The manufactured Kerry flap was excruciating to behold. But we are once again shown that anything even hinting of a criticism of the troops and the military is the true third rail of American politics. And this cannot be good for American politics. The refusal of the civilian government to do any kind of meaningful
And this is bad for the military too. The military has not done a particularly good job in Iraq, and its bad job is inexcusable. After Vietnam, we should have learned the lessons of counterinsurgency warfare, but we did not. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Army continued to plan, train, and equip for a giant tank battle while the Navy's appropriations seem to guided towards big ticket deep water combat (Seawolf subs for example), not anti-insurgency or shallow water.. Against whom? This miscalculation of the military has had long term effects on our various wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Talented personnel consistently are routed away from counter-insurgency training, theory, and commands. Equipment expenditures have focused on guided munitions, information combat, and armored combat while other equipment, like stuff that focused on IED detection and defusing or armored Humvees (shown to be decisive in Mogadishu), more important to counter-insurgency languished. Hell, even the focus on a "lighter and faster" military demonstrates a lack of respect for counter-insurgency operations, which are invariably manpower heavy.
This has been a failure at all levels of the decision making process. Presidents from Reagan through Bush II have been unwilling to really force the kind of necessary changes to how the American military views itself. Congressmen have been unwilling to buck the power of the weapons manufacturers, who are obviously going to favor large, expensive items like big nuke subs, carriers, tanks, and fancy information technology over the more mundane stuff that would be needed to do counter-insurgency well. But the military itself has failed, misusing its discretion in appropriations, training, and personnel. The failure of the civilian leadership under Rumsfeld has been criminal, but the focus on high-intensity warfare and the incompetence that has been displayed at asymmetrical warfare is not merely a result of Rumsfeld, but is also a predictable result of long held policy preferences and biases within the uniformed command of the various branches of our military.
Iraq would have been a disaster no matter how we organized it. A recent Clinton-era wargame showed that chaos would have probably resulted with 400,000 troops, much less the 150,000 we actually went in with. But why is it only now that the military is engaging in some soul-searching about how they have fought this war? Why are we still relying on air strikes and artillery in urban counter-insurgency operations? Why do we not have dedicated peace-keeping troops with the special skills that that requires? Why do we lack sufficient Arabic translators? The list goes on and on. These are questions that should be asked by civilians of their military. The military does not always get it right, and a refusal to criticize such a powerful institution in our society is anti-democratic and anti-liberal.
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