A misunderstanding of the meaning of victory in asymmetrical wars is a main reason why the US remains stuck in the bloody quick sands of Afghanistan and Iraq. Since military power is unable to deliver a sustainable peace, alternative strategies deserve consideration.
As President Barack Obama seeks world esteem for US leadership during top-level talks in New York and Pittsburg this week, it is worth remembering the clay feet of military power. The US spends more on its armed forces and spy apparatus than the entire world combined but it has rarely achieved war aims since World War II ended in 1945.
A main reason is that America’s asymmetrical opponents do not need to win wars. They need only to impede Washington’s military goals for long enough to turn domestic opinion against the President, forcing him to search for exits.
In this century, non-war strategies may be better routes to victory even if staying the course in asymmetrical attrition like Afghanistan and Iraq eventually attains some war aims. An argument for fighting harder in Afghanistan is that the surge in Iraq produced results despite the naysayers.
But those results are far from victory and an American will not be able to walk on any street in Iraq without fear of attack for many more years, despite so much sacrifice of life and treasure.
America is so powerful militarily that it easily places trust in war as a game changer. When peace eludes the early military triumphs as in Afghanistan and Iraq, it gets entrapped in prolonged attrition because withdrawing looks like defeat.
That is a misunderstanding of both victory and defeat. In an asymmetrical war, victory occurs only when the specific enemy no longer has the desire or capability to do harm. Any means for such victory is legitimate. Withdrawing soldiers is an appropriate tactic to obtain victory by more efficient, less costly and people-centered means.
It some situations it is better to let civil wars play themselves out instead of being an accidental participant unable to direct the violence. In an asymmetrical war, defeat is in the eye of the beholder. The world perceives defeat when the planet’s most powerful army loses control of the war dynamics even if its soldiers press on to take more casualties.
Only success can restore respect and that can no longer come from more blood sacrifice by Americans. It will come from new innovative strategies to persuade ordinary people that America is a competent force for peace rather than a fearsome warrior. Ignorant rural folk support local terrorists because they are even more scared of foreign warriors, who look descended from another planet having nothing at all in common with them.
The greatest US victories since 1945 came through non-war strategies, including the most spectacular triumph in human history that dismantled the dangerous Soviet Union and its empire without shedding a drop of blood.
Those strategies also achieved a stunning bloodless victory over Maoism that caused the deaths of over 30 million ordinary Chinese in economic and social upheavals. Today, the Chinese Communists are among the world’s most dynamic capitalists as well as America’s major trade and financial partners.
Both triumphs came by reaching out to ordinary people beyond the self-serving military and government hardliners. That forced the leaders to change bringing about reforms after Tiananmen Square and velvet revolutions in Europe. The results are imperfect because China and Russia remain human rights violators far from democracy. But hundreds of millions in those countries are now free from constant fear, oppression and economic desperation.
Russians are on a democratic path for the first time in their history and the Chinese are finally breathing easier after over two millennia of tyrannical rulers.
The lessons should be clear to anyone who cares to see. The US is better at winning through deterrence, non-violence, example and persuasion than through “shock and awe” or any other kind of violent war.
Terrorism and asymmetrical wars remain urgent but a trillion dollar military and spy establishment is unable to provide safety. The US has over 5,000 military bases around the word and can conduct missile or predator drone strikes with pinpoint precision from thousands of miles. It also rains hundreds of billions of dollars to undermine distant enemies.
Yet, enemies survive because America is neglecting its real strength, which is to pull the carpet from under them by winning over the ordinary people who sustain them. That takes patience and perseverance but works much more effectively as the defeats of fanatical Maoism and the dour Soviet super power demonstrate.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban may be more fanatical but their supporters are easier to turn. They control people in tens of thousands, backed by lightly armed fighters, rather than the hundreds of millions, backed by formidable armies, held in the steel fists of Mao or Stalin and his successors.
Despite the severe hostility of Maoist China and the Soviet Union for decades, Washington rejected war as an option. Instead, it demonstrated that democracy, free speech and the social welfare capabilities of capitalism were better ways to bring safety and prosperity to citizens. There were vicissitudes and some proxy conflicts in distant lands but the American belief-system and humanitarian values prevailed.
The entire world became safer and better. Since 1989, global poverty has halved and world trade and technology transfers have boomed. Nearly five billion people in developing countries have moved onto unprecedented paths of prosperity and greater personal freedoms. Much misery remains but the snowball has begun to roll.
China and India, among the world’s poorest and backward countries containing 2.5 billion people, became rising global economic powers in just two decades.
Asymmetrical warfare is not new. Relative to American power, every major war directly involving US troops since 1945 has been asymmetrical. The 1950s Korean War was asymmetrical although fought by regular armies. Many ragtag Chinese and North Korean recruits stuffed their pants with straw and used their jackets to bandage their feet through the bitterly cold winter. Well-equipped American troops dominated air, sea and land but the US had to accept partition and North Korea remains an enemy, now armed with nuclear weapons.
The Vietnam War ended with American dignitaries fleeing in helicopters from the US embassy roof in Saigon. The North Vietnamese army and Vietcong irregulars lived for months in tunnels on fistfuls of rice and jungle vegetables. Although American soldiers suffered unspeakably, none of Washington’s war aims was met. Worse, the indestructible Agent Orange caused permanent environmental damage and spawned millions of sick and deformed Vietnamese now in the third generation.
For over 60 years, military power has not been the best way to overcome America’s enemies. So other means are worth considering.