I want the US to lose the war in Iraq

'S-O.K., Walter, Joe's got yer back on this one . . .

DrewDad,

Back on page 17 you asked:

Q1. Show me a practical winning scenario. (What has to happen, how long does it have to last.)
A. Winning this sort of irregular war is difficult, takes a great deal of time, and is far less certain than when conducting military operations against a regular national military. Winning, losing and stalemate are all possible. The approach being followed by the administration, in my view, is the most likely to lead to victory, but it is highly dependant upon maintaining our Will to continue to pursue a course unpopular with some. To paraphrase On War, "Politics is fundamental to war". That is our enemy's greatest hope, and forms the basis of his strategy.

The number of fanatical Muslims is limited, and most Muslims, I believe, are as concerned with their own day-to-day lives as any American or European, Christian, Jew, or Buddhist. The radicals have a number of goals and objectives, some of which are:

Primary Goal: To make their own radical brand of Islam the sole world religious doctrine and dogma. Terrorist motives vary from True Believers to those who seek personal dominance, but that's another question. To achieve their goal they have to consolidate their power within their geographic base, and destroy Western Civilization. That's a pretty tall order, and the odds of success in achieving their goals are actually pretty low, though they can do a terrific amount of damage in trying.

The radicals have made at least one fundamental error, and that was to suppose that the West was unwilling to directly engage them in a serious way.

They had been successful in installing sympathetic regimes in Iran and Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent in Gaddafi's government. They had serious money backing them, and the support of the religious leaders in Saudi Arabia. Syria and Iraq were secular, but shared in the radical's xenophobic paranoia. The hatred that the Arab world has long held for Israel was a rallying cry that they could exploit to their own advantage. The nuclear standoff over Kashmir was accentuating and stimulating radical Islamic support in Pakistan. Large Muslim populations in North Africa and Indonesia were agitating for independence. They came to believe that Allah was guiding their movement, and that the first part of their overall goal was within their grasp. That encouraged them to step up their attacks on the infidel West. Insertion of cells into Western nations, especially those with relatively large Muslim immigrants, provided recruitment and a operational networks. Operations against the leader of the West, the US, intensified. First, the targets were limited and in Southwest Asia; the US made no serious response. They expanded the number and size of operations, and again little was done in retaliation. In the meantime, Saddam invaded Kuwait to avoid paying his war debts. Iraq was badly defeated by the West, and foreign troops were on Holy Saudi soil. The radicals used that for propaganda purposes, and as an excuse to increase their operations outside the region some more. No significant response was forthcoming beyond harsh words and a few missiles fired into the desert. Attacks on the American homeland seemed worthwhile, it would consolidate their base and hurt the West at the same time … and nothing would probably happen anyway. Wrong. The 9/11 operation succeeded far beyond their wildest hopes, but it also caused the giant to roll-over and rub the sleep from his eyes.

Their sanctuary and training camps in Afghanistan were taken away, and now Afghanistan has a good chance of becoming a primarily secular state where humanistic values antithetical to the radicals are very good. That was a major loss to the enemy, but not a mortal wound. Pakistan's support for the US hurt them, and as the tension between Pakistan and India relaxes, there are fewer opportunities for mischief. Kim Jong-Il got the message, and the DPRK is less dangerous today than it was just a few years ago. Gaddafi, seeing that the West was at last serious about their lack of tolerance for terrorism, gave it up. That was a little victory for the US. Radical cells in the US and Europe were either rolled up, or forced to increase their caution as security forces stepped up their anti-terrorist activity. A small win for the West. Ah, but what about Iraq?

Iraq is the heart of the region, and the radicals can not afford to lose it. For Iraq to become a stable secular government where individual freedoms and humanistic values prevail would be a terrible disaster for the enemy. They may have hated Saddam, but they shared a strong belief in the value of terrorism as a strategy. Saddam also thought that he could act with impunity because he had friends and creditors in France, Russia, and Germany. The UN, that pitiful bunch of weaklings, would never authorize a renewal of the Gulf War, right? So Saddam pushed the limit and bet the pot, but it seems he only had a pair of deuces against a strong straight. If Iraq should go the way of Afghanistan, the radical's goals will be in grave danger. Remember to win we want to frustrate their goals, destroy their Will to continue and their capacity to act outside the region.

The primary battleground is Iraq. That is where the radicals have to concentrate their resources, because that is where their greatest peril lies. Resources devoted to keeping Iraq from becoming a stable secular government in the heart of the region, are not available elsewhere, so the rest of the world is just a little bit safer.

Iraq is becoming a "war of attrition". Wars of attrition tend to be long, and dirty. They are winnable, and the odds are almost always with the side with the greatest resources. Irregular wars are often wars of attrition, and there have been many of them. Our Civil War is an example, as was the American Revolution and Vietnam. The keys to winning are: superior resources (population, production, size and quality of the military, wealth, and above all the Will to see the contest to its conclusion. Time is indeed a major factor, because as time increases the political pressure to surrender increases … on both sides. The basic formula is: Victory/Time=(E - C+R)*W:: (A - C+R)*W, where "E" is the enemies total resources, and "A" are the allies total resources. "C" is the losses (often expressed as rate of). "R" is the degree to which losses can be recovered, or made up for. As time increases the "R" generally decreases proportionately. "W" is the least precise element because it is the Will to continue. If one side begins to believe it is defeated, it is. The Will to victory is inverse between contending groups. That is as one side loses faith and hope, the other side's dedication to the struggle increases. The equation is a ratio between the contending groups.

The Coalition has highly trained professional military establishments numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The logistical strength of the Coalition is very great, and might become even greater if we really get serious. On the other hand, the number of trained, skilled and dedicated radicals is limited. How many, and how many of those are effective leaders? That's hard to say, but every terrorist, every "insurgent" killed or captured reduces their strength. They will find new recruits, but they will be less skilled, less well trained, and less dedicated. Foreign "volunteers" can keep their hopes alive for awhile, but eventually those reserves will be exhausted. Their logistical resources are very limited, and as time goes on they will find it ever more difficult to maintain operational effectiveness. They have no manufacturing facilities of note, and must acquire their weapons and munitions on the world market. That costs money, money that is much more difficult to raise today than it was prior to 9/11. They have no sponsor capable of augmenting their effort. Their ability to strike against our troops has already been reduced, and they've turned to softer targets. Now they hope to intimidate the average Iraqi by murdering policemen, Iraqi soldiers, government officials, aid workers, people working to repair and improve an infrastructure degraded by neglect and war. Acts of murder, terror and violence will continue, even after the Iraqi election in January.

The new Iraqi government is, and will remain too short of resources to continue a war of attrition for several years yet. They need our support if they are to succeed in setting up a stable secular government. It is in our own interests to stay until Iraq's new government can protect itself from the attacks by our enemy.

I think that we should be involved for at least three more years in Iraq. I suspect that our total KIA will be less than 15,000, most probably in the next 18 months. In the end, a Iraq should be able to stand on its own and radical Islam will have to get used to not controlling the entire region. The ranks of the radical terrorists will be greatly reduced, as will their ability/capability to mount serious operations outside the region. Will the enemy be entirely defeated in four years, probably not. However, they will be far less dangerous than they have been.

Q2. Give me odds.
A. The odds of victory are probably pretty good, if we stay the course. If we leave Iraq too soon, the worst result would be a stalemate … though the radicals would claim victory. They would probably step up their attacks outside the region to demonstrate their "power" to humiliate the US and the West. Terrorist recruitment would probably increase, both in the region and in Europe. Iraq itself would likely become the new home of Al Quida, and might form close ties with Iran; a combination that would be much more dangerous to world peace. For the radicals "victory" in Iraq would confirm in them their notions that Allah is on their side and that eventually Western Civilization will be defeated. Possible, of course, but unlikely. Actually, the strength of international Islamic terrorism would have been dealt a serious blow, and we might experience a short decline in overall threat. However, ultimately the stalemate scenario is a prescription for a longer war, and many more casualties (especially among the innocent of the earth). At some point, either the radicals will have their way, or we will have to decisively defeat them in what would still be a war of attrition.

Q3. Give me casualty estimates.
A, Coalition forces may lose as many as 15,000 KIA and five times than number WIA. That sounds like a lot, but actually it is a very small casualty rate compared to most armed conflicts of the past. Casualty rates for some units in the past have been over 75%, and overall casualty rates of 10% are not remarkable. So far I think we're a little over 1%. The "insurgents", with a smaller base, are probably suffering something like 10-20% casualty rates overall. How many will they lose? 100% I hope, but more probably around 80%. How many of them are there? Refer to the equation above. I'm just guessing, but I doubt that today there are more than 25,000 active "soldiers" in the enemy ranks. Of that number, probably between two and three thousand are trained and dedicated to their goals. With this sort of war there can be no clearly defined "end", the hostilities just sputter out and eventually virtually cease.

Q4. Tell me again that it constitutes winning.
A. This probably should have been your first question. Winning in this situation consists of breaking the will and capacity of radical international Islamic terrorist organizations to carryout operations outside Southwest Asia.

Thanks Asherman. That post has been duly bookmarked.

You got that right Tico.
Asherman, wow...

What good would "rotate out" do for the Iraqi's having control of their own country? By saying "rotate" I assume you mean other troops taking the place of those presently fighting so that would mean we would still be there.

The Iraqis are not going to ever cooperate with the US and do things our way. They will never have an army that is going to fight the insurgents that has been managed by the US. I imagine that they would feel like they were siding with the enemy or something and that is why not more fight in the army's that has been set-up and trained up by the US. (other than the interim government)

If we left then whatever army they have would be entirely their own so I imagine that they would then fight the terrorist themselves.

Asherman said: "Q4. Tell me again that it constitutes winning.
A. This probably should have been your first question. Winning in this situation consists of breaking the will and capacity of radical international Islamic terrorist organizations to carryout operations outside Southwest Asia."

I'd like to see some evidence on that one!

And that (apart from face-saving donations to the families of suicide bombers - remember Saddam was in trouble for not being a fanatical Islamist - and terror training camps that were, as far as I know, in the Kurdish controlled area of Iraq) there was a connection between Saddam and international Islamist terror....

Thanks Asherman, at last a post with teeth.

OK. Let me paraphrase what I read.

1. The mission in Iraq is not to protect the US from weapons of mass destruction.
2. Nor is it to bring freedom to the Iraqi people (except as a side benefit).
3. It is to set up a secular government in Iraq that the terrorists can break their teeth on, instead of attacking the US.
(How nice for the Iraqi people. They get to be our buffer zone.)

4. To accomplish this we will expend a mere 15,000 US lives (and 60,000 wounded, perhaps for life). What a bargain compared to past conflicts.

5. The odds of accomplishing this are "good." (75%?)




The US has lost what, maybe 4,000 lives to Islamic terrorists? So we expend 15,000 (+~60,000 wounded) to prevent another 4,000 US deaths over the next 10 years? <scratches head> Am I following this right?




And you say the pool of extremist Islamics is limited. That differs from what I hear on the radio about extreme Islamic sects gaining in popularity among young Muslims. I don't see how we can possibly kill enough Islamic extremists to win a "war of attrition."




Not to mention that the ability of terrorist to project power is extremely limited. The are only able to kill so many soldiers because we put the soldiers within their reach!




Often the key in a low intensity conflict is not to lose your nerve. But do you really think the American people will accept that casualty figure? I don't think it has even reached 1,500 and support for the war is already slipping.




God bless us; there are none like us.

Damn straight!

You didn't ask why Iraq. You asked What constitutes winning. You asked for a practical way of prosecuting the conflict, the odds of winning and the cost in casualties.

However, now you ask:

"1. The mission in Iraq is not to protect the US from weapons of mass destruction.
2. Nor is it to bring freedom to the Iraqi people (except as a side benefit).
3. It is to set up a secular government in Iraq that the terrorists can break their teeth on, instead of attacking the US."

My answer is that the mission in Iraq derived from all of those, and more. Our entry into Iraq can't be reduced to a simple rational. Iraq under Saddam was an outlaw nation that had previously demonstrated its willingness to use terror weapons, and that openly supported terrorism. Saddam gave the world every reason to suppose that he had, or soon would have even more terrible weapons than he had in the past. The Iraqi people did suffer under a repressive and brutal dictatorship that owed more to Hitler and Stalin than to any other model. Iraq was a loose-end and a destabilizing agent in one of the worlds most volatile regions. By all the evidence Iraq left unresolved was more likely a greater threat to regional and world peace than not. Freeing Iraq to set up a stable secular government to act as a change agent I'm sure was an additional consideration. I don't think that many truly appreciated how hard the radicals and Saddam loyalists would fight to prevent setting up a democratic Iraqi government.

Wars are not fought without casualties, and truly 15,000 (or so) a not unreasonable number to expect. During the Civil War 15,000 could be lost in a single battle. Each of those lost will be mourned and honored by their families, their mates, and officers who put them in harm's way. All those who serve, BTW, are patriots almost by definition. "The bargain" is that the blood price paid by those magnificent young men and women will result in a better life for the Iraqi People and deliver a body blow to those terrorists who would otherwise be setting off charges in your part of the world. Each of our soldiers is acting in the highest traditions of national service, and to protect the People and Constitution of the United States. Don't make light of them, or their sacrifices.

It is impossible to calculate how many lives will be saved by fighting the terrorists on their own doorstep. How many lives might have been saved if the European powers had acted as strongly as this when Hitler marched into the Rhineland? Do criminals ever become less dangerous if left unmolested by the Law? Already there are positive returns from our vigorous actions in Iraq, and the benefits, I believe, will multiply over the next few years ... if we stay the course. BTW, if the soldiers all came home the number of killed and wounded during service would drop for awhile. However, the reduction would only be temporary and we would eventually have to fight the same people on different ground, ground much less favorable to our forces.

Radicals and True Believers are by their very nature extremists. How many Muslims are there in Southwest Asia? I don't know, but I suppose you might look it up on the web. Say .1 percent are True Believers dedicated to the goals of the international radical Islamic movement. How many is that? Let's say that they can recruit up five or ten percent of those living in Iraq and the surrounding countries. I think that these numbers are far too high, but just suppose. Now let's compare those numbers to the number of people living under the cloak of Western Civilization. Lets reduce that number by 50%, those who would rather hope that the radical Islamic movement would become peaceful and responsible world-citizens if we only stopped opposing them. Let's further suppose that .1% of U.S. are extremists at the opposing ends of the spectrum, and that each exprem can "recruit" up to around 10% of the population to their own points of view on the matter. That's the population part of "E" and "A" mentioned above.

Now compare the amount of total other resources available to E and A. Who has the greater wealth; The radical Islamic movement of terrorists, or the United States? Which side has the most weapons and munitions: the United States and its allies, or those who want to destroy Western culture?

As for the "C" who is paying the higher blood price the "insurgents", or the Coalition troops? Clearly we kill or capture far more of them, and their rate of loss is many times higher than our own. That leaves us with the "R". If you want to discount the foreign terrorists who have infiltrated into Iraq, probably not more than a 1,000, then we can calculate the "R" for different levels of resistance. How many Iraqi males are there between the ages of say, 13 and 30? If you don't like that cohort, then 13-50. Now of that pool, subtract those who are already injured or unwilling to take up arms. Now all you have to do is calculate for the percentage that might join the enemy, though calculations above 10% would be highly suspect. That's the "E" side of the equation. Calculating the "A" side lets just use the full might of the combined military establishments of the Coalition. For the "R" of "A" lets make it tough and keep the number low, below 10% of the total military forces available. If this is all that was calculated, the defeat of the radical terrorist faction in Iraq is almost a foregone conclusion.

It is the "W" that is the kicker. Will the anti-war crowd be able to motivate the sort of political opposition to Iraq that it did in Vietnam? I don't think so, but only time will tell. We are a tender hearted people, easily shocked and repulsed by the horrors of war. This sort of conflict is difficult for many to understand, and it seems sooooo far away. We value life and the lives of our soldiers highly and greave for every loss. As time goes on and the blood price continues to rise, there will likely be increased opposition to the continuation of the conflict. That means we have to work very hard to resolve things expeditiously. I don't think 18 to 24 months an unreasonable guess. My estimate of total KIA at 15,000 is just that an informed guess. Hopefully the number will never exceed the 10,000 that we saw in Vietnam, but larger numbers are possible. Will the public stand for it? I think so, because I believe that we will see the rates violence decline gradually after the first quarter of 2005. The more operations attempted by the "insurgents", the higher the cost is to them, and the more difficult it will be to mount successful operations.

Congratulations, Asherman, your formula proves both that we won the Vietnam War and lost the Revolutionary War.

I believe Asherman is giving creedence to the MacNamara Policy (also known as the 'kill ratio'). After failing, MacNamara apologized. But the dead remained so.

Vietnam, where we totalled enemy dead by guessing the number of leaves on a tree.

Does it really? Can you expand on that?

It is not unreasonable to suggest that roughly a third of the American population from 1765 to 1783 sat on the fence, that roughly a third either kept their mouths shut (during the Stamp Act crisis and other "Act crises") or joined Tory militias after 1775; and that roughly a third were anywhere from pissed off enough to rebel to bull goose looney . . . Whereas the will of the English nation to presecute the war might be said to have waned, to a greater or lesser extent (and i would posit insignificantly), certain events were key to the equation, as well as the wonderful incompetence of ministries of Lords Bute and North. The ministries of George III were not given to consulting general public opinion. The indefatiguable efforts of Benedict Arnold from 1775 to 1778 are ignored if one simply seeks a comfortable equation of diminishing will on one side and increasing will on the other. The ratio of recovery of human assets is meaningless here--with an adult male population numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the few thousands which comprised the army which Washington was able to keep in the field, with a wildly swinging talley of effectives in the ranks from any one month to the other, as well as the extreme fickleness of the militias (whether "rebel" or "Tory") beggar any argument (absolutist in character) which suggests that the rate at which the state recruiters were able to round up likely warm bodies was a significant factor in the war. France provided roughly 70,000 Charleville model 1777 muskets--at no time were that number of Americans under arms with all sides (Continental Line, State militias, "Royal Americans" and Tory militias) counted. This sort of formulation also ignores that whether in Europe or North America, 18th century wars generally did not involve the majority of the population in the campaigning areas. It was not until the Committee for Public Safety announced la Patrie en danger during the French Revolution that the modern phenomenon of mass levies of dedicated citizen-soldiers (real soldiers, not 90-day wonders in an unreliable militia) was seen. Even then, there was no such reaction in England, nor in the German speaking nations nor in Russia. The coalition which eventually defeated Napoleon did so with tradition recruitment and impressment methods.

Specific events do matter; specific individuals do matter. No one can, in my opinion, ever construct a formula which is predictive of, or even descriptive of, any nation's willingness and ability to prosecute a war. That we even have such a discussion is the product of a profound change in the nation state which occurred after the American and French revolutions, giving rise to polities in which the will of the people might matter, as it certainly rarely had done previously in history.

The "over the mountain" men who assembled to destroy Ferguson's Tory legion at King's Mountain did not ever again actively participate, other than perhaps as individual volunteers, in the campaigns in the South. Yet that slaughter, combined with Morgan's complete route of Tarleton at Hannah's Cowpens, and the near destruction of Cornwallis' army at Guilford Court House (and i do mean near destruction--when Cornwallis turned his artillery on his own troops in order to stop the American bayonet attack, his army, with the Guards Brigade and the Highlanders foremost, were quivering on the brink of complete dissolution) assured that Cornwallis would abandon Georgia and the Carolinas. The juxtapostion of events which allowed De Grasse to then slip away from Rodney, defeat Kepler at the Battle of the Capes, and bottle Cornwallis up in the Virginia Penninsula has no relation to the will of a nation, or even of a significant portion of the population of America.

During the Wars of the French Revolution and of Napoleon, the will of the English people to fight the revolutionaries and then the Emperor had absolutely no bearing on the matter, and in fact there was a major, severe mutiny in the Royal Navy at the Nore in that period. Even as late as the early 19th century, the will of the government determined whether or not a nation would stay at war, so long as there wasn't a sufficient insurrectionary opposition on the part of the home population.

When Rodney later defeated the French at the Battle of the Saints, the government were looking at a situation in which they had just managed to hang on to the Sugar Islands--then considered the more critical and valuable real estate--and then to just manage to deal with a bad scare by Suffren in the Indian Ocean. That they decided to cut their losses and run, with a timorous and ineffective Clinton bottled up in New York and no other major land force on the North American continent was in no way affected by either the will of the Americans to persist in rebellion, nor of the English people to endure the rather minor inconveniences of the war. In fact, arguably the most difficult time in Washington's career as supreme commander came in the three years after the crushing of Cornwallis, when he had to keep an army together in the field, despite mutinies, and a near-mutiny by his own officers. Just as with all 18th century conflicts on a European model, a distinct minority of the population participated, and handfuls of influential men determined whether or not to go to war, and for how long, and to what point.

This is not a war for our national survival, and the decision to persevere or to withdraw will neither be determined by, nor have any significant reference to the ability of the United States population to absorb casualties and replace military losses. Ulysses Grant disposed of more troops in the eastern theater alone in May, 1864, when he unleashed his drive on Richmond. This is not about national will, or survival--it is about political will and the implementation of someone's agenda over the dead bodies of Americans and Iraqis until such point as the nation says enough. This administration might have pulled this off rather neatly, had there been any militarily competent person in authority in the defense department at the beginning. There wasn't, there isn't now, and nothing we are currently doing shows any promise of providing sufficient stability in Iraq, in either the short or the long term, to achieve the wistful scenarios which administration supporters here continue to construct of an effective Iraqi military successfully containing insurrection, while a majority of Iraqis representing deeply divided and suspicious communities effectively cooperate to produce a stable government. This would have been hard enough to accomplish without the resources needed for Afghanistan, it was hubristically self-delusional to plan and execute such an operation with the available resources while we were already so heavily committed in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

These boys screwed up, and the nation will pay the price for a long time to come.

Hear, hear!

I absolutely LOVE it when Asherman and Setanta get into a historical debate. You can't buy that... though I would if it were published.

I was mislead by your word "rotate out" rather than just leave.

Anyway, it could be that the reason that some Iraqi's signed up to fight and for security positions is because it is the only work they can find.

I remember hearing something a while back in the news about Iraqi's refusing to fight. So I tried to search out something about that, I am not that good at searching out things. I did find what I was looking for but I don't know what kind of site it is but it is quotes from Iraqi's soldiers themselves: (part of it is below, the link is provided for the rest of it)



I just believe that you and some others are (though you probably have good intentions) mistaken in your beliefs about the majority of Iraqis and how they feel about the US and even the insurgents.

It is like there is someone in your family who gets on your nerves and you talk about that someone to your husband, but if he starts in on them, that is a different story.

I think we could post duelling articles all night.

I don't want to invent my own facts, and I don't think you do, either.

Peruse this when you have time and motivation. It is a very recent, non-partisan review of the war and the post-war, and prognostications on us getting out. I hadn't read it before a couple of minutes ago, but it is very close to what I said previously.
Recent Review of Progress in Iraq

Of course someone can remain a patriot and still hope his or her nation loses a war.

The real question is whether or not someone can hope his or her nation loses The War in Iraq and remain a patriot.

If they have intelligence, no. If they are raw emotions personified, I suppose yes. We shouldn't execute the retarded and we shouldn't, necessarily, call the irrational traitors.