The Reaper
09-14-2006, 08:36
For NDD.;)
TR
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/clausewitz_on_terror.html
September 14, 2006
Clausewitz On Terror
By J. R. Dunn
Are we losing the War on Terror? Five years after 9/11, the question is being asked with some urgency, and not by appeasers, defeatists, or the general run of whiner, but by individuals of respect, people of considerable expertise and experience, people deserving of close attention under any circumstance.
They have come to believe that at worst, the war is being lost, and at best, the war effort is losing steam, that we've begun to cede the initiative to the Jihadis, an error that may cost us a terribly high price not far down the line.
The pessimistic scenario
This school of thought holds that the U.S. is courting political and military disaster through an inflexible approach to the war in general and Iraq in particular. Jihadi ability to adapt to American tactics has left the U.S. and its allies in a precarious position. A single sizable disaster - something on the order of the Tet Offensive - could destroy support for the current war strategy and leave the U.S. facing an impasse even worse than that of Vietnam, a trap in which the U.S. would be unable disengage and at the same time incapable of mustering the public support or the political will to prevail.
On the face of it, little evidence exists for this stance. The Jihadis certainly can't claim any serious recent successes. This past summer has seen bombing plots in Britain, Toronto, the U.S., and Germany broken up, with most of the conspirators in custody. Only sporadic individual attacks have occurred, carried out by misfits with no evident connections to Al-Qaeda or related networks. Iraq, after a very rough few months, is starting to look up. The most serious problem there is not the Jihadis per se, but the festering sore of Moqtada al-Sadr and his nearly out-of-control militia forces, which will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later.Similarly, Afghanistan has seen a series of Allied successes in recent weeks, with a resurgent Taliban suffering heavy casualties in nearly every encounter.
The only visible exceptions involve Pervez Musharaff's effective surrender concerning Jihadi activities in Waziristan (which merely formalizes the situation on the ground), and the ambiguous Lebanon conflict, which left Israel reeling from its "victory" over Hezbollah, a victory which cost most of its martial reputation and all of its peace of mind.
This can't honestly be called "losing". But there is one sense in which the feeling of disquiet is justified: all these are defensive victories, in which offensive plans by the Jihadis were broken up. On the other side, the all-important Western effort against the Jihadi networks and sanctuaries, there's little to show. True, Zarqawi has been killed and his deputy al-Saeedi captured, but these too were essentially defensive actions. Osama, Zawahiri, and Omar still roam Waziristan, their networks still exist - and may in fact have grown in efficiency - and their supporters among the Muslim states and in the West remain unidentified and untouched. Ahmadenijad and the mullahs continue to bluster. The bombers keep coming.
And so we get a sense of running in place, a feeling that events have somehow escaped our grasp, that the vast tide of will and determination has begun to ebb, leaving our enemies standing untouched.
The estimable Victor Davis Hanson identifies this as a "bellum interruptem" - "a sort of war, a sort of peace" caused by either
"exhaustion from this long war in Afghanistan and Iraq, or... our very success hitherto in preventing jihadists from enacting mass murder in the United States."
He identifies two previous such episodes, from 421-415 BCE during the Peloponnesian War, and between October 1939 and May 1940 during World War II. Both ended in catastrophe for the democratic states, with Athens and Western Europe suffering defeat, occupation, and tyranny. Dr. Hanson views the recent calm with foreboding, fearing that we are simply waiting, all unknowing, for the next blow to fall.
But such interludes have occurred in other wars as well, and did not necessarily end badly. Several others of shorter duration occurred during the twenty-eight year conflict between Athens and Sparta. Most of the Hundred Years War between England and France was made up of such calm periods, as the contenders jockeyed for support, built up their forces, or fought among themselves. In our own time, the Cold War was marked by lengthy intervals of quiet and even cooperation between crises and proxy wars. (It has been argued - convincingly, I think - that the Soviet Union lasted so long only because the West repeatedly bailed it out every time it hit an economic wall.)
So it appears that the bellum interruptem, far from being an unusual or alarming element of the current conflict, is in fact a typical feature of long wars, one that doesn't necessarily forecast the drift of events one way or the other. It could scarcely be any other way.
The culminating point
In an earlier piece, I mentioned a military concept called the culminating point,
"...where an attack, no matter how successful, inevitably begins to stall out, to lose power and coherence. After that, the assault can no longer be sustained, and the wise commander calls a halt to rest and reorganize his forces.... Eventually, the overseas campaign against the Jihadis will reach its culminating point..."
The concept of the culminating point, like so much else, is derived from the work of Carl von Clausewitz. As an invading army advances into enemy territory, it begins to lose its strength through a process of operational attrition. These unavoidable losses include occupation troops, troops needed to screen or engage enemy concentrations and fortresses, and troops needed to guard supply lines going through hostile territory. At the same time, resources become more difficult to acquire, due to long supply lines and hostile activity. Add on the moral effect, with enemy resistance stiffening as the invading army moves deeper into home territory, and the inevitable follows: at a certain distinct point, the advantage shifts from attacker to defender, and it's no longer militarily feasible to continue an advance.
The current status of the War on Terror fits this analysis to near-perfection. American and Coalition forces are deeply involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other points across the globe. (It's often forgotten that this war is a global effort, with operations occurring in Africa, Central Asia, India, Thailand, the Philippines, and even Latin America.)
Resources are not precisely strained, but they are committed, which in a global sense means they are not available. Morally, the picture is even less favorable. It has been a long time since 9/11, and people are beginning to get a little vague about the purpose and import of the war, a natural development that the loyal opposition, both in politics and out, has been quick to take advantage of. Actions and rhetoric creeping to the very threshold of treason - and arguably beyond - have seriously eroded support for current operations and curtailed any possibility of further efforts, however necessary they may be.
Clearly, the war has reached a culminating point. The first phase is effectively over - for the sake of the record, we can draw the line under the ambiguous Lebanon operation. (Let me add that I'm not claiming that the result of that campaign can be explained in these terms - the Israeli failure was due to another abstruse military factor, stupidity.) The Western coalition has lost momentum, to the momentary advantage of the Jihadis. Leaders and personnel not yet under direct military threat are safe for the time being. Western forces won't be carrying out any major operations for the foreseeable future.
Nor should they. Clausewitz is adamant in his insistence that pushing on past the culminating point is military folly at its most egregious.
TR
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/clausewitz_on_terror.html
September 14, 2006
Clausewitz On Terror
By J. R. Dunn
Are we losing the War on Terror? Five years after 9/11, the question is being asked with some urgency, and not by appeasers, defeatists, or the general run of whiner, but by individuals of respect, people of considerable expertise and experience, people deserving of close attention under any circumstance.
They have come to believe that at worst, the war is being lost, and at best, the war effort is losing steam, that we've begun to cede the initiative to the Jihadis, an error that may cost us a terribly high price not far down the line.
The pessimistic scenario
This school of thought holds that the U.S. is courting political and military disaster through an inflexible approach to the war in general and Iraq in particular. Jihadi ability to adapt to American tactics has left the U.S. and its allies in a precarious position. A single sizable disaster - something on the order of the Tet Offensive - could destroy support for the current war strategy and leave the U.S. facing an impasse even worse than that of Vietnam, a trap in which the U.S. would be unable disengage and at the same time incapable of mustering the public support or the political will to prevail.
On the face of it, little evidence exists for this stance. The Jihadis certainly can't claim any serious recent successes. This past summer has seen bombing plots in Britain, Toronto, the U.S., and Germany broken up, with most of the conspirators in custody. Only sporadic individual attacks have occurred, carried out by misfits with no evident connections to Al-Qaeda or related networks. Iraq, after a very rough few months, is starting to look up. The most serious problem there is not the Jihadis per se, but the festering sore of Moqtada al-Sadr and his nearly out-of-control militia forces, which will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later.Similarly, Afghanistan has seen a series of Allied successes in recent weeks, with a resurgent Taliban suffering heavy casualties in nearly every encounter.
The only visible exceptions involve Pervez Musharaff's effective surrender concerning Jihadi activities in Waziristan (which merely formalizes the situation on the ground), and the ambiguous Lebanon conflict, which left Israel reeling from its "victory" over Hezbollah, a victory which cost most of its martial reputation and all of its peace of mind.
This can't honestly be called "losing". But there is one sense in which the feeling of disquiet is justified: all these are defensive victories, in which offensive plans by the Jihadis were broken up. On the other side, the all-important Western effort against the Jihadi networks and sanctuaries, there's little to show. True, Zarqawi has been killed and his deputy al-Saeedi captured, but these too were essentially defensive actions. Osama, Zawahiri, and Omar still roam Waziristan, their networks still exist - and may in fact have grown in efficiency - and their supporters among the Muslim states and in the West remain unidentified and untouched. Ahmadenijad and the mullahs continue to bluster. The bombers keep coming.
And so we get a sense of running in place, a feeling that events have somehow escaped our grasp, that the vast tide of will and determination has begun to ebb, leaving our enemies standing untouched.
The estimable Victor Davis Hanson identifies this as a "bellum interruptem" - "a sort of war, a sort of peace" caused by either
"exhaustion from this long war in Afghanistan and Iraq, or... our very success hitherto in preventing jihadists from enacting mass murder in the United States."
He identifies two previous such episodes, from 421-415 BCE during the Peloponnesian War, and between October 1939 and May 1940 during World War II. Both ended in catastrophe for the democratic states, with Athens and Western Europe suffering defeat, occupation, and tyranny. Dr. Hanson views the recent calm with foreboding, fearing that we are simply waiting, all unknowing, for the next blow to fall.
But such interludes have occurred in other wars as well, and did not necessarily end badly. Several others of shorter duration occurred during the twenty-eight year conflict between Athens and Sparta. Most of the Hundred Years War between England and France was made up of such calm periods, as the contenders jockeyed for support, built up their forces, or fought among themselves. In our own time, the Cold War was marked by lengthy intervals of quiet and even cooperation between crises and proxy wars. (It has been argued - convincingly, I think - that the Soviet Union lasted so long only because the West repeatedly bailed it out every time it hit an economic wall.)
So it appears that the bellum interruptem, far from being an unusual or alarming element of the current conflict, is in fact a typical feature of long wars, one that doesn't necessarily forecast the drift of events one way or the other. It could scarcely be any other way.
The culminating point
In an earlier piece, I mentioned a military concept called the culminating point,
"...where an attack, no matter how successful, inevitably begins to stall out, to lose power and coherence. After that, the assault can no longer be sustained, and the wise commander calls a halt to rest and reorganize his forces.... Eventually, the overseas campaign against the Jihadis will reach its culminating point..."
The concept of the culminating point, like so much else, is derived from the work of Carl von Clausewitz. As an invading army advances into enemy territory, it begins to lose its strength through a process of operational attrition. These unavoidable losses include occupation troops, troops needed to screen or engage enemy concentrations and fortresses, and troops needed to guard supply lines going through hostile territory. At the same time, resources become more difficult to acquire, due to long supply lines and hostile activity. Add on the moral effect, with enemy resistance stiffening as the invading army moves deeper into home territory, and the inevitable follows: at a certain distinct point, the advantage shifts from attacker to defender, and it's no longer militarily feasible to continue an advance.
The current status of the War on Terror fits this analysis to near-perfection. American and Coalition forces are deeply involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other points across the globe. (It's often forgotten that this war is a global effort, with operations occurring in Africa, Central Asia, India, Thailand, the Philippines, and even Latin America.)
Resources are not precisely strained, but they are committed, which in a global sense means they are not available. Morally, the picture is even less favorable. It has been a long time since 9/11, and people are beginning to get a little vague about the purpose and import of the war, a natural development that the loyal opposition, both in politics and out, has been quick to take advantage of. Actions and rhetoric creeping to the very threshold of treason - and arguably beyond - have seriously eroded support for current operations and curtailed any possibility of further efforts, however necessary they may be.
Clearly, the war has reached a culminating point. The first phase is effectively over - for the sake of the record, we can draw the line under the ambiguous Lebanon operation. (Let me add that I'm not claiming that the result of that campaign can be explained in these terms - the Israeli failure was due to another abstruse military factor, stupidity.) The Western coalition has lost momentum, to the momentary advantage of the Jihadis. Leaders and personnel not yet under direct military threat are safe for the time being. Western forces won't be carrying out any major operations for the foreseeable future.
Nor should they. Clausewitz is adamant in his insistence that pushing on past the culminating point is military folly at its most egregious.