3 posts tagged “strategy”
Here is some interesting insight from a Marine General on the Long War. I would evaluate General Robert Magnus’ insight as Center Right.
JRH 3/15/08
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The Long War: A Marine Perspective on the Global War on Terrorism
By Andrew Lubin
March 14, 2008
The Global Interdependence Center hosted General Robert Magnus, Assistant Commandant, United States Marine Corps, at the University of Pennsylvania Wednesday evening.
Using the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a backdrop, Gen Magnus spoke about using various types of power in order to advance national security and the national interest. “Clausewitz said that you need to understand the war you are in,” Magnus explained, “war is an exercise of politics, but by other means.”
But having a ‘hammer’, as he described the Marine Corps and the American military, does not mean that the military should be the primary method of enforcing national strategic interests. There are many ways to utilize the American military, he explained, citing Marine efforts in training Afghan Police, reconstruction efforts in Ramadi, and the Provisional Reconstruction Teams in Iraq who are involved in job creation that ranges from opening shops to vaccinating cows. “If we don’t help them find jobs,” Magnus commented,” then they’ll go back to earning money by dropping an IED on our troops.”
Part of the utilization of national power, Magnus said, is that it includes making choices. Using the example of arms sales to Pakistan, he explained that while selling arms assists the American economy, and is cheaper than sending troops, it also takes scarce money out of Pakistan, who tends to fund arms purchases by short-changing their education budget and social services “Then the parents send their kids to the madrassa schools, with the obvious consequences.”
According to Magnus, there are five elements of national power, with their value depending on the country involved. “Military and Economic Power are the first two, as well as the most obvious”, he explained. “On one hand, kinetic power is good when we killed Zarkawi, but bad when we bombed an Afghan wedding. And while Adam Smith’s hand is invisible, its effects certainly are not- our GNP is $ 14 trillion annually and we’re the world’s hyperpower.”
Magnus listed Diplomatic Power as the third element, although he noted that this is usually the weakest element of the five. “When Abbas and Hamas and the Israeli’s stop negotiating, they fall back to the military option far too quickly.”
The remaining two are far more subtle, yet almost as important as the military and economic factors. Culture is vitally important, he explained,” Japanese kids playing baseball are now playing in the major leagues. I saw kids wearing Mike Tyson t-shirts when I was in Djibouti; like him or not, Michael Jackson is often seen as a representative of our culture. It’s a question of how we as a people are perceived.” Moral Power remains the final element, said Magnus. “It’s our ability to believe in our righteousness that helps rally the national will, and on the other side it either rallies others to our side – or forces them away.”
The moral element is extremely important, according to Magnus. Citing Clausewitz again, who wrote that moral is to physical as 3:1, he explained that people are more likely to be influenced by moral, instead of physical factors.
This is where the United States is too often lacking, Magnus said. “To change someone’s mind is a contest of wills, and the problem is that we don’t spend time or money on foreign affairs until there is a problem.” Using a domestic problem, Magnus noted that fixing the New Orleans levees before Hurricane Katrina would have saved billions of dollars and numerous other problems.
Gen Magnus said that he expects the war on terror to be a generational struggle, and a 9/11 type terror attack could too easily be repeated “America needs a hammer; some of these bad guys don’t want to sit down and talk – you can’t negotiate with Nihilists.”
While globalization affects everyone, it affects everyone differently; while 50% of the Iraqi’s are literate, with many western-educated and following America on satellite TV; the remaining 50% are illiterate, and too easily influenced by the Islamic extremists teaching in the madrassas. “We need to think of the 26 million people who make up Iraq,” Magnus explained, “and how our strategic and tactical actions affect them” The problems are worse in Afghanistan, he continued, a country with a larger population and a larger illiteracy rate. The question, Magnus said, is that as a moral society, we need to decide how we want to influence the neighborhood.
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Andrew Lubin is a proud member of the distinguished USMC Combat Correspondents Association, Andrew spent much of 2006 and 2007 in Iraq, and Afghanistan. Embedded with Marine - Army - National Guard units, he's out in the field with the "boots on the ground," and covering the story with the 0311's and 0811's in Ramadi, Mahmudiyah, and the Khyber Pass who are getting the job done.
© 2005-2008 Small Wars Journal, LLC
I took a rare visit to a MSN group today. I have had a long association with a group known as The Conservative Village. The irony is the group started to slowly attract Leftie Moonbats that posted more often than the Conservative fellows that were supposed to be attracted there. I started revisiting the group recently and found that many also had stopped visiting. The group is slowly beginning to re-attract Conservatives back; however the posts are not as frequent (yet) as in the good old days.
I know many of you could care less about an MSN group history. But here is the thing, sometimes a brilliant piece of writing comes along. This is one of those cases.
Poster WoodyUF wrote “A Lesson in Enemy Tactics.” I am giving credit to The Conservative Village for that is where I first found the concise essay. I found out that WoodyUF has a blog in which he also posted this marvelous essay in which all should think about visiting. The Blog’s name is a variant of The Conservative Village moniker, it is called Woody58. If you like the essay, I encourage you to visit Woody58.
If you wish to read earlier posts on and the British Marines you can start HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
JRH
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A Lesson In Enemy Tactics
Woody
April 6, 2007
Woody58 Blog
Aside from the overtly insane, e.g Rosie, who from the outset claimed that the British sailors’ capture was an orchestrated event to pave the way to war with Iran, there were also many media outlets in the free world wondering aloud if the Brits had indeed strayed into Iranian waters and whether Iran had a right to their actions. The UK claimed immediately that it had GPS proof that their people were in Iraqi waters, but no one bothered to ask for that proof. Then we were treated to multiple photos of the sailors laughing and “being treated well”, which aside from failing to be dismissed as Iranian propaganda was not even mentioned as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, something the left claims to hold dear. Apparently only when we could possibly be perceived as violators of such.
Now the sailors are free and they are speaking out about the treatment they received at the hands of their captors. They are saying that they were “blindfolded, bound and stripped” and that they were “under constant psychological pressure”, all things that are considered torture if inflicted by Americans by today’s standards. The reaction thus far? Iran is stealing a page from the Democrats playbook in responding that the sailors were treated well and are now being forced, by their own government, to lie about Iran! Wait for it, kids…there will be a stampede by leftist “experts” such as Sean Penn and his ilk to be the first aboard the Iranian bandwagon on this.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the Clintons are the pioneers of this tactic. They mastered the art of doing whatever they pleased and then turning the guns on those who had caught them in the act, accusing the discoverers of engaging in a witch hunt. In my mind that is akin to pleading to the judge that your speeding ticket is the result of the police actually doing their jobs because they had the unmitigated audacity to monitor your speed.
So now we have Ahmadinejad claiming a “vast Western conspiracy” and it remains to be seen if his tactic will take hold here at home. I fear that it may. With the shrinkage of the world brought about by the advent of the world wide web, the examples of our corrupt politicians are being mimicked and utilized to the advantage of those who wish us harm. They know what sells here, and they have donned the classic plaid sport coat of the best used car salesmen of all time. They are becoming the hucksters who can bring us down and we cannot allow that to happen.
Sometimes I feel as though I have been the victim of a diabolical plot to make me think I’ve gone insane and that all that I knew to be true was a lie. That is what the enemies of America, both home and abroad, have been successful in doing. They have subverted truth and made believers out of willing dupes who think that if the newspaper says it, it’s true. Many of us know better, but we fight an uphill battle much as the sane person does when trying to escape the asylum.
Pray that propaganda loses.
-Woody
When 9/11 occurred, only the Neocons had a plan to address terrorism. The Clinton strategy was immersed in treating Islamofascist terrorists as international criminals rather than enemy combatants determined to alter America’s way of life.
Neocons influenced President Bush to take down Islamofascist regimes to introduce democracy as a way of politically combating the seed bed of terrorism. Ironically there has been more success with this in Afghanistan than in Iraq. I say ironic because Afghanistan's people are steeped in the violent ideology of Wahhabi and Taliban interpretations of Mohammedanism. That populist is the epitome of a fundamentalist Mohammedan.
Iraq though Mohammedan; faced a quarter century of Baathist-Socialist Mohammedanism. Old Saddam Hussein attempted to enforce a degree of secularism into the Mohammedanism of Iraq. The Shi’ites hated him for it. It is in Iraq that America currently faces the greatest challenges concerning the introduction of democracy. Radical Mohammedans have flocked to Iraq to fight American soldiers as if it was a Jihad against an invading Crusader army.
This is unfortunate because America's desire was to build a democratic rule of law under the aegis of a stable government. Iraq is so divided by Radical Mohammedanism from foreign Sunnis and Iran influenced Shi’ites, I am of the opinion that Western Democracy will not take hold as the rule of law in Iraq.
Thus there is the appearance that the Neocon strategy of transformation in the Middle East is a failed strategy. Since it was the Neocon baby, it is the Neocons that are the stigma and scapegoats of a failed nation building strategy.
Something to consider: who had a better or even an alternative plan? Answer: NO ONE!
Neocon strategists have developed another plan. I have not heard a person who identifies himself as a Neocon say the nation building democracy plan is currently a failure. There is a certain amount of political hubris as there is with all political ideologies. Do not think for a minute that Left Wing thinking is devoid of hubris. After all Left Wing utopianism is alive and strong even after the collapse of the Communist Soviet Union as a failed structure for governing people. That also is hubris.
In America the Left Wing plan for the War on Terrorism in Iraq is to cut-n-run enabling the appearance of victory to Islamofascism and radical Mohammedanism. That strategy will only allow the continued growth and eventual domination of the radical reactionary interpretations of Mohammed, the Quran, the Hadiths, the Sunna and Sharia Law and so on. The concept of a moderate Mohammedanism is shrinking daily in the Mohammedan dominated nations and Mohammedan minorities in Western lands. Clearly the cut-n-run strategy is will mess up the global future of Western Civilization.
The Neocons and (smart) Conservatives are calling for a “troop surge” to alter strategy to confront terrorists with a more root out the rodent vermin goal. Then extricate American troops. If democracy latches on in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will be a Mohammedan cultural version. Civil Rights and Liberty as we know will not exist in a Mohammedan democracy; however a better rule of law may develop that goes after radical terrorists in ways that only a Mohammedan can comprehend.
Or despotism may win the day because medieval thought patterns may be too entrenched in Mohammedan culture until a moderate transformation (hopefully) over takes the radical. Then America will back to the old fashioned client States. The Client States will receive American support for existence as long as they quell the radicals in their nation. Both versions may not be amenable to American and Western National Interests.
President Bush has assigned General Patraeus to replace General Abizaid as the Commander land troops in Iraq. He will employ the NEW military strategy and we will see where the chips fall. If the Democratic Congress interferes with Patraeus, the new strategy will certainly fail. Let us think long term and not short term. The short term will result in long term anguish for America and the West. The Short term will embolden current minority Mohammedans to embrace its radical nature, placing the so-called moderate on the shelf of insignificance.
