[x-factor]

As I said, I excerpted the part about Hattin as historical entertainment for the 4th of July. I think its a fascinating bit of history that most Americans don't know because most Americans don't read medieval history.

I don't think its fair to judge the intent of the paper based on the excerpt. The larger paper is primarily designed to inform influence operations about how the Muslims and especially jihadists perceive things through their own cultural history and prejudices. Their beliefs and actions exist inside this cultural narrative where they are fighting against a "new Crusade" and so they draw parallels accordingly.

Do I think its rational? No. Do I think they misperceive (either intentionally or subconsciously) events to fit this narrative? Yes. I compare the Crusader cannabalism at Marrat to Abu Ghraib too. Does that mean I think they're equivalent crimes? No, of course not. I'm examining the mindset of a specific breed of enemy, not commenting on American policy.

Is this clear from the excerpt? I thought so, but maybe not. If its not then thats my fault for using the excerpt and not prefacing it more thoroughly.

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TS - The Iran-Iraq War is outside my line of argument because it was Muslim-vs-Muslim not Muslim-vs-West, so it wasn't viewed through the same cultural narrative. When its Muslim on Muslim, both sides typically resort to just trying to bludgeon each other with pure numbers.

But, as you say, lets not mince words. I'm an intel officer and you asked my opinion (as opposed to my view of the jihadist opinion) so here it is:
- Are we overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yes, but not catastrophically. We are overextended in the sense that we don't have enough resources to carry out all the operations we might like to but not in the sense that we're about to collapse into a rout.
- Are we overconfident in Iraq and Afghanistan? On a tactical level, no. Facts prove we can handily outfight any force the Muslim world can field. On a higher level, yes. It was overconfident to assume we could control Iraq with the number of troops we used.
- Are we overaggressive in Iraq and Afghanistan? On the tactical level, no. I marvel at the discipline of American forces. It is historically unprecedented for an army to be so conscious of collateral damage. On an operational level, no. Sometimes I think we're underaggressive actually. I think we wasted a lot of time waiting for security to just magically bloom on its own in Iraq and in alot of cases we've been purely reactive in our approach to confronting the enemies, but in some ways both those ties back to the overextended question. On a strategic level, maybe. Trying to occupy two countries of this size and scenario with only a 10-division army and minimal international support is ambitious to say the least.

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P - As I said above, the paper was primarily designed to inform influence operations not combat operations. Still, I do think there are parallels to be drawn. You're right that the Muslim preference for asymettric tactics (feigned retreat, ambush, raiding, etc) pre-date the Crusades. They pre-date Islam and go back to Turkic and Arab tribal practices. However, I think the Muslim way of war at the operational level takes the counter-Crusade of the 12th century (Zangi-Nurredin-Saladin) as one of its primary influences.

In medieval force-on-force contests the Muslim armies were whipped nearly every time (3 times at Antioch, Jerusalem, Ramlah, Acre, Arsuf, Jaffa, etc etc.) even despite their incredible numerical and logistical advantages. Each time Muslim armies were pasted by smaller, more professional Western manuever forces.

Off the top of my head, the only large scale battles that the Muslims won in the first three Crusades were Damascus and Hattin. Damascus was a battlefield draw (the Crusaders more or less just gave up on the campaign because of command infighting), so the Muslim world doesn't draw the same kind of example from it. Hattin was as described above and I think the Muslim preference for grinding down an opponent (using siege tactics, asymettric attacks, superior logistics, greater numbers, etc) rather than seeking a decisive contest of manuever forces .

We in the West often view this as cowardice, but lots of Muslims, especially jihadists, don't because its part of their martial philosophy going back to their greatest general. Now that doesn't mean much at the tactical level, but I think it can help predict behavoir at the operational and strategic level.