2006-02-01
Winning by not Losing
Most of you reading this were never infantry officers in the Marines or Army. I was. In the mid-1980´s military doctrine for infantry officers stated that to successfully attack an enemy you needed to plan on having at least a 3:1 advantage. So if you could determine that 1000 soldiers were defending a position, you planned on having an attacking force of 3000. In urban areas, the ratio was doubled to 6:1. Keep that equation in mind as we perform some simple math, along with analyzing two articles published recently.
First let’s start with the math. We know from numerous news reports that the insurgency in Iraq has never been more than about 12,000 strong, and is concentrated mainly in the four provinces of the Sunni Triangle. So to defeat them (once the conventional forces of Saddam were eliminated) US military doctrine says we should need at most 72,000 personnel on the ground-assuming it is an urban environment.
However, the US has maintained 135,000-165,000 troops in that theater since the invasion. That is about double the figure that military doctrine says should be needed. Also consider that thousands of private contractors have also been used, not to mention thousands more boots-on-the-ground with coalition troops and newly-trained Iraqis. The insurgents have been outnumbered at least 12:1 - often 15:1 - in the Sunni provinces for 3 years. Yet the insurgency rages on. Now, on to the reports: the Pentagon commissioned a study by a retired Colonel, who concluded that the US ground forces cannot maintain the current operational tempo long enough to defeat the insurgency. Of course Secretary of War (I refuse to call it "Defense" any longer) Rumsfeld promptly refuted his own leaked report. Of course, Rummy knows the report is true, but can’t admit it. (Meanwhile, I've been hearing for the last 2-1/2 years that that we can’t maintain our force presence past 2006; well 2006 is here!) Anyone who's been paying attention should not be surprised by the conclusion of leaked report.
In another analysis by some Harvard economists, they estimated the true cost of this war is to be an incredible $1-$2 TRILLION! Just to put that number in perspective, the entire GNP of the US economy is $6-$7 trillion per year. Their figure includes the total costs of pensions, health care, beans, bullets etc. If you recall one of Osama Bin Laden´s speeches released about a year after the 9/11 terrorist attack, he said he would bleed us dry financially. The Islamists are doing just that in Iraq. Current war debt will be the burden for the next 2 generations, minimum.
How do these changes alter military doctrine?
During the American Revolution, George Washington knew one thing with certainty. He could win by not loosing. No doubt he knew he was outmatched by the greatest military in the world at the time. The Vietnamese did the same thing to both the French and the Americans. They simply refused to quit even though they won few battles.
Eventually, both great powers left.
Modern terrorists/guerillas/insurgents have made "winning" impossible because they have made it un-definable. The Palestinian militant group Hamas has no more than 5000 fighters, yet Israel has been unable to defeat them, despite 20 years of military action and billions of dollars. (And now Hamas has won enough support in an election to take a major role in the region.) A relatively small number of insurgents can win on today’s modern battlefield, simply by not losing. This is especially true in military occupations.
In Iraq, all the insurgency leaders have to do is keep recruiting enough fighters to replace the ones we kill. This is easy for them to do because we make so many enemies during the occupation. The "winning-by-not-losing" formula is simple: * Low-tech tactics against soft targets
* Low-tech (but deadly) weapons
* Patience, will, and continuous recruitment
Think of how much the "winning-by-not-losing" strategy has radically altered US military doctrine! So how many US troops will it take to "win"? At a campaign rallyfor his Senate campaign recently, Representative Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) supported an increase up to 500,000 ground troops (40:1). Is that what it takes to "win" a war these days? Using the extrapolated figures from the Harvard study, Rep Ford’s plan would cost between 3.3-6.6 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, of course, Rep. Ford’s proposal is impossible without instituting a draft. I only need to point to the fact that the Army missed its lowered recruiting goals for 2005 by 8%. In an act of desperation, they are currently accepting new recruits as old as 42!
Both George Orwell and General Sherman noted that those who scream loudest for war are usually those (like Rep. Harold Ford) who won’t be fighting! Winning-by-not-losing is the warfare of the future. The ruling oligarchy must surely understand this reality by now. I hope somewhere in the puzzle-palace (a.k.a. the Pentagon) someone is reading these few words by this simple warrior-turned-pacifist. Never again will we see a peace treaty signed by heads of state on battleships. The asymmetric, modern battlefield has rendered occupation a losing proposition.
