War of Exhaustion
The war in Afghanistan appears to have settled into the category Delbrueck called “wars of exhaustion.” If it remains there, the U.S. cannot win. The American people will become exhausted long before the Pashtun do.
In this respect America’s situation is similar to that Germany faced in World War I. Germany knew she could not win a war of exhaustion. She therefore sought to turn it into a war of maneuver, successfully on the eastern front and almost successfully in the west in the spring of 1918 and also at sea with the U-boat campaign. The ultimate failure of the latter two efforts, an operational failure on land and, worse, a grand strategic failure at sea, meant the war of exhaustion continued. Exhaustion finally caused the home front to collapse in November, 1918.
Past is probably prologue for the U.S. in Afghanistan unless it can succeed where Germany failed. The U.S. must turn a war of exhaustion into as war of maneuver.
At first sight, such a prescription appears pointless. The granular nature of a Fourth Generation battlefield, a granularity that encompasses not only the military but also the political and moral aspects of the conflict, would appear to render any military maneuvers above the tactical level irrelevant. Great operational encirclements like those in which the German Army specialized become swords cutting through the air.
The fact that we cannot turn the Afghan war into a war of maneuver on the military level need not, however, be the end of the matter. Instead, it poses a new question: how might we turn this war of exhaustion into a war of maneuver on the political or moral levels? If we can succeed in doing either, or better both, we may still escape the certainty of defeat a continued war of exhaustion promises.
A short column cannot answer this new question; my purpose here is mainly to pose it. If, as I think it ought, it becomes the intellectual Schwerpunkt of the American high command, then I will have done my duty for one week, anyway.
But to explore a bit further, the very granularity of a Fourth Generation conflict that largely precludes maneuver on the military level may open the door to it on other levels. To see what opportunities may exist for maneuver on the political and moral levels, I think we must start by ceasing to define the enemy as “the Taliban.” That definition, while convenient for labeling Afghans we have killed or captured, may lead us astray by causing us to think of our opponents as a single, centrally-controlled entity. In a Fourth Generation conflict, the real picture is far more complex. Many Afghans who are fighting us are not doing so because of orders from Mullah Omar.
To draw a military analogy, this is not a war of continuous fronts. There are many gaps on the political and moral levels, gaps through which we may be able to maneuver if we can first identify them. Doing so may require a recasting of the questions the American leadership presents to its intelligence services.
Possibly of equal importance is a reconceptualization of our own “front.” We now appear to define that “front” on both the political and moral levels as the Afghan government. This is a fiction politically because there is a government but no state. Morally it is disastrous because the Afghan government is awash in corruption. The recent election will not affect either reality, regardless of its outcome. We seem unable to grasp the fact that in Afghanistan as in much of the world, election outcomes do not confer legitimacy.
The American senior leadership thus needs to undertake a serious and competent analysis of political and moral surfaces and gaps both in our opponent’s positions and in our own. Neither can be accomplished with blinders on. Both must be brutally honest.
It is just possible that such an analysis might offer a roadmap for political and moral maneuver, which is what we require if we are to escape the war of exhaustion. There is, of course, no guarantee; the complexity of a Fourth Generation environment may mean the task is beyond our ability. We may also discover that we can identify some surfaces and gaps yet lack the capability to exploit the gaps. This occurs not frequently in purely military wars of maneuver.
I think nonetheless that this may be the most promising way forward. If it fails to identify political and moral gaps we can exploit with some hope of success, then logically it leads to the conclusion that we cannot escape a war of exhaustion and its inevitable outcome, our defeat. That too is useful, in that it should lead us to cut our losses and withdraw as soon as possible.
Is the American senior leadership, military and political, capable of undertaking an analysis of the Afghan war along these lines? I do not know. But I suspect that offering such a framework for analysis may be the most military theory can do for our forces now fighting a hopeless war of exhaustion.
William Lind wrote:
“The fact that we cannot turn the Afghan war into a war of maneuver on the military level need not, however, be the end of the matter. Instead, it poses a new question: how might we turn this war of exhaustion into a war of maneuver on the political or moral levels?”
The great trap that exists with any theory is becoming so immersed in same that one forgets that they are just theories, and in the social science realm at least that means that at best they can only roughly correspond to the incredible complexity of a social reality. And thus an overly theoretical approach can lead to a kind of disconnection between the theorist and that reality, and with all due respect I think some of that is evident in Mr. Lind’s column.
In short after theorizing about the three different levels of his “Fourth Generation Warfare” theory and saying that the military aspect of the Afghan situation is essentially hopeless, he just naturally and automatically starts theorizing about somehow winning via the political and/or moral approaches.
In my opinion however this is just substantially disconnected from reality. What political or moral idea, initiative or etc. haven’t already been used or tried to their maximum advantage already? What political or moral ideas germane to this type of conflict do history offer that somehow everyone has overlooked? After all we were in Vietnam for over a decade; yet somehow, despite all the various Whiz-kiddery that was tried there our best and brightest overlooked some magic political or moral words to winning these types of conflicts? Somehow all those involved in the extensive and the sad history of nearly all such conflicts missed same as well?
Merely because one can envision all the theoretical complexities of a situation and then perceive the almost unlimited number of theoretical approaches possible doesn’t mean those approaches have any real merit on the gritty ground of reality. I can hardly imagine that coming up with some new political or moral articulation of our position now is suddenly going to cause the scales to fall from the eyes of the Pashtuns, the arabs, the Afghanis, or indeed anyone else in the rest of the world. They ain’t stupid and have already formed their opinions in this regard, and they ain’t clay that are infinitely malleable either.
Regardless of how one describes it—”granular” or not—success at any war means the imposition of one’s will over another. And once wars have started it generally means that the political and moral aspects of resolving the underlying conflict have already been tested and found wanting, which is why it’s very hard to name any war that was won other than by blood and steel, or, in Mr. Lind’s terms, via military means. And there’s lots and lots and lots of wars that have been won by people who have had absolutely no political or moral legitimacy on their side whatsoever.
Once again I think Vietnam is instructive. The North Vietnamese had about as little political or moral legitimacy as is possible to imagine. Ho Chi Minh slaughtered some 50,000 people in the North when he took over. He never had any political legitimacy in the North much less the South, which actually had at least some kind of elections. His Vietcong minions undertook terrorism of the sort the Taliban can only dream of. (Routinely disemboweling village elders in public settings to prove their points and etc.) And yet, he won.
The only way to have won in Vietnam was through blood and steel, and the only way to win in Afghanistan is the same. And the problem in both instances in my opinion at least is that the candle isn’t worth the game.
Cheers,
In my opinion however this is just substantially disconnected from reality. What political or moral idea, initiative or etc. haven’t already been used or tried to their maximum advantage already?
Perhaps there are still options, just ones that have been unpalatable up to now to the American political establishment. Lind is merely suggesting that those who have the responsibility take a look.
The only weapon we havent tried is biological just depopulate the middle east but we know that isnt going to happen.
Of course Lieberman wants an escalation of Afghanistan not for the sake of the United States but the fear of Israel should Pakistani nukes make their way to Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and terrorist organizations.
So in essence, once again our foreign policy is being decided by a religion and a people’s that on the whole wont even join the US military except of course as lobbyists and spies.
I honestly dont know who is a greater threat. Jews controlling the United States or the soon to be majorities of Muslims in Europe. The great nations of the west are dying in a see of enlightenment/new age/multi-cultural/internationalism…while the rest of the world thinks we are insane. The Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, etc…they have no interest in immigration. Africa has no interest immigration. The middle east except israel have no need for immigration. They still see nationhood and sovereignty as the ideal…and think we are insane.
But here…the jews want wars in the middle east to pre-emptively defend Israel and open borders for their businesses, especially for Israelis wanting to come to the US…and we say ok.
The jews at 1% of the population will never be the majority and so have defined all politics in the west as the politics of the minority while in Isreal the politics of the minority (Arabs and Christians) would be insane.
Neither our nation nor the west is thinking in a manner to preserve their culture and their nation.