War is about more than victory
Lance on Oct 30 2007 at 2:54 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
Brian Doherty accepts the possibility of victory, however defined, and then goes on to argue that that still does not make the invasion a good idea. I have some quibbles, but for the most part he is right. While he makes some trenchant arguments against taking positive lessons from Iraq, his answer for how we should justify war is unsatisfying, though he may feel that way himself:
The real question before a war needs to be: “is this absolutely necessary given a fair consideration of the horrors and unpredictability of war and the purpose of the U.S. military?” Which is not: “make the world a better place, somewhere down the line, killing lots of people on the way.” For America’s future, this kind of victory in Iraq could really mean defeat.
Those who have read my thoughts know that that is along the lines of my criteria sans the purpose of the US military part. What does he mean by that phrase?
War is not just a policy tool whose propriety can be judged by a bare measure of “well, it accomplished what it set out to do.” It’s a terrible bloody mess that can only be justified under very stringent circumstances of retaliation or defense
There are many problems with such a view, though it happens to dovetail with mine, which is why I do not find my own view to be a useful guide either. One problem is “absolutely necessary,” a very subjective term. Who is it absolutely necessary for? Personally I cannot think of an absolutely necessary war that we have fought. I don’t mean to be picky, but if we don’t mean absolutely necessary but rather “we have weighed the pros and cons and think the balance favors going to war by a large margin” then we are stuck with vast areas of disagreement. Further, is the absolute necessity only to Americans? So, if genocide is likely in Europe we should do something (how many would disagree?) but not in some other places? I can’t argue with that, though it makes me uncomfortable. How much is that “absolutely necessary” umbrella we throw over the rest of the world guided by our own self interest as a place to make a stand for humanitarianism versus simple ethonocentrism or racism?
Might it be shortsighted? Is it not possible that allowing minor interests abroad deteriorate, even over decades, lead to more serious issues (say war in Europe) down the road?
My problem isn’t that I think Brian and I would judge these things differently, we might not, but the measure he uses, and pretty much I do as well, provides a lot less guidance than most people believe it does. I suspect, by the way, that Brian agrees with that.
My own view on Iraq at the time is that it was something I wanted because I despised Saddam’s Iraq in a way that few people really did. Few people at the time, either pro or con on the invasion, truly understood what an evil place it was. It was truly one of the most ghastly regimes of the twentieth century.
Whether it was wise or not I was truly unsure of, and am still unsure, and so therefore neither argued for or against actually invading. Even if it turns out really well I have grave doubts it was wise, but in a complex endeavor such as foreign policy I admit to having little confidence in our ability to judge how alternatives to the invasion would have turned out. Once we did invade I have no doubts about the wisdom of making a major effort, including in time, treasure and blood. I am not a fan of the Pottery Barn Rule, but our interests coincide with our humanity in being willing to sacrifice for as positive an outcome in Iraq as we can manage. That means risking real failure, not merely tiring and leaving.
Brian is always worth reading, so I highly recommend doing so. RTWT
Here are more extensive discussions of my thoughts on justification of war in an American context and in general.
H/T: Instapundit. Note: I think this must be an approving link;^)
So I guess that means Glenn shares all of Brian’s views expressed therein.
Glenn Reynolds believes the war was a bad idea, alert the presses!
Or, we could all grow up and realize the man links to things he finds interesting. His own views are his own views, which are more complex than any simple stereotype useful for Greenwaldian spinners. The links are the views of their own authors.
6 Responses to “War is about more than victory”
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One would do well to remember that it was Saddam who apparently thought war was a good idea, or more likely, thought we were just bluffing. Bush gave Saddam a peaceful way to resolve the entire issue right up to the bitter end. All he had to do was stop interfering with UN inspectors and he would still be running his country to this day. His sons would still be having a blast torturing the soccer team and raping the local chicks.
We didn’t choose to go to war. We offered a peaceful solution that would have left Saddam in control of his country and would have ended sanctions. Saddam chose invasion, we didn’t.
Doherty clings to the “unnecessary wars”… But like Reynolds, I have never seen a description or definition of what would constitute a “necessary war”.
We all oppose the “unnecessary” in many areas of life and economics. Power windows and door locks are “unnecessary” but many find them convenient. A few even find them necessary.
Is a war that prevents a larger war “necessary” or “unnecessary”-? Which would our retaliation after another strike have been-? Would facing a stronger and more deadly enemy be- necessary or unnecessary-?
Without having a stated and limited standard of “necessary” it’s easy to condemn all wars as unnecessary. But isn’t that just a little too convenient and easy-?
Why pay attention to those who go from one convenient and easy topic to another…They have no standards. They stand for nothing. There is nothing to learn and certainly nothing to be taught.
“All he had to do was stop interfering with UN inspectors and he would still be running his country to this day. His sons would still be having a blast torturing the soccer team and raping the local chicks.”
Um, IIRC Blix reporting no interference that had any practical effect.
Going to war in Iraq was a tactic in the Global War on Terror. The questions we must ask to judge it’s effectiveness are as follows.
1. If we are attack global terrorism, how is the best way to do it?
2. Should we have single or multiple prongs?
3. Should this attack be through intelligence agencies or through military action or invasion?
4. Should we take advantage of temporary public support to clear up troubled international embarrassments?
5. Should we create a situation where people must choose between helping us or the terrorists?
6. What major tactic can we use to solve the Mid East’s demographic problems– its poverty, its high birth rates and its low average age?
7. What strategy is best for securing a lasting peace?
I believe that the Bush administration considered each of these questions before deciding to invade Iraq. A multi-prong attack was deemed the best choice for pursuing the Global war on terror.
The two prongs, intelligence and military action, mutually support each other. The war in Iraq has been an attractor for Anti-American and al Qaeda agents from the beginning. One of the difficulties in fighting a war against terrorists is getting them to come out into the open where our forces can kill them. Iraq accomplished that.
Many analysts wanted us to attack Iran, but Iraq, in many ways, was an ideal target. Our major adversaries in the Mideast (Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran) would be vastly weakened if a free economy and representative government could be installed in Iraq. Al Qaeda knew this, which is why they have been working so hard to get us to quit.
Of importance, too, was that the UN had already been at war with Iraq for 12 years. As hard as it was to get the cease fire in UN Resolution 687 withdrawn, it would have been more difficult to attack our other adversaries.
We have changed the dynamics in Mid East by invading Iraq, so that our enemies defeat themselves. A free Economy in Iraq will draw millions of unemployed Arab youth away from their native lands or terrorist training camps to Iraq where they will get jobs, get married and become stable citizens.
The Anti-American forces in European Union wanted a false form of stability which kept the age-old tyrannies intact. That was why they tried to sabotage the Bush administration’s actions. Europe is used to terrorist attacks. It’s leaders could pretend that America solely was threatened by Arab Terrorists. Because Europe is closer to the Muslim lands and their leaders take fewer precautions than we do, Europe is now on the front-line, not America.
Bush wanted to create a new stability based on freedom and prosperity, but this would take decades to accomplish and produce strife in the meantime. The Social Democrats of the European Union and the American Democratic Party do not truly want to solve problems. They believe that their problems can be negotiated away.
Bush had a different appraisal.
It appears that we are winning in Iraq. Osama bin Laden in his latest tape bemoaned their defeats there.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20071027.aspx
It is early yet, but appears that Iraq will be a non-issue in the 2008 election. Not a bad haul for the Republican Party– to defeat our enemies foreign and domestic.
We must also be careful not to place the events of 2003 in today’s context. Al Qaida injected itself into Iraq in large number only several months after the invasion. Look at the situation we faced in the summer of 2003. We had an army who had sworn their loyalty not to their country but to Saddam himself. Saddam was “on the loose”. Could we *really* have kept the old Iraqi Army while Saddam was still out there somewhere? That would have been absolutely nuts. So what people criticize us for disbanding the Iraqi army, to do anything else would have been lunacy with Saddam and many of his senior henchmen still running around the countryside. And even once we caught Saddam, we still couldn’t bring back the old army because again, they had pledged their loyalty to Saddam himself with an oath of honor that is held in high regard. There is no way we could have kept Saddam in prison until his execution had we reinstated the old army. It was only after the execution of Saddam could any serious overtures be made toward former offices and men of the army of Saddam’s era.
We didn’t have a lot of plan for “winning the peace” because frankly I don’t think anyone in our government really thought Saddam was stupid enough to play “chicken” with the US military. I honestly don’t think we thought we were going to have to invade. And I think if the French and Russians hadn’t been telling Saddam that they would block a UN invasion authoirization, that he wouldn’t have treated us as if we were bluffing. Saddam was convinced that we would not act without UN approval while France and Russia were telling him they would never give such approval so Saddam figured we would never attack and he was safe to thumb his nose at us. But at that point we were FORCED to invade else we would lose all credible use of the threat of military force, particularly with regards to Iran. If we set an ultimatum, we were going to have to go though with it. So I think we were sort of forced into fighting a war we never thought we were going to have to fight to begin with and that is why we made so many mistakes. Had we planned all along to go in there, I believe we would have had much more thorough long-range planning for the country than we had.
It wasn’t that simple, Cross patch. Al Qaeda is a loose coalition of many hundreds of terrorist organizations; there is no central control. Individual members would often wander among them. How could you keep track?
Were al Qaeda affiliated agents in Iraq before the incursion? Yes. There was an al Qaeda training base on the Kurdish and Iranian borders; it had been there for many years. The pretense was that there were no al Qaeda agents in Iraq, but how would you know, since they had so many names and changed them so frequently? The point was that it was clear that Afghanistan was too hot for them, so they scattered to the winds: Palestine, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. A number of upper ranking al Qaeda leaders came to Iraq for medical treatment.
“Look at the situation we faced in the summer of 2003. We had an army who had sworn their loyalty not to their country but to Saddam himself. Saddam was “on the loose”. Could we *really* have kept the old Iraqi Army while Saddam was still out there somewhere? That would have been absolutely nuts.”
Absolutely correct. The way I put it is that the Army voluntarily disbanded, The enlisted men were conscripts so they went home. The Iraqi Army had no real Noncommissioned officers. So, the Iraqi Army that these people were talking about was really an officer corp of Ba’athists and Saddam cronies. It would have been a disaster to put an army under their control. You might as well put Saddam back up on his throne.
“We didn’t have a lot of plan for “winning the peace” because frankly I don’t think anyone in our government really thought Saddam was stupid enough to play “chicken” with the US military. ”
I think politics interfered here. The US Military was detailed to win the war, which they did rather well. The State Department was detailed to win the peace and they badly screwed up.
Then al Qaeda decided to fight their war against us in Iraq. Some people call it the “Flypaper Strategy.” I don’t believe that the military objected to fighting them in Iraq. They were already fighting the Ba’athist dead-enders and Saddam’s Fedayeen insurgents that Saddam had trained to fight on if he had to go underground.
“I honestly don’t think we thought we were going to have to invade. And I think if the French and Russians hadn’t been telling Saddam that they would block a UN invasion authorization, that he wouldn’t have treated us as if we were bluffing.”
I saw Bush giving Saddam chance after chance to avoid invasion and Saddam not taking any of them. There was a point-of-no-return operating here. Bush and Saddam were eyeball to eyeball, someone was going to blink first. Saddam had been trained to believe that Westerners were bluffers. If the US hadn’t invaded after all this travail, we would have looked like such great cowards– in the world’s eyes and in our own.
The situation was quite clear if you could see through the rubbish people threw up. Resolution 678 set the war into motion with the aim of freeing Kuwait and restoring peace to the region. Resolution 687 was a Cease Fire calling a halt to 678. All Saddam needed to do was end his weapons programs and lay low for a couple of years, and the war would be rescinded. Then there would be nothing to keep Saddam from resuming WMD manufacture. But, Saddam’s pride couldn’t allow him to do that. He had to fight the UN and he kept getting caught, like in 1995. He made deals with France, Germany and Russia, but that merely offended the US and England.
Saddam was crippled by his personality, but so was President Clinton. Clinton had long term plans for dealing with Iraq, but his sexual addiction and his other problems interfered.
Twenty years from now, all this will come out through the Freedom of Information Act I expect many people will be surprised. I believe we had plenty of plans but, like in any war, you never get what you plan for. What I think will be interesting is when all the political infighting between the White House vs the CIA and the State Department is revealed. They are not going to be able to keep it a secret.