The man has a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet military history, and the immediate thought that comes to my mind is how that country spent and shot its way into oblivion during the 1980s. Trying to keep up with US military spending and a
hard-headed refusal to give up on their occupation of Afghanistan both played a major role in the Soviet Union’s collapse. A fear of being perceived as weak to a world that largely didn’t care drove the delusional concepts of escalation, stay the course, spend more on defense (aka offense), and all the while Reagan and subsequently Bush Sr. used our military to bite off small mouthfulls in Central America, culminating in Desert Storm, a war that allowed US interests in the Middle East to grow, along with the perception around the world that our country wasn’t the type to engage in widespread marauding on a whim. History being what it is, for the United States to have done just the opposite for most of our history, to have rebounded from the disgrace of Vietnam to arrive at Desert Storm and leave with a high level of prestige was a blessing.
Frederick Kagan and his fellow “thinkers” at Project for a New American Century thought otherwise and produced the now infamous ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses‘. Being a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet military history, I think he was an ideal member for this neoconservative cult, as the obvious falacy of what they advocated could be conveniently explained away by such credentials. Questions about how their worldview could be legitimate with the collapse of the USSR still fresh in our minds could be directed towards the “expert” on that subject. Now that Iraq has been “done”, and has resulted in the exact opposite of what Kagan and his Project for a New American Century collegues predicted, he’s out in front advocating on CSPAN’s Washington Journal for escalation. To the casual observer let me point out that the numbers to make an escalation of the war possible will be met by keeping troops already in Iraq there longer (extend a year-long rotation into a year and a half), while pushing up the deployment dates of units scheduled to go. As a soldier I queried a few months ago pointed out, many of these units are “new”, having been populated by cherry-picking units recovering and equiping them with old, broken down vehicles.
This aspect of our military’s readiness is crucial to their operational effectiveness, and constitutes a dire truth that hasn’t escaped the actual military leaders who have been running our campaign there for the past several years. Generals have testified before Congress on the broken state of our military, and repeatedly have advised that doing what escalation advocates are insisting upon has the potential of causing long-term harm to the military as a whole. Again, a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet military history, Frederick Kagan has nothing to say about these aspects of our Iraq policy going forward in spite of his pedigree. He advocates in Foreign Affairs during the summer of 2006 for an increase in permanent size for the Army and Marines, so his position is consistent in terms of our needing more to accomplish missions like the one in Iraq, but under no circumstances would he ever say that the military is too worn-out. I’d expect a military scholar teaching at West Point to be able to put two and two together here, but clearly Kagan has too much of his own credibility invested in Iraq already to be objective at this point.
For proof of this look no further than the title of his most recent contribution to Bush’s Iraq policy, “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq“. Indeed, in war all a nation must do is “choose victory” over defeat. Imagine if Napoleon had only been privy to Kagan’s insights when he decided to invade Russia during the winter of 1812, he could have disregarded all the frostbite and starvation afflicting his army, resisted the urge to choose defeat. The irony of all this is military history is built on the failures of leaders like Napoleon who in fact did subscribe to a Kagan worldview of simply deciding that an enemy’s ability to fight effectively with a home field advantage doesn’t matter as long as everyone decides to “choose victory”. So this is it. Kagan hasn’t got examples to cite or comparisons to make in regards to Iraq and prior military history, but rather politics and politics and politics and some fairy dust. His father and brother are both in the game as well, providing credentials for the “informed” advocacy of spending more and more tax dollars on defense industry products and services. They’re the people who used to make the shills look legitimate, pumping up the level of street-cred, supposedly thinking ten feet above all of our heads all the time.
Results are in, and Frederick Kagan, William Kristol, the rest of the worst are living up to their reputations, that I’ve described for a while now as to military and foreign policy what Drew Bledsoe is to football. The credentials are solid, bodies and minds seemingly up to the challenge, though when the game is on the line they can’t help but throw that interception that changes everything for the worse. Over time the best you can say about all three is that they can take a hit and always make it back to their feet. Too bad 3,000+ troops already dead won’t have any chances as opposed to these hacks! Though the reality of all this is that neither of them are anything more than publicists at this point in their careers. Kagan especially – – – that man’s credibility was long gone well before his latest fairy tale (Choosing Victory) came to be.
Here’s the opinion of someone who thinks Kagan’s analysis has merit, ClearCommentary.com
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/7436200
Al,
What about the idea that we are where we are.
Given: Bush and company are criminals. Perhaps someday they will answer before a court for their actions. I hope that’s the case.
However, we are where we are. We’ve decimated an otherwise semi-functional nation. If we do leave sectarian genocide is likely to explode.
If, two years from now, 500,000 Iraqi civilians are added to the death toll will you feel the same about the opinion you hold now? Would you wish that we had tried harder to stabilize the nation? That’s the way I feel these days.
Now we will see the true grit that our Armed Forces are made of. Can they do what is asked of them?
I disagree that the “true grit of our Armed Forces” is even in question right now, but rather the skill and humanity of those that have been elected to lead both Iraq as well as the US. Prime minister Maliki is a hack. Bush is a hack. What incentive does either have towards making anything work when both of them will be replaced by the next figureheads in line by this time two years from now?
True, we did break it, but the glory of our political system is that by dividing in half the country into seperate political parties, the side that “comes to the rescue” can claim to have not been responsible for what happened, and offer money for a long time until whatever broke is paid for or forgotten.
Life is cheap these days in Iraq, and no matter how many ways we try to stack the mashed potatos, they’re still going to get cold, then stinky, then moldy, then thrown out into the trash.
All this “safe haven for terrorists” mularky…I’m not buying all that, as tonight basically Bush justified us staying by insisting that Iraq not turn into Pakistan (home of the Whopper)…I still think it’s about money and the delusion that some of that goopy-goop in the ground might still be pumped using US made equipment.
I’ve diverted badly from your point though, and it is one that my wife and I have discussed for a while now, at least once a week.
Truth is, I can understand completely the position that since we took a shit on that country, our people need to grab toilet paper in both hands to help clean it up…but this is “holy shit” we’re dealing with, and unlike regular shit, this brand cannot be reasoned with.
Killing in the name of…
Good example of what I’m getting at here about “holy shit” being unreasonable…try convincing Pat Robertson that an embryo isn’t the same thing as a fetus.
“true grit of our Armed Forces”
I guess what I meant was… can they get shot at and be able to control their themselves enough not to kill lots of civilians in their return fire. I think that reducing civilian casualties caused by Americans is a key piece to rebuilding any trust, if its even possible.
As for the holy shit component. We knew exactly what kind of shit we were dealing with before a single boot hit the dirt. Nothing has changed in the ME in centuries.
You and I may have understood that, but Bush administration officials and hacks like…well, William Kristol was one of many who said and wrote that, “Iraq is a secular society…blah blah blah…so it would be highly unlikely for religious tensions to…blah blah blah”
It was clearly a secular society because Saddam forced it to be just that.
The statements made then and now by the neoconservative cheerleaders indicates to me that being right or wrong about any of it is hardly the point, but rather the issue at hand is, ‘How can we get the war going, the equipment worn out requiring replacement, rounds expended requiring more to be made, contracts approved for jobs, stock prices up, etc…because the idea all along was to break the country and then spread out the honey, attracting US companies to swarm and build it back up again.
The lack of attention paid to Shia/Sunni in the first year or more by the Bush administration is indicative of this…well, seemingly uncaring attitude about results, and if the GOP had retained both houses of Congress, we wouldn’t even be hearing about a new strategy at all.
The voters forced this drama to unfold…what we’re seeing now (400 cable channels, and I can’t get the hearings…only clips with cable news talking heads providing blabber)…and the goal may have now changed for Bush, to somehow come out of it with something to look back on fondly, but from the begining it was about feeding the beast, and manufacturing replacements for what would be used up…stock prices.
Good summation, Al. I think the comparison of Napoleon, from a tactical standpoint, is apt. But I think the central problem in a lot of these analyses, particularly in the option expressed by the administration, is that even though the President is calling this a strategic shift, it really is a tactical one. Bad sentence.
About 6 months ago, I wrote about why I thought we really needed to stay in Iraq. I still think something needs to be done there, but I’m thinking more along the lines of what I think needs to be done in Darfur or in Somalia. That is, the effort has for a long time required internationalization.
That, of course is impossible whilst Bush remains. We have an almost perfect analogy for the vestigal caliphate at the end of the Ottoman Empire. Bush is sequestered in his palace, surrounded by an intellectual (I use the term loosely) harem and yes men running in and out. But in running out, it isn’t to gather information, it’s just out. Then back in to hold the mirror up for PNAC and Cheney.
What we’ve done in Iraq is wrong on so many levels, including a legal one. The wrong that will haunt us most completely, however, is the moral wrong. It can be ameliorated (though not fully repaired). But that can not be accomplished either by abandoning the country, nor by adding troops to the already-failed occupation. I just wish we could get rid of this administration and succeed it with a broader, international vision.
PS: Thanks for the link. As you can see, I need all the traffic I can get. I’ve added deadissue to my blogroll. As to Samuel, the main problem I have has to do with the timing of the issue. And that, actually, falls at the feet of Jackie MacMullen and the Globe, who had the story for a month but held it to run the morning of the first playoff game.
Ack. Forgot to close my link. Sorry.
“I just wish we could get rid of this administration and succeed it with a broader, international vision.”
Nicely put Jim. That’s it exactly.
But we are stuck here in January 2007 with many more months of ugly reality ahead of us.
That’s the thing…I’m out of patience for this treadmill bullshit politics with everyone out for themselves all the time, never willing to simply do the right thing for the sake of doing it.
Chuck Hagel is for real – Kerry, Clinton…actually, it’s depressing to even get into it w/ a paper due too soon to get into a mood like that…
But these hacks are pathetic, and a historical moment will come and go for the sake of a handfull of votes…I can see it coming. The wave is growing, but it’ll break. I can sense it.
The escalation is happening, and they’re messing with Iran and Syria until we have our own, “two kidnapped soldiers” excuse to justify droping boom boom on bedrock
captain – did you happen to see the tech article I posted? Service Oriented Architecture – – – more to come. It got linked to by a company, but no discussion.
Your senator (the one who isn’t wondering where their ‘internets’ are late) was good today on CSPAN, talking about the war. Is she yours or is it Stevens?
Frank Rich: Yet Mr. Bush doesn’t even have the courage of his own disastrous convictions: he’s not properly executing the policy these guys sold him. In The Washington Post on Dec. 27, Mr. Kagan and General Keane wrote that escalation could only succeed “with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops” — a figure that has also been cited by Mr. McCain. (Mr. Kagan put the figure at 50,000 to 80,000 in a Weekly Standard article three weeks earlier. Whatever.) By any of these neocons’ standards, the Bush escalation of some 20,000 is too little, not to mention way too late.