Three Of These Things Are Not Like The Others
McMaster goes deep to examine the complexities overlooked by simple Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan analogies at World Affairs Journal:
How and why did America go to war in these places, and what best explains the subsequent course of these wars?
…
It is true that the conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan exhibit many more differences than similarities. But while the uniqueness of Vietnam limits what we might apply directly from that experience, an examination of how and why Vietnam became an American war and what went wrong there can also help us think more clearly about the wars of today and tomorrow. Indeed, as long as we resist the temptation to expect simple answers from history, strategic and operational insights from the war in Vietnam can be relevant and helpful to our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
… the U.S. experience in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq demonstrated that it was impossible to calibrate precisely the amount of force necessary to prosecute a war. The human and psychological dimensions of war, along with the friction and uncertainty generated when opposing forces meet, invariably frustrates even the most elaborate and well-considered attempts to predict the effects of discrete military actions. Enemy countermeasures such as dispersion, concealment, deception, and intermingling with the civilian population limit the reach of surveillance and precision strike capabilities. Other factors, such as cultural, tribal, and political identities enhance complexity and influence the course of events. Emphasis in planning and directing operations, therefore, ought to be on effectiveness rather than efficiency. The requirement to adapt quickly to unforeseen conditions means that commanders will need additional forces and resources that can be committed with little notice. For efficiency in all forms of warfare, including counterinsurgency, means barely winning. And in war, barely winning can be an ugly proposition.
As historian Michael Howard observed, no matter how clearly one thinks, it is impossible to anticipate precisely the character of future conflict. The key is to not be so far off the mark that it becomes impossible to adjust once that character is revealed. Fortunately, the U.S. and its partners in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to recover from defects in the initial planning of those campaigns, defects analogous to those that undermined U.S. efforts as it went to war alongside its South Vietnamese allies in 1965.
Oddly enough, this complex look at the pitfalls of simplicity doesn’t lend itself to easy excerpting. The quick walkaway is not to get sucked in by simplitic views of complex wars. It makes you less adaptable. The whole complex thing here, if you have a little time. via the always great Small Wars Journal, which is having a Geneva Conventions/Guantanamo flashback, and speaking of adaptation, looks at platoon leader decision making for the 21st century.
Meanwhile, a McMaster reader:
Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
Ideas as Weapons: Influence and Perception in Modern Warfare
Topics: deep thot, history, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:19 am on Thursday, January 15, 2009
One Response to “Three Of These Things Are Not Like The Others”
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January 15th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Quite Oddly, again Mr. Obama war on terror policy in Afghanistan will mirror President Bush, especially he knows the treat of terrorism in the region of Pakistan.
Thanks to President Bush’s tough terror policies, Al Qaeda globally is quite weakened, but the serious treat of Taliban in the above region should be literally removed.
With a new Administration appearing, the terrorists should not sense the least weakness on American side or dare to test the New President.