First, Want To Win
Good point by Graham Bowley at NYT. You want to sell a war? Start to win. But he misses a key point.
As President Obama recalculates how to fight in Afghanistan, he might bear this in mind: The public has held up an hourglass before every recent wartime president so he can measure its patience. There is only one sure way to stop the sand from running out: Deliver victory, or at least show clear progress toward it.
“Public opinion has always been a concern in all of America’s wars, no matter how long or how short, or how noble or how ignoble they were perceived,” said Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University who served on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council. “It is always in play.”
Sometimes public opinion can start wars and dictate their speed and course. At other times, wars are forced on a country. But once they are joined, the hunger for progress in battle has to be satisfied.
In the first year of American involvement in World War II, Britain and America were at odds over where to strike first. Winston Churchill and his military advisers argued against American officers who wanted to invade France in 1943, saying it was still too risky; they preferred attacking in the Mediterranean. President Franklin D. Roosevelt yielded, but felt an offensive against Germany was needed. So together he and the British set in motion the North Africa landings of November 1942. After a year of dispiriting losses in the Pacific, the landings allowed Roosevelt to say the fight was now being taken to the Axis. Americans could — and did — rally to that news, as well as to news of victories elsewhere that would soon follow.
Earlier this decade, the same impatience for action and a desire to see American troops on the ground was tangible in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. The speedy, and much-welcomed, involvement of Americans alongside Northern Alliance rebels against the Taliban in Afghanistan followed, and those forces quickly drove the Taliban from Kabul. But there was no similarly decisive victory against Osama bin Laden or his lieutenants. So, in the end, a lack of easy targets and eye-catching victories in Afghanistan became a problem that has festered and now confronts a new president, much as Vietnam was festering when it was handed off to Richard Nixon by Lyndon Johnson.
Without early victory, all is not lost, of course; but public opinion has to be managed.
You could dicker about some of the historical perspectives Bowley cites has he walks through WWII and the Civil War. Bowley stays safely in the distant past. I would also have liked to see him address the most recent example. George Bush, against great political odds and seemingly daunting military conditions, turned around what was seen as a hopeless quagmire of an insurgency in Iraq. It’s too bad, because it is the most relevant example, as a paired set with Vietnam. Conflicts that some see as wars of choice, eminently debatable points, but wars in which success or failure was without doubt a matter of political choice.
But Bowley’s basic point, you need to fight to win, is correct. There’s just one thing that Bowley fails to address that was critical in each of the examples he cites, and is just as critical today. It actually comes before the “start to win” part.
First, you need to want to win. The leaders Bowley names all faced much greater odds and much more complex political calculations than the current wartime president does. But failure, for them, was not an option.
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Topics: Afghanistan, Obama, history
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:05 am on Sunday, October 11, 2009
6 Responses to “First, Want To Win”
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October 11th, 2009 at 10:41 am
[...] FIRST, want to win. [...]
October 11th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I think that focusing on the older wars could be helpful. It’s hard for many people to look objectively at what happened from Vietnam on due to how those wars are so closely tied to their personal experiences or political views. Maybe a historical perspective is just what they need.
October 11th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Jules,
The Democrats in congress are nostalgic for Viet Nam. They won in Viet Nam and want a do-over in Afghanistan.
http://moneyrunner.blogspot.com/2009/10/nostalgia-for-viet-nam.html
October 12th, 2009 at 12:16 am
If you really want to understand the stakes in the AF/Pak theater of the Long War the following is a MUST READ:
“Analysis: Al Qaeda is the tip of the jihadist spear”, by Thomas Joscelyn & Bill Roggio on October 8, 2009 2:12 PM at
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/analysis_al_qaeda_is.php
October 12th, 2009 at 1:26 am
I’ll agree with Moneyrunner. They’re desperate to fashion another ‘Nam out of available materials.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:16 am
[...] have news like this and seem to be watching your president try to figure out ways to capitulate, or if he should. The Afghanis certainly don’t want him [...]