4 ms·

I believe the McNamara Fallacy is a real thing, although I would say Goodhart's Law expresses the more fundamental issue. But, the examples they give (Vietnam

I believe the McNamara Fallacy is a real thing, although I would say Goodhart's Law expresses the more fundamental issue. But, the examples they give (Vietnam and Afghanistan wars) are bad examples, because in both cases the issue was primarily not that the U.S. military was relying too much on quantitative metrics, but rather that it was being asked to do a job which militaries are not good at. In neither case, despite what many deniers and apologists proclaim, was the war "winnable" by the military, because in both cases the primary problem was that the government of the nation in question did not have the respect (and thus support) of its people. There is no strategy that an outside military can use, which will fix this, because it's not a military problem, and a military has the wrong personnel, the wrong training, and thus the wrong institutional mindset. It is as if you sent the Red Cross in to defeat the Viet Cong or the Taliban, and then concluded that the reason they failed was that they were measuring numbers of hospital beds and counting how much medical equipment they needed. It was the political leadership, who decided this was a job for a military to perform, that was the root problem. McNamara's metrics were neither here nor there.

paganel 5y ago
> In neither case, despite what many deniers and apologists proclaim, was the war "winnable" by the military Basically, to win that war the US military should have been able to previously educate its politicians (i.e. the US politicians) and remind them that as "war is the continuation of politics by other means" so in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq a greater focus should have been given to politics before trying the war thing. After all that's what a guy like Clausewitz did, a general and military theorist whose work ended up educating lots and lots of politicians.
jasonhansel 5y ago
To quote C. Wright Mills, writing in 1960: > They know of no solutions to the paradoxes of the Middle East and Europe, the Far East and Africa except the landing of Marines. Being baffled, and also being very tired of being baffled, they have come to believe that there is no way out—except war—which would remove all the bewildering paradoxes of their tedious and now misguided attempts to construct peace. In place of these paradoxes they prefer the bright, clear problems of war—as they used to be. For they still believe that "winning" means something, although they never tell us what.
- randcraw 5y ago
  From "The Causes of World War Three". Of course, America's also had a lot of trouble since WWII simply defining what 'winning' a war means. Timely; I bought Mills' "The Power Elite" only yesterday.
- vanderZwan 5y ago
  While we're here I might as well add a link to Scott Atran's RSA lecture about his book Talking To The Enemy, where he discusses his findings about radicalization and deradicalization, a topic very much related to the discussion here. It's one of those youtube videos I wish more people would watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ijmBd69878 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ijmBd69878
mcguire 5y ago
Yes and no. It is a difficult problem, but it has been done before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars). There is a rough roadmap about how to go about it, something along the lines of suppressing the rebels and providing security for the majority of the populace while you reform the government and establish its credibility. In Vietnam, this was made more difficult by the international situation and by the ease of outsiders intervening to support the Viet Cong (such as the NVA). Similarly in Afghanistan, with the additional problem that the US never realized that Afghan nationalism isn't a thing. (My interpretation; the US Army has a big, long analysis of what it thinks went wrong that I haven't read.) The problem is that quantitative metrics hide the difficulties and provide a false sense that the situation can be resolved easily and cheaply. McNamara's body count idea makes a certain amount of sense, given that the strategy there was to cost the NVA so much that they could not continue to push troops into South Vietnam, which might have worked if that was the only major problem.
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  While I grant you the Phillipines was somewhat of a success, I don't think either the Malay example (where the same combat flared up again within a few years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Malaysia_(1968%E2%80%931989) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Malays...) or the Yugoslav wars (where it was a war between ethnicities, and it most decidedly did not result in Yugoslavia being put back together) would count as successes. But, the Phillipines example does seem like a plausible example. Even then, it essentially ended because the US decided to let the Phillipines elect their own assembly, clearly setting them on the path towards independence. Maybe the lesson is that if your military is involved in trying to suppress the rebels, declare victory and leave, without making too many demands of what kind of government is there once you are gone.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    The Malaysian Emergency (1948-1960) is pretty widely regarded as the successful counterinsurgency program. (It also featured little to no external support to the insurgents, who were massively outnumbered by the British. Did I mention that this wasn't an easy problem?) The second insurgency (1968-1989-ish) was largely handled by Malaysia itself, as I understand it, without outside forces. I was debating the former Yugoslavia, but no one was really interested in rebuilding Yugoslavia; they wanted the region to be quiet and relatively stable. Which it seems to be today and wasn't without the continuing threat of military force from sometime during the Austro-Hungarian empire. Before you draw lessons from the Philippine-American War, look at the timeline: it officially started when the US took over the management from Spain in ~1899 and ended in like 1913. The (new) Philippine government was created in 1902 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Organic_Act_(1902) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Organic_Act_(1902)) with the cessation of the official war. The US kept a military presence as well as official control until WWII, with apparently a good bit of support from the Filipinos. The US was very specific about the kind of government it set up in the Philippines and not only didn't leave but stayed and supported the government against the remnants of the insurgency. If you're interested, I strongly recommend 21st Century Ellis, a (small) collection of articles by Pete Ellis, a Marine officer in the Philippines who went on to be part of WWI and to write the basis of the US Marines' part of the pre-WWII plans against the Japanese Empire. (He drank himself to death while spying on the Japanese and the guy sent to recover his ashes was himself killed in the Kyoto earthquake. It's all very Lovecraftian.) His "Bush Wars" (?) is roughly the basis of US counter insurgency strategy that the US couldn't bother to follow in Afghanistan.
_xnmw 5y ago
I do not believe that the war was "not winnable" in Afghanistan. The Soviets managed to defeat the Taliban precursors (Mujahideen), and left behind a Soviet-propped government that lasted longer than the Soviet Union did (3 years after they left). That's as close as you can get to an example of a "win" in Afghanistan -- so don't say that the war was not winnable.

paganel 5y ago

> In neither case, despite what many deniers and apologists proclaim, was the war "winnable" by the military Basically, to win that war the US military should have been able to previously educate its politicians (i.e. the US politicians) and remind them that as "war is the continuation of politics by other means" so in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq a greater focus should have been given to politics before trying the war thing. After all that's what a guy like Clausewitz did, a general and military theorist whose work ended up educating lots and lots of politicians.

jasonhansel 5y ago

To quote C. Wright Mills, writing in 1960: > They know of no solutions to the paradoxes of the Middle East and Europe, the Far East and Africa except the landing of Marines. Being baffled, and also being very tired of being baffled, they have come to believe that there is no way out—except war—which would remove all the bewildering paradoxes of their tedious and now misguided attempts to construct peace. In place of these paradoxes they prefer the bright, clear problems of war—as they used to be. For they still believe that "winning" means something, although they never tell us what.

randcraw 5y ago
From "The Causes of World War Three". Of course, America's also had a lot of trouble since WWII simply defining what 'winning' a war means. Timely; I bought Mills' "The Power Elite" only yesterday.
vanderZwan 5y ago
While we're here I might as well add a link to Scott Atran's RSA lecture about his book Talking To The Enemy, where he discusses his findings about radicalization and deradicalization, a topic very much related to the discussion here. It's one of those youtube videos I wish more people would watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ijmBd69878 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ijmBd69878

mcguire 5y ago

Yes and no. It is a difficult problem, but it has been done before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars). There is a rough roadmap about how to go about it, something along the lines of suppressing the rebels and providing security for the majority of the populace while you reform the government and establish its credibility. In Vietnam, this was made more difficult by the international situation and by the ease of outsiders intervening to support the Viet Cong (such as the NVA). Similarly in Afghanistan, with the additional problem that the US never realized that Afghan nationalism isn't a thing. (My interpretation; the US Army has a big, long analysis of what it thinks went wrong that I haven't read.) The problem is that quantitative metrics hide the difficulties and provide a false sense that the situation can be resolved easily and cheaply. McNamara's body count idea makes a certain amount of sense, given that the strategy there was to cost the NVA so much that they could not continue to push troops into South Vietnam, which might have worked if that was the only major problem.

rossdavidh 5y ago
While I grant you the Phillipines was somewhat of a success, I don't think either the Malay example (where the same combat flared up again within a few years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Malaysia_(1968%E2%80%931989) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Malays...) or the Yugoslav wars (where it was a war between ethnicities, and it most decidedly did not result in Yugoslavia being put back together) would count as successes. But, the Phillipines example does seem like a plausible example. Even then, it essentially ended because the US decided to let the Phillipines elect their own assembly, clearly setting them on the path towards independence. Maybe the lesson is that if your military is involved in trying to suppress the rebels, declare victory and leave, without making too many demands of what kind of government is there once you are gone.
- mcguire 5y ago
  The Malaysian Emergency (1948-1960) is pretty widely regarded as the successful counterinsurgency program. (It also featured little to no external support to the insurgents, who were massively outnumbered by the British. Did I mention that this wasn't an easy problem?) The second insurgency (1968-1989-ish) was largely handled by Malaysia itself, as I understand it, without outside forces. I was debating the former Yugoslavia, but no one was really interested in rebuilding Yugoslavia; they wanted the region to be quiet and relatively stable. Which it seems to be today and wasn't without the continuing threat of military force from sometime during the Austro-Hungarian empire. Before you draw lessons from the Philippine-American War, look at the timeline: it officially started when the US took over the management from Spain in ~1899 and ended in like 1913. The (new) Philippine government was created in 1902 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Organic_Act_(1902) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Organic_Act_(1902)) with the cessation of the official war. The US kept a military presence as well as official control until WWII, with apparently a good bit of support from the Filipinos. The US was very specific about the kind of government it set up in the Philippines and not only didn't leave but stayed and supported the government against the remnants of the insurgency. If you're interested, I strongly recommend 21st Century Ellis, a (small) collection of articles by Pete Ellis, a Marine officer in the Philippines who went on to be part of WWI and to write the basis of the US Marines' part of the pre-WWII plans against the Japanese Empire. (He drank himself to death while spying on the Japanese and the guy sent to recover his ashes was himself killed in the Kyoto earthquake. It's all very Lovecraftian.) His "Bush Wars" (?) is roughly the basis of US counter insurgency strategy that the US couldn't bother to follow in Afghanistan.

_xnmw 5y ago

I do not believe that the war was "not winnable" in Afghanistan. The Soviets managed to defeat the Taliban precursors (Mujahideen), and left behind a Soviet-propped government that lasted longer than the Soviet Union did (3 years after they left). That's as close as you can get to an example of a "win" in Afghanistan -- so don't say that the war was not winnable.