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So I served in the Marines from 2005-2010 and I worked in intelligence from 2010-2013. I speak Pashto and Arabic as well and would argue that people have built

So I served in the Marines from 2005-2010 and I worked in intelligence from 2010-2013. I speak Pashto and Arabic as well and would argue that people have built up the cultural and religious bugaboos to excess. We still could win, but the problem fundamentally is a lack of political will here to accept the costs of making war. Those costs being: 1. Time - rotating green units in every 9-12 months and veteran units out is a recipe for failure. They have to relearn everything and rebuild any trust you build up with local leaders. The closest we got to that was 2 year deployments of reservists, which was effective in Iraq. 2. Casualties - holing up in a FOB for fear of KIAs does not help the locals. Another example is Bergdahl. We spent countless hours and millions of dollars looking for a single MIA private. Everything else went on the backburner for months and it did cost lives, but it served as PR that we were doing something to recover one screw-up in a war involving millions. 3. Governance vs Headhunting - Drones are great at cheap effective kinetic action, but worthless in police functions. We emphasize drones along with low-quantity troop deployments, because murderbot losses do not matter and SF casualties are bucketed as volunteers. I could go further into the detriments of cannibalizing your best soldiers from line units, but that's a whole other issue. To stabilize a country like Afghanistan you need to get violence down to zero long enough for a generation to know what peace looks like. To do that you need to prove that you are there to govern, that means deploying troops/police in massive numbers and a court system that works. We spent too much time seeking out werewolves to shoot silver bullets at, playing whack-a-mole. There is an intense focus by politicians on casualty numbers. We've been doing it on the cheap, but cheap adds up if you don't win and the wars go on for decades. I don't see that changing unfortunately.

mladenkovacevic 11y ago
Here's a great overview of the how and a complete absence of the why which is more central to "success in the middle east". But I also understand why there would be no political will for US deciders to start asking themselves "why" 15 years into an ongoing conflict. It's kind of how a crackhead never asks himself "why am I doing this" mid-hit.
- dforrestwilson1 11y ago
  Well getting into the why is more political than process, and I don't have insight there. I can't explain why we're friends with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States and I can't explain why we aren't on better terms with Iran. I have spent many hours arguing with conservative friends on why we should cut ties with Saudi Arabia in particular, but they trot out some arguments about oil and fears of ME instability (as though the status quo is fine). It's funny because the Sauds have convinced us to help stabilize the region, but it's hard to impose stability when your regional allies shank you every chance they get. There's no reason we should be encouraging Wahhabism. I'm all for pulling back from the region, and will be voting for Bernie given the chance to.
  - mladenkovacevic 11y ago
    I can't say I disagree with anything you've said there. I believe a lot of foreign policy also consists of trying to salvage or redirect the previous administrations' policies no matter how disastrous they've proven thus far, purely for the sake of saving face and refusing to admit them as mistakes (although Iraq is now certainly accepted as a mistake by most people). I believe the bigger problem is the insistence on projecting US power overseas no matter the cost or consequences. It's like there's some underlying belief that if you don't use it you lose it (which might be true in itself I don't really know)
  - jerf 11y ago
    "I have spent many hours arguing with conservative friends on why we should cut ties with Saudi Arabia in particular, but they trot out some arguments about oil and fears of ME instability (as though the status quo is fine)." As I like to say, you can make anything look good by only considering the positives, and make anything look bad by only considering the negatives. I think we're hard-wired to generally consider the positives of the status quo and the negatives of any possible change, as part of our general hard-wiring to be loss-averse. Even when the status quo is already pretty bad, it's hard for most people to rationally contemplate change. I'm not targeting that at politicians in particular, it's hard for all of us, across all fields. I often find myself contemplating it in a professional context when I see a team struggling with very poor processes (no automated testing, no CI, poor source control, etc., not necessarily "Process with a capital P"), but they can't contemplate any changes because all they see are the costs of the transition as well as the possible costs of failure, even as, objectively, the position that they currently are in is "deep in a hole and still digging". It is, arguably, not as bad as it sounds; a constantly shifting foreign policy always chasing changes that we probably poorly understand is not necessarily a good idea either. In fact I'd suggest that the way the United State's foreign policy predictable and hugely shifts on a four-year cycle has always been a problem for us. (Though, again, not necessarily all bad; at least it prevents us from creating too many glorious Five Year Plans.)
Intermernet 11y ago
As an idealistic pacifist, I find the whole situation hard to grasp. I do, however, seriously appreciate those (like yourself) who are stuck in a situation they didn't create, and have to deal with. Thankyou sincerely for your efforts, and your insight as someone with experience and time on the ground. I feel that those in charge of these campaigns would do very well to listen to you, and others like you, in determining the best path to take from here-on. The situation (however and wherever we all may lay "blame") needs to be fixed, and the points you make are incredibly important to how that may be achieved. I also have a feeling that these points may be common knowledge amongst those serving in these campaings, but somewhere along the line they are being diverted and / or diluted by politicians with vested interests in continuing these conflicts (they are, after all, incredibly powerful memes to pin one's policy promises on). Infinite respect and kudos for doing one of the hardest jobs in the world and managing to maintain perspective. Now hopefully we can work out a way to get the damn politicians to listen to you.
todayiamme 11y ago
Do we even need to win the war? This is a serious question. If the key strategic objectives can be met without a conventional end state, is winning the war itself necessary? This may seem like a stupid question, but clearly there has to be some reason why every decision maker within the system is incentivised to continue with the current state of things. I wonder if they have come to the conclusion that the long-term cost-to-benefit ratio of winning wars is too low to merit the type of strategy and resources you're describing. Maybe they've just created a new way to have a perpetual strategic presence without the typical costs of one?
- dforrestwilson1 11y ago
  Potentially yes, but aren't there political and ideological costs to forever wars? In my mind, a persistent American military conflict helps further the opposition argument that we are bullies, infidels, crusaders bent on domination and disinterested in truly helping. I guess it depends on the problem we are attempting to solve.
  - todayiamme 11y ago
    It does come back to the problem we're attempting to solve. What if you could side step all of the political and ideological hang ups most people have and still get what you want? All you have to do is refine your goals and what you're willing to do to get there. One of Putin's most trusted advisors is Vladislav Surkov, who used to publish avant-garde poetry and loves deconstructionist art. He has now deconstructed war for Putin and advanced the Gerasimov doctrine [1] to create a very different work of art. He recently wrote a science fiction story called "Without the Sky" as a way to describe his thesis on non-linear warfare. Here is a quote from the translation by Peter Pomerantsev; """ It was the first non-linear war. In the primitive wars of the 19th and 20th centuries it was common for just two sides to fight. Two countries. Two groups of allies. Now four coalitions collided. Not two against two, or three against one. No. All against all. And what coalitions! Not like the ones you had before… It was rare for whole countries to enter. A few provinces would join one side, a few others a different one. One town or generation or gender would join yet another. Then they could switch sides, sometimes mid-battle. Their aims were quite different. To take over a disputed coastal shelf. To forcefully introduce a new religion. Raise ratings. Try out new lasers. To stop humans being divided into men and women as gender differences undermine the unity of a nation. Most understood the war to be part of a process. Not necessarily its most important part. - http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/03/28/peter-pomerantsev/non-linear-war/ http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/03/28/peter-pomerantsev/non-l... - http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing-warfare/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing... """ Within this deconstruction, conflict is not a means to an end. Conflict is an end to itself. The fact that all sides are fighting all sides is desired and encouraged, as it ensures the strategic objective as a whole. For instance, the article mentions that in Syria the allies we arm are bombing each other. People armed by the Pentagon are bombing the group armed by the CIA. What if this was the desired state? Assad is weakened, there is continuous presence in Syria, allies use the US to ward off against other allies, creating voluntary strategic dependence without requiring any boots on the ground. No one even needs to do regime change. The regime is weakened and if things fall apart too much, it can be strengthened with a deeper alliance to pay-off the expensive conflict. Strategically speaking, the end-state perspective over here is perhaps superior to that of a conventional war, as all of this can be theoretically accomplished without having any formal boots on the ground. Simultaneously, can the Syrians really view us as the enemy in this new war? There are after all no American troops on the ground. Sure a lot of the parties have American backing, but they sought out that backing and letting it be known works to our advantage and with the right propaganda it can be cast as giving control of their homeland back to them with American help. Especially if troops never follow. This new form of war is ideologically and politically safe, while being extremely effective. [1] http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20160228_art009.pdf http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/...
dhimes 11y ago
Perhaps ironically, reading this gave me a sense of hope. Not in that what we are doing is right, but rather that there are thoughtful, insightful people like yourself involved. I have some sense of optimism now that perhaps someone like yourself is able to not only enter the Marines and remain attentive to the larger picture, but perhaps some have bubbled or will bubble to the top ranks and make good decisions. Sometimes even good decisions can look bad under the current circumstances, but time bears them out. Thank you.
evv555 11y ago
>To do that you need to prove that you are there to govern, that means deploying troops/police in massive numbers and a court system that works. Thomas Barnett did a TED talk on this issue that I found very thought provoking.[1] The cliff notes version is the military is optimized for battle at the expense of nation-building. The defense budget that produces state of the art weapons could theoretically produce state of the art nation-building processes/technology but that's not happening due to a variety of political and ideological reasons. 1. https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for...
- alanwatts 11y ago
  >There exists a realizable, evolutionary alternative to our being either atom-bombed into extinction or crowding ourselves off the planet. The alternative is the computer-persuadable veering of big business from its weaponry fixation to accommodation of all humanity at an aerospace level of technology, with the vastly larger, far more enduringly profitable for all, entirely new World Livingry Service Industry. It is statistically evident that the more advanced the living standard, the lower the birth rate. -Grunch of Giants, Buckminster Fuller http://www.amazon.com/Grunch-Giants-Buckminster-Fuller/dp/0974060518 http://www.amazon.com/Grunch-Giants-Buckminster-Fuller/dp/09...
kqr2 11y ago
For more info and background on the Bergdahl story, check out season 2 of the Serial podcast: https://serialpodcast.org/ https://serialpodcast.org/
monster-99 11y ago
What you describe sounds like colonialism and it could work out if you do not shy away from that fact. As it is colonialism, you have to adhere to the methods used by the colonialists. That means you cannot double deep with fanciful illusions like fake elections to create a democratic facade, even though it wins political points back home. Doing so would (it is a near certainty) create tribal shocks. In a "infant" tribal country the unit of political organisation hardly gets larger than a tribe. You have to be willing to kill to put down any anti-colonial movements, and assuming you succeed at monopolising the violence, then you have to govern. To govern means to dig deeper into the rule book, that rule book if successfully followed creates a high likelihood of post colonial tribal schisms that could end in violence. Back to square one. This is a complicated topic, I will provide a few supporting questions and points. 1. May be you could double deep, but there is little margin of error. 2. Can a modern western government engage in a straight forward colonial expedition? With the negative public relations that come with it? If so for how long? Consider the economic swings and government turnovers? 3. According to the "rule book" you have to engage in divide and conquer strategies. These involve learning the cultural differences and exploiting them. A tried and tested tactic is to give power to the smaller tribal groups since they offer a lesser threat to the colonial government. These strategies later lead to post colonial dictatorship / ethnic cleansing or multi-year civil war or even all of them. Just call it violence. So somehow you have to do better than the colonialists at ending the game. 4. Even the British who should have had an institutional memory of how to do these things failed to offer any worthwhile strategy in invading both Afghanistan and Iraq. Safe to say, that those memories are lost or the machinery is lost or a combination of the two. Every one was learning on the Job, seemingly from zero. 5. You could do the whole thing different, but if you do not understand tribes then any you are betting against the house. And understanding them offers no guarantees. This a throw away account. I am African and I know how complicated tribal dynamics can get better than the majority of westerners. This is to be expected. What suprises me is how big of an unknown and a non-consideration in the geo-political actions both by Washington, London & Paris and the coalitions they create when it comes to the rest of the (Tribal) world.
poof131 11y ago
Appreciate your service and your viewpoint but disagree. How do we win in Iraq? We supported the Shia backed government and they used their power to oppress Sunni political opponents. Now the Sunni regions are in revolt with ISIS ruling large swathes on the ground and the Iraqi government is incapable of stopping them even with support from Iran. I saw first hand SF officers having to deal with political target packs from the Iraqi government while our senior military leaders would turn a blind eye. How do we win in Afghanistan? The place seems more tribal than Iraq. Do we stop the drug trade or support it? We can’t seem to figure that out ourselves. We payed ex-DEA agents outrageous money to run around and destroy poppy fields while Marines I know where happy to ignore the fields if the tribal leaders stopped the roadside bombs. If we can’t figure out our own objectives how can we ever ‘win’. Personally, I’m all for using SF/Airpower to help a side we believe to be the best and letting the naturally lines form: Shia, Sunni, Kurd, etc. The region is beset with fake boundaries dictated by foreign powers and our foray hasn’t helped. We can’t allow ISIS to exist, but ground troops aren’t the answer. I’d begin by funding all limited wars through SOCOM, otherwise big military will stomp-in, take as much money as it can, and create havoc. Let the units trained in FID working with the locals dictate the support assets they need. And I’d hardly say we conducted these wars on the cheap. Could have been a lot cheaper regarding money if big military had stayed out and we focused only on routing out Al-Qaeda and not on some fantasy of nation building. And cheap regarding KIAs, well I’m glad about that one since more people killed doesn’t necessarily mean a better outcome. I don’t believe more troops, more force, and more governance imposed by an external entity would have solved the problems of either Iraq or Afghanistan. The problem wasn’t a lack of political will but a lack of political reality and an inability to actually figure out realistic goals that could be accomplished based upon the situation on the ground and the assets we have as a country.
- dforrestwilson1 11y ago
  Respectfully, You seem to think that SOCOM is a solution. I regard it as a problem. I'm not saying SF isn't great, particularly Green Beret, but a lot of the special forces guys are hanging out on FoBs by day, and dealing out death by night. That's not governance. Assassination does nothing to settle a land dispute between farmers. Taking lives only disrupts local communities, and foments chaos instead of resolving it. That's why the Vietcong and the Taliban endured. They enforce the rule of law, even if the laws themselves are horrid, a stable system exists. The insurgents live in the village and therefore live by the same laws. That is governance. SF/Airpower runs counter to this. I've heard the "let the borders redraw themselves" argument before, but the truth is there are countries where different ethnicities govern and live in peace. Style of governance may need to change but it is not impossible. By cheap I mean cheap in terms of lives, and I would argue that yes these wars have been incredibly cheap in American lives for those who have not fought. For Iraqis, Syrians, and Afghans it is another story.
616c 11y ago
Not that you need it, but thanks for your service. You put in the effort just the way I wanted it done. It is impressive you lasted in the Corps as long as you did. I hope others here take note, as his perspective reminds me of Anonymous in Imperial Hubris, now known to Michael Scheuer who ran the CIA Counter-Terrorism Task Force. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Hubris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Hubris Not sure you agree with him, but I flashed to that book in my mind the moment I read your very thorough comment. As an aside, how did they teach you Pashto? One of my favorite ironic moments is recalling my purchase and failed use of Rosetta Stone Pashto in high school. I am sure of hundreds of wannabees after the first months of the US invasdion of Afghanistan to buy it. My my was I read to lose the War on Terror: learn Pashto by CD!
pjc50 11y ago
Good to hear from someone who's actually been there, rather than the rest of us carping from the sidelines; but I have to take issue with To do that you need to prove that you are there to govern, that means deploying troops/police in massive numbers and a court system that works Is the US actually able to deliver a police and court system that works and has popular support in the US? After all, this is what the BLM protests are about. The problem is made worse by the presence of factions in Iraq that would want Sharia law; there may be no set of law that's amenable to both the occupiers and the occupied. (This went wrong very early on in Iraq, where the US overthrew the hated administration with its torture and secret prisons and installed their own torture and secret prisons instead.)
- dforrestwilson1 11y ago
  A fair question and hard to answer. No denying that Paul Bremer's administration did a terrible job putting the pieces back together, but that was fomented by the Rumsfeld Doctrine which touted a small ground force component, which was consequently unable to establish rule of law. Additionally I would point to the case of post-WW2 Germany, in which the occupying forces left the Nazi Party in charge as administrators. This is directly in contrast to Iraq where we outlawed the Ba'ath Party entirely. And of course the whole war was fought on a lie, so there's that... There are lots of cases throughout history where counterinsurgency doctrine has worked, and at it's core it comes down to presence and rule of law. For a good read I recommend War in the Shadows: http://www.amazon.com/War-Shadows-Guerrilla-Robert-Asprey/dp/0595225942/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1459630918&sr=8-3&keywords=war+in+the+shadows http://www.amazon.com/War-Shadows-Guerrilla-Robert-Asprey/dp...
ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
Long and frequent deployments of reservists is a recipe for disaster. Source: am a former Army Reservist.
joering2 11y ago
> I don't see that changing unfortunately. So from seeing it firsthand, would you agree that in 100 years from now, we will all be under Shiaa law and wave black/white flags or ISIS or other group will eventually form/merge? If our political system forbids us from going eye for eye (disclaimer: Im not for it), then is there really any way to win without it costing US taxpayers large chunk of their money?
- dforrestwilson1 11y ago
  I don't know that money has ever been the issue. What we seem to lack is real conviction to fight the ideologies supporting ISIS. The real problem is the Gulf States. Wahhabism is a very similar strain of Islam to what ISIS believes. That's a unique threat to the Gulf monarchies, and they are vulnerable to a theological insurgency until they figure out how to pivot from an intolerant oil sheikh culture to a diversified merit-driven economy. 100 years is a long time, but I think as a country we're clinging to an unsustainable Middle Eastern policy and until that changes I am skeptical that we beat back the ideology, and by extension the violence that it encourages.
rdl 11y ago
As a contractor who spent multiple years at a time there, it did seem insane -- Marines and Air Force were way less than a year! Although this depends a lot on role; a doctor or fueler does the same job everywhere, but someone building local relationships doesn't. The British colonial model of a permanently based unit through which battalions would rotate seems far preferable. The real problem was that we didn't actually need to win.
guelo 11y ago
The American military was given over a decade and over a trillion dollars and was unable to figure it out. They proved to a high degree of certainty that we could never win.
shitgoose 11y ago
"We still could win" could you define win?

mladenkovacevic 11y ago

Here's a great overview of the how and a complete absence of the why which is more central to "success in the middle east". But I also understand why there would be no political will for US deciders to start asking themselves "why" 15 years into an ongoing conflict. It's kind of how a crackhead never asks himself "why am I doing this" mid-hit.

dforrestwilson1 11y ago
Well getting into the why is more political than process, and I don't have insight there. I can't explain why we're friends with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States and I can't explain why we aren't on better terms with Iran. I have spent many hours arguing with conservative friends on why we should cut ties with Saudi Arabia in particular, but they trot out some arguments about oil and fears of ME instability (as though the status quo is fine). It's funny because the Sauds have convinced us to help stabilize the region, but it's hard to impose stability when your regional allies shank you every chance they get. There's no reason we should be encouraging Wahhabism. I'm all for pulling back from the region, and will be voting for Bernie given the chance to.
- mladenkovacevic 11y ago
  I can't say I disagree with anything you've said there. I believe a lot of foreign policy also consists of trying to salvage or redirect the previous administrations' policies no matter how disastrous they've proven thus far, purely for the sake of saving face and refusing to admit them as mistakes (although Iraq is now certainly accepted as a mistake by most people). I believe the bigger problem is the insistence on projecting US power overseas no matter the cost or consequences. It's like there's some underlying belief that if you don't use it you lose it (which might be true in itself I don't really know)
- jerf 11y ago
  "I have spent many hours arguing with conservative friends on why we should cut ties with Saudi Arabia in particular, but they trot out some arguments about oil and fears of ME instability (as though the status quo is fine)." As I like to say, you can make anything look good by only considering the positives, and make anything look bad by only considering the negatives. I think we're hard-wired to generally consider the positives of the status quo and the negatives of any possible change, as part of our general hard-wiring to be loss-averse. Even when the status quo is already pretty bad, it's hard for most people to rationally contemplate change. I'm not targeting that at politicians in particular, it's hard for all of us, across all fields. I often find myself contemplating it in a professional context when I see a team struggling with very poor processes (no automated testing, no CI, poor source control, etc., not necessarily "Process with a capital P"), but they can't contemplate any changes because all they see are the costs of the transition as well as the possible costs of failure, even as, objectively, the position that they currently are in is "deep in a hole and still digging". It is, arguably, not as bad as it sounds; a constantly shifting foreign policy always chasing changes that we probably poorly understand is not necessarily a good idea either. In fact I'd suggest that the way the United State's foreign policy predictable and hugely shifts on a four-year cycle has always been a problem for us. (Though, again, not necessarily all bad; at least it prevents us from creating too many glorious Five Year Plans.)

Intermernet 11y ago

As an idealistic pacifist, I find the whole situation hard to grasp. I do, however, seriously appreciate those (like yourself) who are stuck in a situation they didn't create, and have to deal with. Thankyou sincerely for your efforts, and your insight as someone with experience and time on the ground. I feel that those in charge of these campaigns would do very well to listen to you, and others like you, in determining the best path to take from here-on. The situation (however and wherever we all may lay "blame") needs to be fixed, and the points you make are incredibly important to how that may be achieved. I also have a feeling that these points may be common knowledge amongst those serving in these campaings, but somewhere along the line they are being diverted and / or diluted by politicians with vested interests in continuing these conflicts (they are, after all, incredibly powerful memes to pin one's policy promises on). Infinite respect and kudos for doing one of the hardest jobs in the world and managing to maintain perspective. Now hopefully we can work out a way to get the damn politicians to listen to you.

todayiamme 11y ago

Do we even need to win the war? This is a serious question. If the key strategic objectives can be met without a conventional end state, is winning the war itself necessary? This may seem like a stupid question, but clearly there has to be some reason why every decision maker within the system is incentivised to continue with the current state of things. I wonder if they have come to the conclusion that the long-term cost-to-benefit ratio of winning wars is too low to merit the type of strategy and resources you're describing. Maybe they've just created a new way to have a perpetual strategic presence without the typical costs of one?

dforrestwilson1 11y ago
Potentially yes, but aren't there political and ideological costs to forever wars? In my mind, a persistent American military conflict helps further the opposition argument that we are bullies, infidels, crusaders bent on domination and disinterested in truly helping. I guess it depends on the problem we are attempting to solve.
- todayiamme 11y ago
  It does come back to the problem we're attempting to solve. What if you could side step all of the political and ideological hang ups most people have and still get what you want? All you have to do is refine your goals and what you're willing to do to get there. One of Putin's most trusted advisors is Vladislav Surkov, who used to publish avant-garde poetry and loves deconstructionist art. He has now deconstructed war for Putin and advanced the Gerasimov doctrine [1] to create a very different work of art. He recently wrote a science fiction story called "Without the Sky" as a way to describe his thesis on non-linear warfare. Here is a quote from the translation by Peter Pomerantsev; """ It was the first non-linear war. In the primitive wars of the 19th and 20th centuries it was common for just two sides to fight. Two countries. Two groups of allies. Now four coalitions collided. Not two against two, or three against one. No. All against all. And what coalitions! Not like the ones you had before… It was rare for whole countries to enter. A few provinces would join one side, a few others a different one. One town or generation or gender would join yet another. Then they could switch sides, sometimes mid-battle. Their aims were quite different. To take over a disputed coastal shelf. To forcefully introduce a new religion. Raise ratings. Try out new lasers. To stop humans being divided into men and women as gender differences undermine the unity of a nation. Most understood the war to be part of a process. Not necessarily its most important part. - http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/03/28/peter-pomerantsev/non-linear-war/ http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/03/28/peter-pomerantsev/non-l... - http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing-warfare/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing... """ Within this deconstruction, conflict is not a means to an end. Conflict is an end to itself. The fact that all sides are fighting all sides is desired and encouraged, as it ensures the strategic objective as a whole. For instance, the article mentions that in Syria the allies we arm are bombing each other. People armed by the Pentagon are bombing the group armed by the CIA. What if this was the desired state? Assad is weakened, there is continuous presence in Syria, allies use the US to ward off against other allies, creating voluntary strategic dependence without requiring any boots on the ground. No one even needs to do regime change. The regime is weakened and if things fall apart too much, it can be strengthened with a deeper alliance to pay-off the expensive conflict. Strategically speaking, the end-state perspective over here is perhaps superior to that of a conventional war, as all of this can be theoretically accomplished without having any formal boots on the ground. Simultaneously, can the Syrians really view us as the enemy in this new war? There are after all no American troops on the ground. Sure a lot of the parties have American backing, but they sought out that backing and letting it be known works to our advantage and with the right propaganda it can be cast as giving control of their homeland back to them with American help. Especially if troops never follow. This new form of war is ideologically and politically safe, while being extremely effective. [1] http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20160228_art009.pdf http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/...

dhimes 11y ago

Perhaps ironically, reading this gave me a sense of hope. Not in that what we are doing is right, but rather that there are thoughtful, insightful people like yourself involved. I have some sense of optimism now that perhaps someone like yourself is able to not only enter the Marines and remain attentive to the larger picture, but perhaps some have bubbled or will bubble to the top ranks and make good decisions. Sometimes even good decisions can look bad under the current circumstances, but time bears them out. Thank you.

evv555 11y ago

>To do that you need to prove that you are there to govern, that means deploying troops/police in massive numbers and a court system that works. Thomas Barnett did a TED talk on this issue that I found very thought provoking.[1] The cliff notes version is the military is optimized for battle at the expense of nation-building. The defense budget that produces state of the art weapons could theoretically produce state of the art nation-building processes/technology but that's not happening due to a variety of political and ideological reasons. 1. https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for...

alanwatts 11y ago
>There exists a realizable, evolutionary alternative to our being either atom-bombed into extinction or crowding ourselves off the planet. The alternative is the computer-persuadable veering of big business from its weaponry fixation to accommodation of all humanity at an aerospace level of technology, with the vastly larger, far more enduringly profitable for all, entirely new World Livingry Service Industry. It is statistically evident that the more advanced the living standard, the lower the birth rate. -Grunch of Giants, Buckminster Fuller http://www.amazon.com/Grunch-Giants-Buckminster-Fuller/dp/0974060518 http://www.amazon.com/Grunch-Giants-Buckminster-Fuller/dp/09...

kqr2 11y ago

For more info and background on the Bergdahl story, check out season 2 of the Serial podcast: https://serialpodcast.org/ https://serialpodcast.org/

monster-99 11y ago

What you describe sounds like colonialism and it could work out if you do not shy away from that fact. As it is colonialism, you have to adhere to the methods used by the colonialists. That means you cannot double deep with fanciful illusions like fake elections to create a democratic facade, even though it wins political points back home. Doing so would (it is a near certainty) create tribal shocks. In a "infant" tribal country the unit of political organisation hardly gets larger than a tribe. You have to be willing to kill to put down any anti-colonial movements, and assuming you succeed at monopolising the violence, then you have to govern. To govern means to dig deeper into the rule book, that rule book if successfully followed creates a high likelihood of post colonial tribal schisms that could end in violence. Back to square one. This is a complicated topic, I will provide a few supporting questions and points. 1. May be you could double deep, but there is little margin of error. 2. Can a modern western government engage in a straight forward colonial expedition? With the negative public relations that come with it? If so for how long? Consider the economic swings and government turnovers? 3. According to the "rule book" you have to engage in divide and conquer strategies. These involve learning the cultural differences and exploiting them. A tried and tested tactic is to give power to the smaller tribal groups since they offer a lesser threat to the colonial government. These strategies later lead to post colonial dictatorship / ethnic cleansing or multi-year civil war or even all of them. Just call it violence. So somehow you have to do better than the colonialists at ending the game. 4. Even the British who should have had an institutional memory of how to do these things failed to offer any worthwhile strategy in invading both Afghanistan and Iraq. Safe to say, that those memories are lost or the machinery is lost or a combination of the two. Every one was learning on the Job, seemingly from zero. 5. You could do the whole thing different, but if you do not understand tribes then any you are betting against the house. And understanding them offers no guarantees. This a throw away account. I am African and I know how complicated tribal dynamics can get better than the majority of westerners. This is to be expected. What suprises me is how big of an unknown and a non-consideration in the geo-political actions both by Washington, London & Paris and the coalitions they create when it comes to the rest of the (Tribal) world.

poof131 11y ago

Appreciate your service and your viewpoint but disagree. How do we win in Iraq? We supported the Shia backed government and they used their power to oppress Sunni political opponents. Now the Sunni regions are in revolt with ISIS ruling large swathes on the ground and the Iraqi government is incapable of stopping them even with support from Iran. I saw first hand SF officers having to deal with political target packs from the Iraqi government while our senior military leaders would turn a blind eye. How do we win in Afghanistan? The place seems more tribal than Iraq. Do we stop the drug trade or support it? We can’t seem to figure that out ourselves. We payed ex-DEA agents outrageous money to run around and destroy poppy fields while Marines I know where happy to ignore the fields if the tribal leaders stopped the roadside bombs. If we can’t figure out our own objectives how can we ever ‘win’. Personally, I’m all for using SF/Airpower to help a side we believe to be the best and letting the naturally lines form: Shia, Sunni, Kurd, etc. The region is beset with fake boundaries dictated by foreign powers and our foray hasn’t helped. We can’t allow ISIS to exist, but ground troops aren’t the answer. I’d begin by funding all limited wars through SOCOM, otherwise big military will stomp-in, take as much money as it can, and create havoc. Let the units trained in FID working with the locals dictate the support assets they need. And I’d hardly say we conducted these wars on the cheap. Could have been a lot cheaper regarding money if big military had stayed out and we focused only on routing out Al-Qaeda and not on some fantasy of nation building. And cheap regarding KIAs, well I’m glad about that one since more people killed doesn’t necessarily mean a better outcome. I don’t believe more troops, more force, and more governance imposed by an external entity would have solved the problems of either Iraq or Afghanistan. The problem wasn’t a lack of political will but a lack of political reality and an inability to actually figure out realistic goals that could be accomplished based upon the situation on the ground and the assets we have as a country.

dforrestwilson1 11y ago
Respectfully, You seem to think that SOCOM is a solution. I regard it as a problem. I'm not saying SF isn't great, particularly Green Beret, but a lot of the special forces guys are hanging out on FoBs by day, and dealing out death by night. That's not governance. Assassination does nothing to settle a land dispute between farmers. Taking lives only disrupts local communities, and foments chaos instead of resolving it. That's why the Vietcong and the Taliban endured. They enforce the rule of law, even if the laws themselves are horrid, a stable system exists. The insurgents live in the village and therefore live by the same laws. That is governance. SF/Airpower runs counter to this. I've heard the "let the borders redraw themselves" argument before, but the truth is there are countries where different ethnicities govern and live in peace. Style of governance may need to change but it is not impossible. By cheap I mean cheap in terms of lives, and I would argue that yes these wars have been incredibly cheap in American lives for those who have not fought. For Iraqis, Syrians, and Afghans it is another story.

616c 11y ago

Not that you need it, but thanks for your service. You put in the effort just the way I wanted it done. It is impressive you lasted in the Corps as long as you did. I hope others here take note, as his perspective reminds me of Anonymous in Imperial Hubris, now known to Michael Scheuer who ran the CIA Counter-Terrorism Task Force. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Hubris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Hubris Not sure you agree with him, but I flashed to that book in my mind the moment I read your very thorough comment. As an aside, how did they teach you Pashto? One of my favorite ironic moments is recalling my purchase and failed use of Rosetta Stone Pashto in high school. I am sure of hundreds of wannabees after the first months of the US invasdion of Afghanistan to buy it. My my was I read to lose the War on Terror: learn Pashto by CD!

pjc50 11y ago

Good to hear from someone who's actually been there, rather than the rest of us carping from the sidelines; but I have to take issue with To do that you need to prove that you are there to govern, that means deploying troops/police in massive numbers and a court system that works Is the US actually able to deliver a police and court system that works and has popular support in the US? After all, this is what the BLM protests are about. The problem is made worse by the presence of factions in Iraq that would want Sharia law; there may be no set of law that's amenable to both the occupiers and the occupied. (This went wrong very early on in Iraq, where the US overthrew the hated administration with its torture and secret prisons and installed their own torture and secret prisons instead.)

dforrestwilson1 11y ago
A fair question and hard to answer. No denying that Paul Bremer's administration did a terrible job putting the pieces back together, but that was fomented by the Rumsfeld Doctrine which touted a small ground force component, which was consequently unable to establish rule of law. Additionally I would point to the case of post-WW2 Germany, in which the occupying forces left the Nazi Party in charge as administrators. This is directly in contrast to Iraq where we outlawed the Ba'ath Party entirely. And of course the whole war was fought on a lie, so there's that... There are lots of cases throughout history where counterinsurgency doctrine has worked, and at it's core it comes down to presence and rule of law. For a good read I recommend War in the Shadows: http://www.amazon.com/War-Shadows-Guerrilla-Robert-Asprey/dp/0595225942/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1459630918&sr=8-3&keywords=war+in+the+shadows http://www.amazon.com/War-Shadows-Guerrilla-Robert-Asprey/dp...

ZanyProgrammer 11y ago

Long and frequent deployments of reservists is a recipe for disaster. Source: am a former Army Reservist.

joering2 11y ago

> I don't see that changing unfortunately. So from seeing it firsthand, would you agree that in 100 years from now, we will all be under Shiaa law and wave black/white flags or ISIS or other group will eventually form/merge? If our political system forbids us from going eye for eye (disclaimer: Im not for it), then is there really any way to win without it costing US taxpayers large chunk of their money?

dforrestwilson1 11y ago
I don't know that money has ever been the issue. What we seem to lack is real conviction to fight the ideologies supporting ISIS. The real problem is the Gulf States. Wahhabism is a very similar strain of Islam to what ISIS believes. That's a unique threat to the Gulf monarchies, and they are vulnerable to a theological insurgency until they figure out how to pivot from an intolerant oil sheikh culture to a diversified merit-driven economy. 100 years is a long time, but I think as a country we're clinging to an unsustainable Middle Eastern policy and until that changes I am skeptical that we beat back the ideology, and by extension the violence that it encourages.

rdl 11y ago

As a contractor who spent multiple years at a time there, it did seem insane -- Marines and Air Force were way less than a year! Although this depends a lot on role; a doctor or fueler does the same job everywhere, but someone building local relationships doesn't. The British colonial model of a permanently based unit through which battalions would rotate seems far preferable. The real problem was that we didn't actually need to win.

guelo 11y ago

The American military was given over a decade and over a trillion dollars and was unable to figure it out. They proved to a high degree of certainty that we could never win.

shitgoose 11y ago

"We still could win" could you define win?