War, Inc., a Subsidiary of the Department of Defense Conglomerate
War, Inc., a Subsidiary of the Department of Defense Conglomerate
I've long observed that the only morally justifiable way to fight a war is through total war. If a war must be fought, then it must be done with no holds barred and ended as quickly and as decisively as possible. Germany was not decisively defeated in 1918 and their military never believed that they had lost except through politics. They came back with a vengeance in 1939. Japan and Germany have both been good allies and peaceful since 1945 because we ended any pretense that they weren't soundly defeated and without any hope of furthering their cause. This was a lesson we learned in the Civil War when the Confederacy was almost burned to the ground. Southern states still have no stomach to fight again despite the political gulf between most northern and most southern states.
But since 1945 we have yet to act like we need to actually win wars, let alone fight them with a total, or even strenuous effort. In Korea our generals were told to bomb southern halves of bridges, enemies fleeing into China were allowed to escape. In Viet Nam we never confronted the North Viet Namese in their own country. The Korean war never ended, the Viet Namese war was lost. It's high time we return to the policy of total war.
Our pussy footing, mamby-pamby war in Iraq and Afghanistan is stretching into its ninth year. That is longer than the Civil War and WWII combined. We'd lost more people in single days in each of those wars than in almost a decade of this war. When we began this war, the president used tough talk and mostly backed up his talk with action. Even the collateral war in Iraq was met with stunned reactions from Iran for the first year or so. They feared that the Eagle was awake and they were next.
Then, we caved. Iran became more and more blatant in sponsoring a Shiite murder regime and we became more studious in pretending that they weren't. Iran is now extremely bold. They've taken Brits captive, they've developed nuclear generators and made no apology for trying to develop nuclear weapons. Today they announced a drone aircraft.
And how have we fought this war? It's been as far from a maximum effort as you could imagine. We initially invaded Afghanistan with a battalion of Marines. Then we paid Afghan mercenaries to fight our war for us, with the predictable result that Obama bin Laden escaped to Pakistan.
Instead of a total effort, we have institutionalized the war. Just as in Viet Nam we've been dominated by people who think fighting a war is similar to managing a large corporation, but the managers have never run corporations and show little ingenuity or intelligence. From Rumsfeld on down, the aim of our leaders was to win with minimum effort, under the belief that special forces with limited strikes will be more effective. The problem with this idea is that the effect of war is not from the person killed or the bridge destroyed, it is from the will being broken. Soldiers and politicians can be replaced easily. Buildings and bridges are repaired or replaced. People can live under ground and put up with any amount of hardship or death -- so long as they believe that their suffering is worthwhile.
Small raids here and there do not break the will of the enemy. Limiting our attacks only teaches them to limit their actions, not their aims.
We have institutionalized war so that soldiers and Marines are on a time clock. They do work ups, train, deploy, remain in theater for a limited time, and then leave to go home. The investment of time for each war fighter is of a known and limited duration. Generals need only do as well as they wish to do until they gets home. There have been good leaders, such as General Patraeus, and bad ones. The bad ones are too numerous to list.
In any war, some units will be on the front lines, or in combat, and others will be resting. We've taken this to an extreme. How many more battalions could we have in Afghanistan right now if we didn't bring them home every 7 to 14 months? How much more motivated would those battalions be to decisively end the war? How much creativity and personal interactions would be in play to make crucial differences? How many times have we read about a battalion that has had tremendous progress with a local tribe, only to have that battalion leave and the personal interactions end? How many times have battalions had to relearn the same lessons because they are cycling in and out of the war zone?
My battalion is heading overseas shortly. I've known this for two years. A lot of money is being spent training us up, re-equipping us, recruiting us, etc. We know about when we're leaving. We know how long we will stay. Mobilizing has become a routine event, planned and executed as though we were erecting a bridge. It's good to be organized but not good to be institutionalized.
In the Civil War, Gen. McClellan was widely regarded as a good general and well loved by his soldiers. He knew how to train them and he knew how to equip them. What he didn't know was how to use them to win the war. Gen. Grant probably knew nothing about building armies from an administrative and political perspective, but he knew how to win wars. Some unkindly called him a butcher, but that is too facile, even for him. It's true that his strategy was based on having little regard for how many soldiers were killed, but he didn't waste them either. He knew that the enemy had fewer resources and less ability to lose men than he did, and every minute that he wasn't attacking and out flanking, they were able to recover better.
Our army is made up almost entirely of McClellans. This is either by design within the army or by design from our political overseers. It's probably both. Gen. Petraeus appears to be somewhat of an exception to the rule, at least judging by his successes, but even he has not seen fit to clamor for a greater effort.
This war is on automated control now. We have a half-hearted effort, with vague ideas on what it would mean to win or even end it. It's pretty discouraging to be going overseas knowing of this mindset, knowing that our military nation is capable of orders of magnitude of greater results but that we are limiting ourselves by choice. We're letting primitive people have their way with us and we're barely trying to stop them. Eisenhower feared the development of a defense industrial complex that would control our military. We saw it in Viet Nam. We see it again.
We could do so much more to end the killing sooner and establish peace in the region if we only dared to try.
I was watching and thoroughly enjoying my now favorite John Wayne movie, The Searchers, for the first time the other day and a thought struck me that we've fought a war like the one in Afghanistan before. It was called the Indian Wars.
In the Indian Wars after the Civil War, the US Army was fighting in a sparsely inhabited country against an enemy that was largely insurgents but also able to call up moderate sized paramilitary units who were well trained and very knowlegeable of the local terrain.
There are of course differences. The Indians tended to be somewhat nomadic, and Afghans tend to live in villages. Although some of the Indians had a sort of religious fervor, their religion supported their war aims rather than created their war aims as does Islam in Afghanistan.
But the similarities are pretty strong. A largely ignorant population living in wretched conditions with a mostly stone age culture piggy backing on modern civilization for some basic tools and rudimentary commerce tried to resist a modern mililtary. In both wars, the United States military fought or is fighting the war with a less than full effort.
What can we learn from the Indian Wars to help us in the Afghan war? First and foremost, we learn that an insurgency does not always win. Perseverance on the part of the United States can overcome a very determined insurgency. We also learn that kinetic military actions are usually a sign of taking a step backwards in winning the war. Custer may not have had to make that disastrous charge if promises were kept to the Indians (or if he had a lick of sense that day, but that's another story).
We need not admire all the acts taken by the United States to note how the war was won over a couple centuries or decades, depending on how you measure it. The Indians were channeled into reservations if they wanted to retain sovereignty. So far as I've been able to tell, any Indian who wanted to live off the reservation was generally free to do so, so long as they acculturated into western civilization. They may have experienced some racism and other challenges, but they were generally tolerated, as can be attested by the innumerable people who have a combination of Indian and white or black ancesters.
What are the keys to success in the Indian wars that might apply to Afghanistan? The primitive culture must be pre-empted by our modern culture. We cannot allow them to continue living like they have been. We must build roads, create a thriving economy based on the newly discovered minerals and other potential sources of wealth. We must begin the process of educating people and erasing the impact of the Madrassas. The United States had a policy of punishing school children for speaking in native languages. While this seems unfortunate for linguists and cultural studies, it certainly did help eliminate the warrior culture of the plains Indians. Perhaps a similar approach would work to eliminate the jihadist elements of Afghan culture.
I haven't heard of any attempt to get the Afghans to become accustomed to buying Western goods and participate in Western economies. The more they become accustomed to interacting with us and benefitting from our immensely superior technology and markets, the less likely they will be to bite the hand that feeds them.
Many insurgent Indians sought refuge in Canada or Mexico and launched occasional raids into the US from those places. Similarly, the Taliban and Al Qaeda seek refuge in Pakistan and other places. We can see that this is troublesome but not fatal to succeeding in stopping an insurgency.
I'm not saying that Afghanistan and the war on terror is a simple matter, and we need only cut and paste our tactics and strategy from the Indian Wars to win in Afghanistan. I am suggesting that the Indian Wars show that we can win in Afghanistan. I think I'll be taking some reading material with me to Afghanistan as an additional source of insight.
The United States Navy has used a laser to shoot down four separate target drones. We now are living in the age of science fiction. See the movie of the event.
My grandmother used to tell me about the Civil War veterans that used to sit on the park benches in Nantucket, spitting tobacco and whittling. When I was young, it wasn't hard to run into veterans of WWI. Now, a WWII veteran who enlisted in 1945 at the age of 17 is 82 years old. I suspect we won't be seeing them around much longer.
Yet my wife and I ran into a veteran of Anzio a few months ago (in Tool, Texas). He told me a story about how he watched more than 200 men get killed in an artillery attack by the Germans. He had warned them to dig in, but their Colonel refused to allow them to do so. He was in a scout platoon, or forward observer section, I forget which, and didn't work for the Colonel, so he had stayed clear of them and dug in. He was quite bitter in telling that story, you could see the horror still in his eyes. PTSD can be very long lasting.
A WWI veteran that enlisted in 1918 when he was 17 would have been 82 years old when I was 20. Today he would be 109, but there is only one or two American veterans still alive from that war. All the rest are gone.
A Civil War veteran who enlisted at age 17 in 1865 would have been 82 in 1930 when my grandmother was 30 years old. Her father probably knew a few veterans of the Napoleonic Peninsular War in Portugal. A man who joined the Portuguese army in 1814 would have been 82 in 1879. When you think of it that way, two centuries is not a long time.
A veteran of the Viet Nam War who enlisted at age 17 in 1975 will be 82 in the year 2040. By then, I suspect that people will be living a lot longer. I guess I only missed that war by five years, measuring this way. I still have little understanding of that war.
If our current war were to end this year (fat chance!) then a 17 year old Marine serving today would turn 82 in the year 2075. I hope to buy him a beer on that day at the nearby recruiting station. And the youngster enlisting in the Marines would be only five people removed from meeting a veteran of the Napoleonic War.
I don't know who Col Kemp is, don't much care, but his recitation of Israel's efforts to limit its own military effectiveness to safeguard "innocent civilians" is classic. See for yourself.
Western civilization has made some "laws of war" that are quite ancient, but the most powerful ones tend to stem from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The gist of these laws is that civilians are to be treated as distinct from the war effort and should be spared the effects of war. War is to be waged by nation-states only, and any use of force or war actions taken by non-states is unlawful. The exception to these general ideas is that if an enemy uses civilians to shield himself and his acts of war, then those civilians are no longer protected.
We have now taken this exception to an extreme at the same time that our enemies ignore it with abandon. Terrorists operate almost exclusively by hiding among civilians, knowing that we will allow others to scream bloody murder if a single person gets a stubbed toe or is even slightly inconvenienced by western military actions.
The Treaty of Westphalia was an attempt to civilize war by confining it to the parties involved in the progress of the war. It's not exactly clear how the conscripts forced to bear arms are somehow less innocent than their neighbors still at home, but the theory was to protect those neighbors still at home and end the devastation brought by incessant wars.
There's a big problem with this theory. In the age of kings and monarchs it may have seemed that wars were matters for the aristocracy and their pretensions to rule and intermarry and have continual intrigues, but that has never been fully the case. In all wars, the people in the end are the ones to decide whether the cost of war is worthwhile. No matter how despotic a ruler, the people can refuse to wage war just as the people of Russia rebelled against the Tsar and ended the war on the Eastern Front in the Great War. By removing the people's liability for the war waged in their name, the Westphalian order freed up despots and aristocrats to commit freely to war with no consequence to the people, unless they get drafted.
We have taken this Westphalian sentimentality to absurd extremes. Col Kemp recites military restraints self-imposed by Israel that are all completely unnecessary by the letter of the law. When a belligerent uses civilians to shield its military activities, those civilians are no longer protected. Israel could destroy each and every military target or reasonably suspected military target regardless of any civilians, hospitals, or school yards in the way.
And this is the inherent weakness of Western Civilization. We do allow the enemy to use schools, churches, and hospitals, as well as homes, as shields. We allow people like the Palestinians to live without intentional retaliation for the acts of war committed on their behalf. Why should any Palestinian do anything to pressure his "government" or "leaders" to behave rationally and live peacefully with their neighbors when there is no downside to waging war?
War can only be waged if the populace consents. We have allowed our enemy to divorce the responsibility for their war from the populace, and neutered any incentive to end the war.
The only morally correct war is total war. The people who support and allow a war in their name need to know that they are personally liable for failing to stop the war. Otherwise, we will continue to struggle against terrorists and other barbarians who can choose to be more ruthless than ourselves to prolong a war and cause our population to grow bored and discontinue support for winning wars that the terrorists start.
There's been a lot of irresponsible talk about the war in Afghanistan. Yes, I'm talking about General McChrystal again: this time about his critics. It's suddenly become improper for generals to talk about strategy. Strange. In fact, Professor Bruce Ackerman made some idiotic assertions in the Washington Post that the President should not be getting advice from his generals, because Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 names the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as the president's principle advisor.
He goes on to assert that General McChrystal has breached some kind of Constitutional obligation by talking about strategy.
Let's make something clear. Generals are not Monks.
There is no vow of silence imposed on military officers. We often tell our Marines that when dealing with the press they should stay in their pay grade*. That is, a private should feel free to talk about what a private knows and does, but shouldn't be talking about what a captain knows and does. The captain should talk about captain level stuff, and the general should talk about general level stuff.
The level for a three starred general put in charge of a theater of war is pretty darned high. This man should be free to discuss anything about the war he wishes to discuss.
As a military officer, he is obliged to stay out of politics, but not out of military matters. If the commander in chief makes a decision on how to fight the war and what policies to observe, the general's obligation is to follow his orders. But until decisions are made, the general is prefectly justified in discussing how to win a war.
That this embarrasses the president is not the general's fault. Men are dying, a war is in danger of being lost, we've certainly lost headway. Obama has delayed sending regular replacements to the theater and has refused to make any decisions in the nearly year of his administration.
The American people deserve to have generals that are interested in winning wars and in knowing how wars are won. We need generals that are motivated to control the enemy, and safeguard our own people.
If Ackerman thinks that the President has reason to be embarrassed by the opinions, which are hardly radical, of his own general officer, then he should advise the president to make some decisions and get a handle on the situation. In a leadership void, someone else will lead. Must lead. B. Hussein cannot simply vote "present" anymore. For the first time in his life he has some responsibilities. That the responsibilities are so great is exactly what he wished for when he ran for office. Perhaps he thought that leadership and making decisions would be easy.
* I'm pretty sure it would be illegal to regulate any speech to the press, privates should certainly be free, if unwise, to speak their minds on strategy to the press.
Men are getting shot at, blown up, separated from families, maimed, divorced, and made to live in cold and hot weather in the most austere living conditions.
This is a war, and that's what we can expect.
But many senior officers have only modest discomforts and rarely face any danger. Not all, of course, but many. This is not a dig on senior officers who aren't kicking down doors or manning machine guns. Their jobs no longer require them to be on the front lines and that's fine.
Their job is to provide the tools, training, tactics, planning, intelligence and other support for those that are on the front lines. I don't say this with any air of superiority. I don't think that anyone in the rear is morally deficient or not doing all they can do. Someone has to be in those roles and it's their turn, that's all. Generally, I've seen Marines not on the front lines be very supportive and bend over backwards to help those that are.
General McChrystal has threatened to resign if B. Hussein, our marxist president, doesn't give him more troops in Afghanistan. Whether this is effective or not remains to be seen. If he resigns, what would happen to him? He will retire and live comfortably on his monthly retirement check even if he never works another day in his life. He won't go on to become a famous general who wins a war, he won't get an additional star on his collar, he won't have much direct impact on the future of the army.
It seems a small sacrifice on his part compared to those who go home in zippered bags.
My thanks to General McChrystal, if these stories are true. He seems to be a man who has kept a good perspective on what it means to look after the welfare of his men.
Update: Evan Thomas of Newsweek had the following to say about the possibility that McChrystal might resign:
McChrystal was clearly troubled—"a bit bothered," as he put it—by the rumors appearing in the media that he might resign over his differences with those unnamed other experts in Washington. "It is my responsibility, my duty—my sacred duty," he said, to tell the unvarnished truth to his leaders, but then to carry out their orders. He would not resign, he said, even if they rejected his advice.
Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Rudyard Kipling
The Pentagon, that vague entity that is cited whenever a controversial policy or decision is announced, has pubished a report recommending that people in the military be prohibited from using any kind of tobacco product, indoors or outdoors, in uniform or out of uniform, in battle or in garrison.
What could they possibly be thinking? That the recommendation is not being approved at this time is no excuse for even thinking such thoughts.
The most obvious is that this is a precursor to what we can expect with nationalized medical care. Because the military pays for its people's medical bills and because it can claim that the strength of the military is impacted by smoking, they feel it perfectly reasonable to even suggest that they can regulate every behavior at all times. When the government pays for everyone's medical bills, it won't be long before they start taxing behavior and eventually outlawing it. The crime wave from alcohol prohibition will have been nothing compared to a prohibition of tobacco.
But more immediately important to me, beyond the national political ramifications for socialism and marxism and the further proof that we have in the end actually lost the cold war, is the complete disdain for the type of men we need to recruit and retain in the military.
What kind of men are in the military now, especially the ground combat arms? Real men. Manly men. Men who aren't ashamed of or afraid to act like men, to be overtly masculine where the wider culture has nothing but disdain for masculinity. Men like the lance corporal pictured here who probably aren't successful in academics or fancy talk or genteel ways, but who revels in being tough, being perceived as being tough, and being around others that he perceives as being tough.
What does it mean to be tough? This is the crux of the matter. Different cultures have different meanings of tough, but among them are the beneficial traits: A willingness to face danger, accepting pain as something to be tolerated, believing that showing traits of pain is a weakness, a drive to win at all costs, and a hunger to dominate others.
It's true that smoking or chewing tobacco doesn't make one tough, in and of itself. Frankly, I have to say that I don't even understand why people like the stuff. What I know is that a lot of people like tobacco and this has been true in western civilization for about five centuries. Tobacco doesn't make one tough, but there is a mindset among tobacco users that makes people in the military more likely to use it.
Tobacco has been vilified for generations. Parents teach their children in schools and in every setting possible that smoking is bad. Yet many kids still smoke. Why? Because kids like to rebel. In many ways and to many people, smoking or chewing tobacco is perceived as adult behavior and a sign of being independent and free of childish controls.
Our military has come close to banning alcohol consumption. There is such a strong negative association with drinking and alcohol that the club systems throughout the Marine Corps are failing. Clubs used to be some of the hottest joints in town.
Very soon, homosexuals will be welcomed in the military. Homosexual behavior will be tolerated, which is another way of saying that Marines, soldiers and sailors will be inflicted with mandatory instruction on how to welcome homosexual behavior.
And now, in the near future smoking will be prohibited.
The military needs violent men. It needs a lot of young, violent men, but what we're saying now is that we want men who are tough, but we'll tell them what to eat, what to drink, and what they can and can't smoke or chew. There will be no range of behavior that will be outside of government approval. Soon, our military will require men to sit down to piss.
What kind of men join the military now? All sorts, but one big category is young men who want to prove to themselves and to others that they are tough, virile, manly, and desirable to women. It will be much harder to recruit this category of men into the military. Soon our military will be made up of men who may be openly homosexual, who can't eat or drink what they want, and who are considered such children that they aren't allowed to use tobacco. Oh, but don't worry. Hairdressers will quit their jobs in droves to enlist, I'm sure.
And the men who can actually do what is needed, who can locate, close with and destroy the enemy in a very personal way will find other ways to prove their manhood.
The military will consist of tofu and quiche eating tee totaling children. I'm sure our enemies will tremble with fear.
Except that although we don't need the F-22, we do need a lot of soldiers and Marines. We will not face a threat with any peer military force again in quite some time. What we will face is a growing lower technology threat that will still require a large conventional force of infantry and combat arms. We won't need fancy jets as much, but we will always require large numbers of infantry and the logistics and support necessary to back them up.
There are no air threats out there that can cope with the planes we had forty years ago. Our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan do quite well with a few AC-130's. The work done by our F/A-18's and AV-8's and F-15's could honestly be done by F4U Corsairs with just a little bit of help from some modern bombsights and other avionics.
What we need is what is always needed. Large numbers of well trained, well equipped, well motivated infantry battalions. My understrength battalion had an area of operations that was about 100 miles of the Euphrates River in what was the focus of the enemy effort in Iraq at the time. We got whacked. We were replaced by five full strength battalions (some US and some Iraqi) and suddenly peace broke out. This was not a coincidence.
We don't need fancy planes. We need control of the ground where people live and our enemies wish to breed hatred and jihad for us.
In the cold war we matched the Soviet quantity with our quality. There is no longer anyone capable of matching anything close to the capability of equipment we have, but the defense industry and politicians are still acting like we need to keep our technology growing at a quantum pace.
The truth is that the military can no longer keep pace with civilian advancements in technology. Our greatest techno wonders may quickly be made vulnerable to the latest gadget from some jihadist's garage. We must abandon, to some extent, the insane lust for very expensive equipment and buy quantity again.
And we need a good navy, too.
I don't have a link to the news story that spurred this response from me, I got the following from an email from a friend.
Two War Strategy Dead: Cartwright
By Colin Clark Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 12:23 pm
One of the fundamental underpinnings of the US military for most of the last 50 years will soon be scrapped, a top Pentagon official said late last week.
The Quadrennial Defense Review will result in deep-sixing the two major theater war strategy, according to Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.
Cartwright made the statement in a sparsely attended hearing July 9 where his renomination as vice chairman and the nomination of Pacific Command’s new leader was discussed. He was answering a question about the F-22 from Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a firm proponent of the plane. Chambliss asked Cartwright “what is the military requirement for the number of F–22s.” He got much more than he may have bargained for.
“The military requirement right now is associated with the strategy that we are laying out in the QDR, and it is a departure from the two major theater war construct that we have adhered to in the past and in which this aircraft grew up. I mean it grew up in that construct of two major theater wars, and both of them being of a peer competitor quality,” Cartwright said.
“The strategy that we are moving towards is one that is acknowledging of the fact that we are not in that type of conflict, that the more likely conflicts are going to be the ones that we—similar to the ones that we are in in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that we do need to have a capability against a major peer competitor and that we believe that the sizing construct, one, demands that we have fifth generation fighters across all three services rather than just one and that the number of those fighters probably does not need to be sufficient to take on two simultaneous peer competitors, that we don’t see that as the likely. We see that as the extreme,” he told Chambliss.
Reactions among the defense cognoscenti varied wildly depending on one’s view of the world. A longtime Democrat defense expert, Gordon Adams, praised it, noting there are no peer competitors for the US to saddle up against.
“Cartwright’s statement is consistent with every signal Gates has been sending for the last two years – the days of large, heavy forces are ending. There is not a “peer competitor” around that justifies the classic formations or the numbers of legacy equipment. What’s more, there is not a threat around that justifies the size of the ground force we have, but Cartwright and Gates are not there yet. Two MRCs or MTWs was always a force-stressor, not a strategy. It is not terribly relevant to the modern world of war,” said Adams, head of defense at the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration and now a senior fellow at the Stimson Center.
A defense expert with long experience in grand strategy debates — and a Republican bent — took a radically different view, declaring this the “end of the US as a global power. If we size our military to deal only with the PRC, we are giving Russia a free ride which insists on seeing the world as a zero sum game in which they win and we lose. We are simply making it easier for Russia to win.
However, this source conceded that “the two war strategy did not have sufficient forces.” At best the US could “win-hold-win.” The new tack will mean the US will slip to “hold and lose and, maybe, lose and lose.”
Robbin Laird, an international defense consultant who served on the National Security Council during the Reagan and Carter administrations, supported the decision to scrap the strategy since it had not been achievable for some time. But Laird raised another question: “How credible is our ability to do one major contingency operation, depending on where it is?” The key to ensuring long range American power projection, he said, would be to ensure allies are made a part of operational planning.
A congressional aide said the professional staff at the hearing were shocked when Cartwright declared the two war strategy dead. “Did he just say that?” was the reaction. This aide said the move was overdue since the US could not field the forces needed for a two war strategy in the first place, but offered a cautious view of the long term, saying it would take some time to ascertain the significance of whatever new approach Gates, Adm. Mullen, Michelle Flournoy and Cartwright settle on.
I just got back from my two weeks of annual training with the Marine Corps out in the mountains of Central California. It was a large operation, larger than in recent memory for the reserves. Along with the predictable command and control and logistics training, we also helped defense contractors exhibit new technology. In particular, we had a remote control helicopter flying supplies to one of our companies. It's also designed to be able to fly out wounded Marines.
I can't tell you how bad an idea this is.
Here's a picture of the helicopter drone shortly before it accidentally dumped its cargo at the end of the airfield, narrowly missing bystanders as boxes tumbled to the ground.
As my dad reminded me, remote control helicopters aren't a new idea. We just have better controls nowadays.
At Hawthorne Army Depot while in retrograde to Houston, I saw where some remote control armored vehicles were being tested.
Now, I'm all in favor of remote control surveillance aircraft. I'm in favor of remote control explosives ordnance demolition vehicles. But I find it deeply unsettling that so much effort is being spent on remote control resupply vehicles or medivac vehicles.
Imagine you're in a rifle company that's getting shot at. You already probably feel pretty isolated and forgotten by the world, and now you're being delivered supplies by a robot. Your government seems to think that it's okay for you to be in danger, but the danger is too great for someone to simply visit by bringing in supplies.
Remote control vehicles to resupply infantry units are a bad idea because they announce that the government doesn't mind spending tons of money developing and buying systems that keep precious pilots, officers, from getting shot at. The expensive equipment is expendable, but that precious officer flying it is not – because that precious officer is more important than the lance corporals and privates that are told to go into harm's way.
The biggest danger with remote control resupply and medivac vehicles is that it would encourage leaders, politicians and those with decision authority, to put our Marines at greater risk and deeper isolation, making them more likely to be expendable.
Besides, the main strength of a military, as is proven again and again over the millenia and even in our current wars, is that continuity in military presence across terrain is vitally important. Isolated military presence is of limited value and can be easily over run or ignored by a determined enemy.
The Viet Nam War era way of fighting wars on the cheap, as though the military were a business, has contaminated our war fighting to this day. Rumsfeld wanted to fight the wars with the optimum and minimum number of forces required, with the result that he often underestimated requirements. Now the military is treating the military like a factory, trying to reduce costs by reducing manpower.
Fighting a war is not like running a union-controlled factory. Manpower is vital. War is personal. Trying to pretend otherwise lost us the war in Viet Nam, almost lost the war in Iraq, and has caused the war in Afghanistan to flounder.
We need to forget foolish projects like remote control helos for resupply and concentrate on keeping units resupplied by truck or manned helos if there's an emergency – not just because it sends a bad message to the men doing the fighting, but because that is the symptom of an ideology that fails to understand what war is and how wars are won.
War is personal. The purpose of war is to inflict our will on another population. Our will is inflicted by people, not by robots.
I was doing some research and happened to come across a quote that had absolutely nothing to do with what I was researching, but it was so good I had to take note of it. It's from President U. S. Grant and it speaks for itself.
"It did seem to me, in my early army days, that too many of the older officers, when they came to command posts, made it a study to think what orders they could publish to annoy their subordinates and render them uncomfortable. I noticed, however, a few years later, when the Mexican war broke out, that most of this class of officers discovered they were possessed of disabilities which entirely incapacitated them for active field service. They had the moral courage to proclaim it, too. They were right; but they did not always give their disease the right name."
So North Korea, a despotic, murderous regime, threatens to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. This is not good. But what should we do about it?
One option would have been to shoot it down. In fact, there were rumors that US Navy ships were deployed that were capable of doing that. This capability is still very new, still being tested, probably not entirely reliable. So, say we did decide to shoot it down, what would have happened if we missed? The world's attention would have been focused on us, our ineptness, and on how to stop our rogue behavior. This would have been very bad. North Korea would have been triumphant while we would have been shamed.
But now that it has splashed in the ocean we have a lot of good data on North Korean incompetence and how they are advancing their capabilities.
The truth is that international law is only observed by the lawful. And the lawless get to demand that the lawful do so. This is essentially how terrorism works. Terrorists can destroy anything, kill anyone, and get their way. Civilized nations can't do that.
There are only really two ways to deal with this. Either we wipe out the North Korean government, or we live with their threats. There's no other workable solution.
What do you get when the military becomes noticeably politcal? Officially, the military is still strictly apolitical, but in the past 15 years the strict rule against expressing a political opinion has been generally ignored. Today, officers often feel no need to refrain from discussing politics in front of subordinates. This is a dangerous development for our nation, as I've discussed before, that our citizens will distrust the military and a Dreyfuss Affair mentality might split us apart. That seems somewhat remote but a more immediate impact is being seen now.
Our current commander in chief comes from the Chicago school of machine politics. He got elected with virtually none of the military supporting him, or so we're led to believe. Of course there are many democrats in the military, especially among the troops, and of course blacks in the military presumably voted for him.
That's right. People who fought for our country, you know, the country that Obama's wife has never been proud of, and have the worst of injuries that require lifelong care, are being told to take a hike.
What's the worst that could happen? That the military constituency that was so vocal, if unofficially, in not supporting him may not vote for him. Well, they didn't vote for him anyway, so it's no skin off his teeth.
This kind of naked, bare knuckles politics is not new to our nation, but it has never been inflicted on those who served it and suffered physical pain and maiming because of it. Perhaps it's just a bargaining chip to get a lesser concession from military benefits, but I suspect that will be an incidental consequence and isn't the primary intent.
The military as an institution certainly should expect, rightly or wrongly, to be punished for not supporting such a dangerous politician. That this punishment is being inflicted on veterans wounded in battle is unconscionable.
The lesson is for the military to return to its apolitical traditions, but I suspect that the antipathy of the democrat party towards the military would have left this same result regardless. Clinton's aide famously "loathed" the military, Obama's crew goes beyond mere words.
This summer my battalion did its annual training,
as it often does, at Camp Bullis just north of San Antonio. Most of the units
that train there come from Fort Sam Houston or are associated with that base in
that they are doing medical support training.
This year one of the units was in the
medical field, but they weren't army. Nor were they navy or Air Force. They
were the U.S. Public Health Service Corps and were all officers of some sort
from Captains (O-6) to warrant officer. Most of them looked like they had never
been in a uniform ever before and were very awkward with military
customs.
Most of my Marines, even some
of the senior ones, complained about them for their complete lack of bearing.
Many refused to salute them.
This would
not do. We can't have Marines deciding what ranks they would be respectful to
and which they wouldn't. These Health Service officers may be goofy, they may
be embarrassed by salutes or deferential treatment, but that's their problem,
not ours. I had to explain to my Marines that we would be observing proper
customs and courtesies with these uniformed people, not because of what they
were, but because of what we were.
I talked with some of these Public Health
officers, they were training for civil emergencies and other uses of their
organization. I don't know if they were any good at what they did, but I'm glad
that they took their job seriously enough to spend a few weeks in the summer in
a slightly rough camp. I also hope that their exposure to the Marine Corps
through our little unit left them with an impression that we were a well
disciplined outfit.
It would not do for
these people to return to their civilian lives and have to tell their friends
and family that they met some Marines and saw nothing special about them.
Instead, I hope they were able to go back and tell others that even though they
knew nothing of military customs and courtesies they were still accorded proper
respect by us.
And that's how it's
supposed to work. That is what discipline is about. Doing the right thing even
though there's a good chance that there are no consequences for not doing the
right thing.
This story came to mind
when I was discussing the treatment of prisoners. It's popular for people
supporting one political party to make wild statements that we should of course
allow torture of prisoners, or that waterboarding is not torture and thus should
be allowed. Republican conservatives have abandoned so many principles lately
in an effort to stay in power that they no longer are recognizable as a party of
any principles.
I know that many
people claim that such treatment of prisoners is justifiable, legal, or even
desirable, but the basic equation has not changed. The US should not mistreat
prisoners with waterboarding and other such behavior, not because these
prisoners merit good treatment, but because of what we
are.
My Marines may have grumbed inside
about the quality of the Public Health Service officers that they were saluting,
as did I. But salute them we did because it was the right thing to do. It was
a way of showing what we are about.
I know some officers that would have a cow about
this, but someday our dress uniforms will be
camouflaged.
Throughout history, dress
uniforms have been superseded by field
uniforms.
Our current dress blues used
to be our field uniform as shown here in very poor images taken from "The Wind and the
Lion." The role of the Marines in this movie is entirely fantasy, but
the uniforms are correct.
Compare those uniforms with the current dress
uniform.
If
you look at World War I, you'd see that the field uniforms then are remarkably
similar to our current service
uniforms.
So,
I don't think it's far fetched to say that someday, in about a hundred years,
the full dress Marine uniform will have cargo pockets, camouflage, and an 8
cornered hat. And won't we feel silly for not allowing Marines to put gas in
their cars on the way to work while wearing it?
We're a nation at war and we have a new
Commandant this year. What have been his most prominent acts so
far?
1. Reverting back to 1986 and
forbidding Marines from putting gas in their gas tanks while in
uniform.
2. Trying, it seems, as hard
as he can to insult the Commander in Chief by telling Congress that Iraq isn't
important and that the war in Iraq is a distraction from our real purpose of
responding to troublespots around the
globe.
I'm filled with pride.
Not.
On the first point, the Marines have this theory
that the utility uniform is for field conditions only and that it is
inappropriate to wear in public. This is certainly a valid viewpoint, but ever
since Al Gray was commandant, we have been wearing our utilities more and more.
When I was a second lieutenant anyone
not working in a hangar or in the field had to wear "charlies," the uniform with
oxford shoes, creased trousers, and crisp button down shirt. Al Gray came along
and anyone in a fleet unit wore utilities everyday except Friday.
Now even Marines working in the
Pentagon wear utilites. They even have maternity utilities for crying out
loud.
Yet this is a uniform too
undignified to wear in public.
Sometime
in the mid 80's, probably 88 or so, they changed the rules so that if you were
driving to work you could stop at a gas pump and put gas in your car wearing
utilities. Later, after I got out in 93, the rules seem to have changed again
and people were allowed to go inside the gas station or run essential errands in
utilities.
The reason these changes
were made is because the result of not allowing the uniform to be worn in
public, and yet allowing it at work, is that most people would drive to work
wearing gym shorts and smelly t-shirts to change into uniform when they got to
work. it defeats the purpose when people look even more
slovenly.
Actually, the new
Commandant's actions are an indication that utilities are becoming more
acceptable and this backlash will soon be undone by the next commandant who will
extend the laxer standards even
further.
The second accomplishment of
the new Commandant might appear to be inspired by one or more of the
following:
1. I still think that there
may be a bit of revenge against Bush for not backing up General Pace as the
Chairman of the joint staff.
2. I also
think there may be an interest in backing a perceived winning democrat party
next elections, with an eye to gaining their favor when it comes to
budgets.
3. I also think charitably
that this might be heartfelt, and that the new Commandant takes criticism of
past generals to heart for not demanding more of everything in order to fight
the war, or challenge the national leadership to provide better ways to support
national defense in a broader sense.
Number three would seem more likely if
he weren't so preoccupied with making petty retro uniform
regulations.
I know the American fighting man. He is tough.
He is motivated. He understands why we're fighting. He understands the evil we
confront. He knows we must
win.
The
American fighting man is a winner. No matter the odds, I've seen him mount up
on his vehicle and seek out the enemy time after
time.
The American fighting man isn't
stopped by anything save death. In the military hospitals you can see him,
mangled, burned, mutilated, disemboweled, dismembered, wounded in every way
imagineable. But I've yet to see one
broken.
Talk to him, he is proud.
Watch him, he is unbowed.
The only
person as brave as the American fighting man is his American woman.
I am moved to tears by the women that are
visiting their men in the military hospitals. Their husband, boyfriend, brother
or son is mangled, burned, mutilated, disemboweled, dismembered, or wounded in
any way imagineable but they are there with him. They don't recoil in horror.
They don't sob and cry at the sight of their changed man. They reach down and
pull out the courage to smile and be happy. The man isn't a fool, he knows his
condition is serious, but the smile of the woman in his life in his hospital
room helps him keep his courage. Sometimes he is lucid, sometimes he is drugged
and barely conscious, but he knows his mother, sister, or lover is there and
soothing his mind.
He
is brave, but she makes him braver by supporting him. I've seen this many
times. I see these men and I struggle to find words to say. What should you
say to a man whos face looks like a ghastly skeleton because all his skin, nose
and ears are burned off. I've seen the look of horror in others' faces when
they walk into the room wearing sterile gowns. But their woman always seems to
do or say something just right to make him keep a hold of his courage and the
power he has inside
him.
That
he has been hurt is cause for sorrow, for him, for his woman, for us. No matter
the advances of our medicine, he can never be whole again. I see these men and
wonder what will become of them that survive for twenty more years. Will we
remember them and what they endured? Will we shuffle them off to a rest home,
alone but for the company of government caretakers? Will their woman leave them
when the novelty of their condition wears off and they are confronted with the
reality of unending need?
Surely some
or all of these men over time will have cause to wonder at their fate. How can
we as a nation tell these men that their agony was all for nothing? How can we
know that we could have done more to make a difference in this world by winning
this war, and yet decide to quit before winning -- knowing that we did not even
try very hard. We have two generations
of bitter veterans from Korea and Viet Nam. We never made a commitment to
winning those wars and thus lost them. In Korea we were afraid the Chinese
might fight us, even though the Chinese were already fighting us. In Viet Nam
we were worried the Soviets might fight us even though the Soviets were already
fighting us.
Now we are worried that
more Islamic nations will fight us, when they are already fighting us. Iran is
fighting us, but we are reluctant to openly fight
Iran.
The
American fighting man is brave. His woman is brave. Are the American people
brave enough to do enough to win? Or will we all just avert our eyes in shame
when we meet those that were hurt by the enemy, afraid to admit that we as a
people are too cowardly to be fighters who want to win?
This
article says that Bush wants a "war czar" to be in charge of the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
First, I
despise the trend of calling political positions in the United States "czar."
What a horrible name to be used in a free
country.
Second. I thought we already
had a commander-in-chief. Perhaps the problem with this war is that our
Commander in Chief is not paying enough attention to the
war.
Third. If the president wants
someone to be subordinate to him and in charge of the military, we don't need to
call him a czar. We have traditionally called him "general" or "admiral.
Before, I've been disappointed, but
now Bush is really starting to piss me
off.
One of the baffling things to me that came to
mind in writing about why we're losing the war, is why military commanders have
been so loathe to ask for more troops. It's been obvious since about May of
2003 that we're in for an insurgent war across the entire nation, not only
because we were seeing it, but because we learned from captured documents that
the Iraqis had planned on waging an insurgent war from the beginning.
As I noted in my last rant, our Marine
Corps is still 10% smaller than it was until 1992-1993 when they started a major
reduction in force. Yet before that time, the Marines were the backwater of the
military, struggling hard to not be forgotten in the budget fights, and without
a very significant role in the war plans against the soviet bloc.
Now the Marines are in the forefront
of the war, with a large portion of the mission. We have battalions spread
extremely thin, at times major transportation corridors ignored and entire
cities have been left to themselves, quickly becoming victim of enemy
presence.
Everyone knew, from lance
corporals and up, that there was no way to be effective when you can barely keep
your own camp secure, let alone project power. So why did no one ask for more
people?
It's a good question, with lots
of answers, but none of them are very good.
First, there's the military tendency to not
complain to superiors. This is basic human nature, made more effective by the
spartan discipline of the military. No one wants to say they can't do their
job.
Second, technically the job can
get done because the job gets defined down to a level that the command can
accomplish. That is, my battalion was responsible for several small and large
cities spread mostly across 100 miles of the Euphrates River, and one of our
line companies was detached to another command and another line company was
frequently sent off to operations at the Syrian border. At half strength we
could not control the people in our
area.
But that wasn't our job. Our job
was mostly to maintain route security. We didn't have to keep the area safe and
secure, we just had to protect convoys as they traversed the area. So if our
commander were so inclined to complain that we didn't have enough people (and it
wasn't my place to know if he did or not), the response would be that we had
enough to do what we were asked to
do.
Of course, the obvious point is
that what we were asked to do was not enough to be effective in winning a war,
it was only enough to wait until later when we could win the war. At the time,
the theory was that someday the Iraqi Army would be coming and help us fight the
war. The theory was flawed but is it a battalion commander's place to question
the entire war plan of the commander in chief? No.
So the same was true of the Regimental
commander. His job was to slowly squeeze insurgents out of an area the size of
South Carolina with just his regiment. It's a virtually impossible task, but he
was formally tasked with only incrementally doing the job. If there were three
or four regiments there would have been a much more effective effort, but at
what cost? No commander ever has as many troops as he wants, and no commander
wants to be seen as whining that he needs
more.
Well, not "no commander." The
greats are exceptions to that rule. They are the ones that have big impacts on
the conduct of war, the ones that suck up troops into their control and take
aggressive actions with them. They are generally only at the highest
levels.
So who is at that level in this
war? The guys with three or more stars, starting with General Casey. I don't
know the man, I don't know what he's doing every day, but I do know that he is
ignoring basics of war fighting and allowing his army to be used to not win a
war. He is not screaming for more people, which every commander should be doing
in every war. He should ask for more until he is told no, then he should scream
for more until he is told no. Then he should demand more again. There are
never enough people to fight a war, but no war should ever be fought that
doesn't have an impact on our society. He should ask for more until the
American people start saying, "Enough!" He hasn't asked for more at any time I
am aware of.
What is the consequence of
this supine failure to want to fight and win the war he is charged with
fighting? We're losing the war. But he gets to keep his job, and do whatever
else four star generals like to do instead of retire. He is acting as a tool of
politicians instead of fighting for America.
Our president, who gets his
spinelessness honestly from his father, has announced on innumerable occasions
that our generals don't ask for more people. I have no respect for someone who
hears public statements like that, analyzes the war in Iraq, and doesn't come
back and demand at least a doubling of the number of his troops and see what
happens. If the answer is that we can't afford it, then at least we're going to
have an honest debate about how badly we want to fight a war. As it is, we're
floating through the war as though it will somehow end itself and everyone will
hold hands and smile at each other.
Our
commander in chief has adopted a failed strategy from Rumsfeld and Cheney, and
our generals have not objected to this failed strategy.
I'm wondering what the hell good we're
getting out of the Army War College that our generals are so strategically
inept.
I met some angels this weekend. I found no
evidence of wings, yet more sainted they could not be. Karen Guenther and
Joanna Wroblewski happened to be at Brooke Army Medical Center and heard that
the local Marines, 4th Recon Battalion, were having yet another memorial service
for our fallen comrades. This time we had made portraits of each of them and
hung them in the hallway. These women decided to visit
us.
Karen, along with two or three
other women, a few years ago decided suddenly to found the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.
They each chipped in $100 to help Marines injured in combat or training. They
sought out supporters and now only a few years later they have raised more than
$12 million! They help families struggling to overcome bureaucracy and other
hurdles so that they can heal together. For instance, one woman's husband was
severely injured and was in the hospital. At the same time her new born baby
was terribly ill and in another hospital. The poor woman was frazzled shuttling
between hospitals every day. Karen somehow got both into the same hospital and
provided her a place nearby to stay.
Joanna represented the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivvors
(TAPS). We especially enjoyed meeting her because her husband was a
Marine killed in Fallujah, and his exploits were written about in many books and
publications. Her organization helps widows and survivors of those killed in
action in any branch of service. She exuded positive energy and there is no
doubt of the passion she has to help others that are going through the same pain
she went through.
I was humbled in
their presence. These women are truly great heros. Yet, both of them
repeatedly thanked us for serving. I felt embarrassed and almost guilty at
that. None of us were hurt overseas. We got to live through an exhilirating
experience. We had been trained for years. We were paid to do what we did.
Yet these women had no obligation. They needn't have done anything at all, yet
they are devoting their lives to helping others whose lives are mangled by war.
There are two types of heros. Those
that are heros in battle, and those that are heros at home. These women are my
heros.
Men are getting shot at, blown up, separated from families, maimed, divorced, and made to live in cold and hot weather in the most austere living conditions.
