have to come from somewhere. For several years
during the last decade, sustaining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan pushed the
federal deficit above a trillion dollars. As one consequence, the total
national debt now exceeds annual GDP, having tripled since 9/11. How much
additional debt the United States can accrue without doing permanent damage
to the economy is a question of more than academic interest.
To avoid having World War IV produce an endless string of unacceptably large
deficits, ratcheting up military spending would undoubtedly require either
substantial tax increases or significant cuts in non-military spending,
including big-ticket programs like Medicare and social security -- precisely
those, that is, which members of the middle class hold most dear.
In other words, funding World War IV while maintaining a semblance of fiscal
responsibility would entail the kind of trade-offs that political leaders
are loathe to make. Today, neither party appears up to taking on such
challenges. That the demands of waging protracted war will persuade them to
rise above their partisan differences seems unlikely. It sure hasnt so far.
The Folly of World War IV
In his essay, Cohen writes, we need to stop the circumlocutions. Of those
who would bear the direct burden of his world war, he says, we must start
telling them the truth. Hes right, even if he himself is largely silent
about what the conduct of World War IV is likely to exact from the average
citizen.
As the United States enters a presidential election year, plain talk about
the prospects of our ongoing military engagement in the Islamic world should
be the order of the day. The pretense that either dropping a few more bombs
or invading one or two more countries will yield a conclusive outcome
amounts to more than an evasion. It is an outright lie.
As Cohen knows, winning World War IV would require dropping many, many more
bombs and invading, and then occupying for years to come, many more
countries. After all, its not just ISIS that Washington will have to deal
with, but also its affiliates, offshoots, wannabes, and the successors
almost surely waiting in the wings. And dont forget al-Qaeda.
Cohen believes that we have no alternative. Either we get serious about
fighting World War IV the way it needs to be fought or darkness will envelop
the land. He is undeterred by the evidence that the more deeply we insert
our soldiers into the Greater Middle East the more concerted the resistance
they face; that the more militants we kill the more we seem to create; that
the inevitable, if unintended, killing of innocents only serves to
strengthen the hand of the extremists. As he sees it, with everything we
believe in riding on the outcome, we have no choice but to press on.
While listening carefully to Cohens call to arms, Americans should reflect
on its implications. Wars change countries and people. Embracing his
prescription for World War IV would change the United States in fundamental
ways. It would radically expand the scope and reach of the national security
state, which, of course, includes agencies beyond the military itself. It
would divert vast quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes. It would
make the militarization of the American way of life, a legacy of prior world
wars, irreversible. By sowing fear and fostering impossible expectations of
perfect security, it would also compromise American freedom in the name of
protecting it. The nation that decades from now might celebrate VT Day --
victory over terrorism -- will have become a different place, materially,
politically, culturally, and morally.
In my view, Cohens World War IV is an invitation to collective suicide.
Arguing that no alternative exists to open-ended war represents not
hard-nosed realism, but the abdication of statecraft. Yet heres the
ultimate irony: even without the name, the United States has already
embarked upon something akin to a world war, which now extends into the far
reaches of the Islamic world and spreads further year by year.
Incrementally, bit by bit, this nameless war has already expanded the scope
and reach of the national security apparatus. It is diverting vast
quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes even as it normalizes the
continuing militarization of the American way of life. By sowing fear and
fostering impossible expectations of perfect security, it is undermining
American freedom in the name of protecting it, and doing so right before our
eyes.
Cohen rightly decries the rudderless character of the policies that have
guided the (mis)conduct of that war thus far. For that critique we owe him a
considerable debt. But the real problem is the war itself and the conviction
that only through war can America remain America.
For a rich and powerful nation to conclude that it has no choice but to
engage in quasi-permanent armed conflict in the far reaches of the planet
represents the height of folly. Power confers choice. As citizens, we must
resist with all our might arguments that deny the existence of choice.
Whether advanced forthrightly by Cohen or fecklessly by the militarily
ignorant, such claims will only perpetuate the folly that has already lasted
far too long.
Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular, is professor emeritus of history
and international relations at Boston University. He is the author of Breach
of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, among other
works. His new book, Americas War for the Greater Middle East (Random
House), is due out in April 2016.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Tomorrows Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and
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Copyright 2015 Andrew J. Bacevich
© 2015 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
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