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The Art of the Expendable
By U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Brian L. Wickliffe.
Tommy De Seno has written a magnificent post laying out the justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He says that invading Iraq was the right thing and that we would do it again today, and I agree with him — vehemently. This is because he insists upon setting the action in its proper historical context. I also feel that that experience lays out a firm case for never attempting a whole-enchilada approach like that again. Given the facts then in existence — this is stronger than “what we knew at the time” — it was objectively right, for the reasons identified. But that was then, and this is now, and we are being fundamentally transformed.
Millions of Iraqis voted in real elections, and with consequences. The dictator was gone, security wobbled and frittered, and then was restored to a reasonable standard. Things were never great, but that is an inappropriate bar to set. While some things were better and some things were worse, things in the aggregate were better than they had been in decades. Iraqis may not have enjoyed electricity and even physical security as they had, but they had hope, and they had friends. Even former bad guys were brought into the fold as they came to agree that the United States was not in fact the worst thing that either had happened or was happening at the time.
Consider Iraq an experiment under ideal conditions for motivating the American public to war, building and committing forces to theater, decapitating an identifiably strongman-led dictatorship, succeeding wildly, failing awfully, adjusting for changing conditions on the ground and poor performance in high places, and returning to a path of increasing security under largely new conditions. Dictator gone, American interests improved, Arab democracy underway in a large important country at a crucial strategic and logistical site.
We had enormous Saudi bases at our disposal with infinitely long runways and all the gas in the world in the basement. We had access from land, air, and by extension, sea, from multiple directions. We had a bipartisan series of presidents struggling with the dictator there, with bipartisan policy to encourage or effect regime change. We were already at war and were only restricted by an armistice whose conditions even the United Nations certified to have been violated many times over (seriously, read Tommy’s excellent piece).
We had been attacked by (Saudi!) Islamists and were in a fighting mood to not take any crap off of anybody. We were already at war with Iraq, and they were thumbing their noses at the world at large, the UN, the weapons inspectors, and our servicemen and women who were already enforcing no-fly zones to protect Iraqi people and inspecting shipping to enforce sanctions, both of which at risk to personnel and equipment (as the citation goes).
There was never a more accomplishable, set-piece, scripted experiment, war on rails, fill-in-the-blank, color-by-numbers technology demonstrator than this. Nor more of a come-as-you-are workbook example of a nation-building from a hostile WMD-mongering, communist religious dictatorship to fledgling and flawed democracy with people who need not wonder when the government will capture and torture their sons, and make expendable toys of their daughters.
The Iraq war and reconstruction were as good as it will ever get, but these things take time. Those who pointed out that fifty-plus years on, we were still in Germany, still in Japan, and still lined up for war in Korea somehow were not heard. Likewise those who called it “the Long War,” a polemically-charged intentional label to drive home the point that staying power was the one indispensable element. And we failed. We failed on purpose, we failed at the top, we failed as a people.
An incoming progressive administration whose very existence was predicated upon the Copperhead rantings of a defeat-at-any-cost Democrat party had prevailed — through Alinskyite tactics as effective as they are obvious — upon a majority of Americans to empower it to do its very worst. Discrediting the Iraq War was among the top priorities of an administration hell-bent upon taking this country down a peg. America must be made to suffer, made to fall in the eyes of friend and foe alike, must be seen as perfidious, weak, a hazard to “friends” and no hazard to “enemies” at all, if those words can even be relied upon in the post-Constitutional nation of racial vengeance.
The next time the Good Idea Fairy visits the hearts of the very very concerned, let the military point to the State Department and tell them to staff the positions. That is as good as it gets.
Published in Foreign Policy
I respected Bush and was happy that he was well read on the history of other presidents. However, his decision to bury the WMD finds was the single greatest strategic blunder of the war and destroyed American ability to decisively intervene in a timely manner for generations. He gave his domestic opponents the ammunition to destroy his presidency and let the sacrifice of our troops become less worthwhile in the eyes of the public. It is the job of the President in wartime to maintain domestic support. The fact that he would look to Karl Rove over such an issue was his worst mistake.
What degree do you believe is necessary?
As far as I can recall only twice have nations risen up to destroy their foes – Rome in the Third Punic War and the Allies in World War II.
They did this in each instance with absolute, unswerving violence. Rome salted the ruins of Carthage to ensure it would never rise again. America and Britain fire-bombed Dresden and reduced Germany to rubble; then the U.S. had to detonate two nuclear weapons over two Japanese cities.
The message was deeply ingrained: to fight people willing to destroy you to the last brick was a terrible idea not to be contemplated.
It took centuries to become clear Rome was unwilling to stir itself to the heights of fury it displayed against Carthage and when it was apparent Rome fell.
By the 1950’s it was clear we weren’t willing to do what we had done in World War II – we weren’t going to commit to total war – so we’ve been dealing with asymmetrical war ever since.
We’ve finally reached the point where a large portion of the nation is unwilling to pay any price or bear any burden to defend liberty abroad – certainly if that price or burden is born by their self-regard or sense of decency. I’m one of those people!
Unless you fight for total victory, unconditional victory, you can’t win any fight you’re in.
If only such a narrative was true. Rome fought multiple wars with Carthage. As a matter of fact Rome had fought a long and arduous war for Sicily in the First Punic War where Hannibal Barca’s father (Hamilcar) had fought them to a nigh stand still. Only when the Carthaginian was destroyed were they bested. If such a war was so violent, then why not destroy them?
The truth is that Carthage was only destroyed because of Hannibal Barca (who was forced to flee to Seleucid Empire and eventually Bithynia). His horrendous pain and suffering inflicted was nigh unbelievable. At that time empires were at best confederacies in terms of national identity.
The wounds that Hannibal inflicted were permanent to the Roman psyche at the time. Even then though, Carthage was rebuilt by the Romans and the people (who were Phoenician) of Carthage were straddled across the North African coast, they were not slaughtered for what Carthage did. So the analogy fails.
Likewise in WWII. We did not destroy the entire German nation or Japan. We actually helped rebuild them with the Marshall Plan and deployed divisions to protect them from Soviet invasion. So again, we did not inflict punishment (as a matter of fact the Marshall Plan was used because of the failures of the Versailles Treaty).
Rome did not fall till 1453 when Constantinople fell.
Even then, the Western Roman Empire (I will refer to them as WRE) did not fall from barbarians invading and a lack of Roman military prowess. It fell from within, from its own failings and civil war.
Read up on the Magister Militums of Flavius Aetius, Flavius Majorianus (my avatar), and Flavius Stilicho. The WRE’s military was superior to all competitors, even till its fall. If it wasn’t then it would not have been able to best the Huns (who were never that militarily powerful) or bring the Foederati to heel. It was not till Odoacer took the crown from an incredibly broken Roman state that it fell and even then Odoacer had the reverance to send the imperial robes to Constantinople and to be referred to as Rex (latin for King, rather than imperator).
More evidence of Roman military prowess would be the fact that Roman Successors states carried on after Rome fell.The Kingdom of Soissons in Northern Gaul lasted 10 years after the fall of Rome (and had been independent before Odoacer rose to power).
The Romans never lost the will to fight (they perhaps had too much of it).
I’m not stating we would have to engage in genocide, I’m stating that the result of fighting us has to be so horrible that they wouldn’t contemplate it. The only way I see to do that in this instance is to demonstrate that there are horrific group consequences for individual actions so that in the end potential terrorists are stopped not by an American or British or NATO soldier but by their family, their imam – anyone who fears the consequences of rash actions by the most extreme.
And again, what level of violence do you think would solve the problem?
I would prefer we do what we did in Iraq, which was in the spirit of what we did in WWII. You defeat the enemy regime and begin laying the foundations of democracy and enforcing its institutions. After 2 or 3 generations have been through it they will learn to accept it as the proper form of governance.
Also one should perhaps have some education to inform them of why classical liberalism and the free market, rule of law, etc. is the best form of society.
I recall a number of military retreats and a sack of Rome somewhere in there, not to mention a huge portion of the provinces falling to non-Roman forces but it’s been a long time since I read anything on Rome’s fall.
And I’m not sold on the Constantinople continuation of Rome – the Byzantine Empire is a large Roman successor state as opposed to a Roman empire; it’s like saying that if the Confederacy split without war and then Great Britain conquered the Union states in 1867, the United States didn’t really fall until Mexico conquered the Confederacy in 2134.
SoS, I think Brent got it right on the external side. But the internal side is as important. A huge swath of the American public deployed, and everyone at home was impacted by the war. It wasn’t just good messaging that had every American feeling he (and especially she) was a critical piece of defending the homeland and achieving victory, it was true. Almost every American had invested and sacrificed for the win. Thus, America writ large was ready to commit to long-term solutions.
Iraq? War on Terror? Something like less than .01% have deployed. there is zero effect No investment, no commitment.
And I’m not sold on the Constantinople continuation of Rome – the Byzantine Empire is a large Roman successor state as opposed to a Roman empire; it’s like saying that if the Confederacy split without war and then Great Britain conquered the Union states in 1867, the United States didn’t really fall until Mexico conquered the Confederacy in 2134.
Might I suggest you reread your sources. The Roman Empire was split as early 300 AD under Emperor Diocletian. Constantine attempted to reunite it but it was permanently split by 400 AD after the death of Theodosius the Great and it was split between his sons Arcadius and Honorius. There was no civil war or breaking of sovereignty. The Empire split into two smaller empires, that were both sovereign and Roman.
The Eastern Roman Empire was as much a successor to the Roman Empire as the Western Roman Empire was. Nothing even close to the CSA.
A retreat is not a defeat (which retreats?). Rome was sacked only twice (Visigoth and Vandal) and it was not the Capital of the WRE by then either (Milan or Ravenna was). Also those territories given, were generally to foederates (tribes that were allies or being assimilated).
It was the Soviet threat that led to us staying around in Germany and Japan. Originally we were growing to draw down troops substantially and leave a minimal occupation force. It was the Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe and then the Berlin Blockade in 48-49 that led to NATO and an increase in the American presence. Same thing with Japan. The fall of China to the Reds and the invasion of South Korea by the North changed the equation.
Also, the American public wasn’t worried about servicemen being killed by the Germans and Japanese. There was no ongoing resistance to the occupation.
If we didn’t the Soviets would have. The aid could have happened without a permanent major US troop presence, but the Soviets would have just walked in otherwise, just like they did everywhere else they could.
And they will still be people when we lose interest in mucking with their politics. The most conservative thing we can do, it seems, is to rely upon facts such as:
Those are people — but they are not my people. My people have fought and died and been betrayed by our idiot politicians. My people pay taxes and get golden showers at Hotel Unemployment. My people are taught in government schools that to be white is a despicable moral condition, and that Americans are so useless that only cultural enrichment from peasants and brutes can save us.
My people have no interest in losing the war at home while we are off tending to others’ issues. Let the people over there stay over there, suck it up over there, solve their problems over there. Or don’t.
I do not care. I don’t have to.
The lack of those words hardly damns the administration of a decade ago. They understood it. These things are just plain difficult. Just because some hopped-up WaPo scribbler suddenly learns a fact, that doesn’t make it a new thing under the sun.
Regarding my phrase “we failed as a people”, this country twice elected a man who promised to abandon our wars. We are no longer who we were, and who a lot of people still think we are. “We” is a big word, covers a lot of territory, and 2012 revealed a lot of the infestation out there in the big wild wood.
America goes to war half-heartedly, that is the problem. And when America goes to war half-heartedly, people die.
This will become necessary. Arguably, it already is. Well, it beats “nuking Moscow”.
To date the outcome in these situations has been that the terrorists kill the people.
Honestly – look at every single military/physical siege or economic embargo over the past ten years – has any of these resulted in the people killing those in charge (who are supposed to be the cause of the siege) rather than those in charge remaining in charge and the people dying at a higher rate than usual?
“Deal with the terrorists in your midst or we will hurt you all” sounds tough, but it’s utterly unrealistic – and I suspect it is focused more to domestic demands for getting tough than achieving any beneficial on-ground result.
Excellent prose! (genuflects)
Thank you sir!