Violence, we are often told, is not the answer. It never works, and only leads to endless cycles of destruction. OK, that’s the argument from the hyper-pacifists, and [grit teeth] not really representative the mainstream Left. Lest I be accused of setting up straw men, here’s Kevin Drum making the case that conventional war is futile:
I believe that our fight against Islamic jihadism is analogous on a global scale to a counterinsurgency. To use the hoary phrase, we'll succeed by "winning hearts and minds," and conventional warfare just can't do that. In fact, it's mostly counterproductive: it won't succeed in killing the guerrillas and it will lose us the support of the local citizenry, which in turn will make the insurgency even more formidable. Lebanon is serving as a pretty good case study of this right now.
So conventional war is a bit of a drag, assuming you accept the part about it not killing guerrillas. What’s the alternative?
I believe it's fundamentally nonmilitary and revolves around engagement: trade agreements, security pacts, genuine support for grassroots democracy, a willingness to practice the same international rules we preach, etc. The idea is to slowly but steadily promote democratic rule, liberal institutions, education of women, and international commerce...
Well now, that sounds promising. Let’s see if we can put it into practice with a few test cases. Here’s Hussein Massawi, a former Hizbollah leader:
We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.
Not exactly the most inviting opening remarks, but I have every confidence that a Howard Dean would have worked day after day to find some common ground there. Perhaps they could trade notes on battle cry technique. Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!
Let’s move on to Iran. Here’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on nuclear proliferation:
Our answer to those who are angry about Iran achieving the full nuclear fuel cycle is just one phrase. We say: Be angry at us and die of this anger," because "We won't hold talks with anyone about the right of the Iranian nation to enrich uranium.
No doubt John Kerry would have built a coalition (Iraq) to determine that multi-lateral talks (North Korea) don’t work, and then gone on to convey that the he was now for being against the vote in which he might have been against being for Iran’s right to a nuclear program. You know, nuance.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that something gets lost in translation and Hizbollah continues to attack Israel. What then?
When military responses are necessary, they should be short, highly targeted, and designed to piss off the surrounding citizenry as little as possible. This will, needless to say, take a very long time and a lot of self restraint, but it won't succeed at all if every few years we set things back a decade with a conventional war.
Highly targeted sounds good, make ‘em pay a price for their transgressions, right? But what exactly do you target? You’re dealing with people who live for nothing other than the furtherance of their ideology. They literally have nothing to lose. Meanwhile, whose citizenry are you not “pissing off” with this approach anyway? Are Israeli civilians supposed to accept a never-ending stream of rocket attacks, bombs and kidnappings?
As much as we might like to tell ourselves otherwise, there is nothing to entice or compel Hizbollah to halt their attacks other than a shut off from their sponsors or the utter annihilation of their forces. They have calculated that the West is not willing (or maybe even able) to impose either option. Say what you will about these religious fanatics, but they understand the conventional wisdom.
I'd say our efforts in Iraq have been quite successful: at liberating the Iraqis from a brutal, blood-drenched dictator; at winning Iraqis' trust in American benevolence; and in implementing a flypaper-strategy that's deflected much terrorist effort from our own backs. If Drum regards these things as failures, one must ask what he'd take as a success.
ReplyDeleteGranted that America must learn some new tricks for the new ways of war. But that doesn't invalidate the use of properly focused and calibrated violence. No, not at all.
Tlaloc, if you want to convince me of something, you shouldn't parrot so many discredited allegations and trivial left-wing talking points. (You might also try not insulting me or my intelligence.) As for convincing others...well, I don't hang out in your preferred circles, so I'll refrain from comment. But it would seem that annoying those who differ is more important to you than actually arguing for your convictions.
ReplyDeleteGranted that America must learn some new tricks for the new ways of war.
ReplyDeleteUndoubtedly so, Mr. Porretto. It might be suggested to the Israelis as well. Air power is a wonderful thing, but its effectiveness is diminished against an enemy with limited assets. Shock and awe has about run its course; it’s the return of the ground war.
My essential point with respect to conventional warfare is that we excel at (relatively) swift, offensive battles rather than tactical retaliations and policing efforts. The nature of insurgencies is that while their resistance ideology is somewhat attractive, it doesn’t transform into success (recruits, support) without victories. Victory, as defined recently by Hassan Nasrallah, can be claimed by as little as the continued existence of Hizbollah in the face of Israeli attacks. In this model, limited responses embolden – not deter – the insurgents.
No what he's saying is that attacking an INSURGENCY with conventional warfare is futile.
ReplyDeleteIf you mean that blowing up everything in sight is futile, then yes. But insurgencies get put down all the time. The first step is to crush any hope that violence may lead to victory. Once that illusion has been stripped away, it then becomes imperative to present an attractive alternative reality.
But you need both steps. Human nature is such that it takes a major setback before we’ll even consider the alternatives. The determination that is so key to success is also the biggest stumbling block on the road to truth. In the end, the limited, nickel and dime response, is the cruelest thing we could do.
“So conventional war is a bit of a drag, assuming you accept the part about it not killing guerrillas.”
ReplyDeleteWell, this bit is true: Typically counterinsurgency campaigns that use conventional means must use them ruthlessly, eliminating whole swaths of the population in order to also effectively engage guerrillas. If you recall, we’ve had this discussion before: Guerrilla warfare is movement warfare unconventionally applied; movement warfare is unparalleled in success, especially against large and entrenched forces (such as occupying or invading forces). Movement warfare is why we have airborne units, Marines, cavalry, and special forces. Movement warfare is also how resistance units (like the Finns, Norwegians, Serbs, and French in WWII; the Viet Cong in Vietnam; the mujahadeen in Afghanistan; or pretty much any African or Middle Eastern conflict group today) function. While a military response may be necessary, conventional military tactics, such as Israel’s interdiction campaign in Lebanon, historically fail to defeat guerrillas without “burning the village to save it.”
“I believe it's fundamentally nonmilitary and revolves around engagement: trade agreements, security pacts, genuine support for grassroots democracy, a willingness to practice the same international rules we preach, etc.”
Well, here I have to disagree, in part, with Mr. Drum. A military response that combines with these other prescriptions is far more likely to succeed.
“Meanwhile, whose citizenry are you not “pissing off” with this approach anyway?”
Um, the same people whom the more you disaffect them the more they are drawn to the ranks of the organization you’re trying to marginalize? It’s not rocket science. Negotiation with Hezbollah? Most likely impossible, I agree. Enticing the Shia of South Lebanon into something new and different? Decidedly otherwise. While it may be ideologically satisfying to conflate all these Shia with Hezbollah, it’s not particularly helpful in forwarding Israel’s security. Successful counterinsurgency and anti-guerrilla warfare takes decades and fail when one does not win the support of the population the guerrillas draw from. The British learned this lesson. So did the French. It’s really quite astonishing that the U.S. and Israel remain obstinately bullheaded.
“...there is nothing to entice or compel Hizbollah to halt their attacks other than a shut off from their sponsors or the utter annihilation of their forces...”
Well, one way to do that would have been propping up the shaky limbs of the Cedar Revolution rather than completely decimating it. But then, that’s something a realist might think of, and not an idealogue. Only a fool chooses total war when it is unlikely to fulfill ones goals. Ehud Olmert has acted the fool.
It's my observation of history that military and political alliances are seldom created by good will, but by necessity.
ReplyDeleteThe Druze and Lebanese Christians had their chance, if they were so inclined.
After Israel's 20-year occupation of southern Lebanon, this is a hiccup.
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ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the calls for realism around here?
ReplyDeleteWhile it’s a beautiful thought that the Cedars would have somehow picked up the cause of Israel, that day has always been at least ten years away. It takes a very confident government to partner with Israel on anything (let alone the dismantling of Hizbollah), and even then the relations are dicey. Aoun, Hariri & Jumblatt are still (in some cases literally) miles away from any real authority, and Hizbollah holds all the cards militarily.
In order to believe that Hizbollah was going to willingly give up its “defensive” positions to the Lebanese government, you have to believe that they had no hostile intentions towards Israel. Events have shown that this was never the case.
And we're supposed to believe Hizbollah would just sort of let that happen, right? Remember, the reason the Syrians could swallow a pull out of Lebanon was that Hizbollah was so firmly entrenched that they knew they could always get it back.
ReplyDeleteWe keep running into the same problem around here...Hizbollah is not content with things the way they are. They don't want mere Blue Line enforcement. And they are not going to let themselves be stopped.
“While it’s a beautiful thought that the Cedars would have somehow picked up the cause of Israel, that day has always been at least ten years away.”
ReplyDeleteClearly you missed the realist point here. The Cedar Revolution was never and would never be about “picked up the cause of Israel.” But propping it up would have served to marginalize Hezbollah, the Syrian proxy in Lebanon. Remember Syria, the whole reason for the Cedar Revolution in the first place? By encouraging Lebanon in it’s quest for true self-determination, you get the useful side-effect of reducing Hezbollah’s “legitimacy” as its ties to Syria (and Iran) would become more of a liability if they wanted to retain an ounce of political power. That tension within Hezbollah gives democratically-minded supporters the chance to begin playing Syria against Iran - the more radicalized Hezbollah would become, it would be with a fundamentalist focus that Syria has worked long and hard to co-opt in its own people. The more stable and supported Lebanon was, the more it could move in to supplant Hezbollah’s facetious social service network among the southern Shia with real services (the kind that don’t have ammo dumps and bunkers beneath schools and hospitals), thus pulling the Shia away from Hezbollah.
You have to play the long-game here. The more Lebanon had grown (just look at the growth of Beirut in the last decade alone!), the better off its people would be. The better off, the less likely to become disaffected and susceptible to radicalization. Hezbollah, eventually, would need to moderate or risk a loss of power. A legitimate Lebanese government, democratically supported, could then move, with international support (say NATO), to finally take the step of disarming the Hezbollah militia in the south.
Israel is indeed fighting for its very survival. Sometimes this requires taking hits to land that killer punch. By all means, don’t take the rockets lying down; but don’t sacrifice your future for immediate gains either.