|
The Next Phase of the War (Analysis)
Subscription Reqâd.THE STRATFOR WEEKLY, October 16, 2003: The Next Phase of the War by Dr. George Friedman Summary Washington is reformulating its war plans in Iraq -- something critics of the Bush administration might view as a sign of weakness. The real weakness lies not in that the United States is shifting strategies, but rather that it has taken so long to make adjustments. However, even with a new strategy, it is unclear whether the United States will succeed. Analysis The United States is in the process of reformulating its war plans in Iraq. Such reformulations are normal in war: Every successful war consists of layers of plans that are adjusted as opponents change their strategy and tactics and as lessons are learned. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of the defeated party is the inability to redefine its strategy based on experience. The presence of only one plan is a sign of defeat: The French war plan in World War II never changed and, therefore, never worked; the Japanese, once their initial plan ran into trouble, could never generate a rational strategy. On the other hand, the United States went through multiple plans, developing and discarding strategies on all levels. This is insufficient to guarantee victory (the Germans also went through multiple plans), but it is one of the necessary conditions. Critics of the Bush administration, who see the need to change plans as a sign of weakness, simply donât understand war. In Iraq, where the administration should be criticized is not that it changed plans, but that it took so long to do so. For the United States, the most significant failure in this war has been the length of time it took to recognize that the reality on the ground in Iraq was not the reality Washington had expected -- and worse, the length of time it took U.S. leaders to think through their strategy. Changing plans is the sign of a healthy command structure; rigidly adhering to plans in the face of a changing reality is a sign of real problems. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeldâs problem was that he was unable to publicly confront the fact that the unexpected had happened in Iraq. He might have done so in private, but no shift in strategy emerged. From early May, when the guerrilla war was launched, until last week, Rumsfeld appeared to be strategically paralyzed. He neither had a plan for crushing the Iraqi guerrillas, nor did he seem able to conceptualize how the rest of the war would proceed. This should not, actually, be personalized: Even though Rumsfeld was both secretary of defense and the dominant personality in the strategic process, it was a failure of the civilian and military command structures in general. Rumsfeld has been adamant in arguing that there are no parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. He is correct in all but one sense: One of the fundamental failings in Vietnam was the inability of senior U.S. civilian and military commanders to recognize that, though individual operations were successful, they did not tie together into a strategy -- or more precisely, that the strategy was not working. This is why many Vietnam veterans are right in saying that they won the battles but lost the war. It is the job of the strategists to make certain that the battles and strategy mesh and, when they donât, to make adjustments. In Vietnam, the strategy never meshed with the operations. A similar situation has emerged in Iraq, save that the operations didnât add up either. These things happen. The measure of success is how quickly a problem is recognized and how quickly adjustments are made. If we read the creation of the Stabilization Group correctly, we are in the process of seeing those changes emerge. That means that about six months have elapsed between the start of the guerrilla war and the crafting of a response. That isnât great, but it isnât catastrophic either. The timeline is bearable, so long as the strategic shifts are effective. To consider this, we need to recall the two strategic reasons the United States had for invading Iraq -- as opposed to the public justifications: 1. Seizing the most strategic country in the region as a base of operations from which to mount follow-on operations against countries that collaborate or permit collaboration with al Qaeda. 2. Transforming the psychological perception of the United States in the Islamic world from a hated and impotent power to a hated but feared power. The most significant impact the guerrilla war has had on the United States concerns the second goal. The perception (as opposed to the reality) of the war is that the conventional forces of the occupying power were helpless in the face of the guerrillas. There was certainly truth to that, but only in this sense. The guerrilla movement has remained well below critical mass -- it in no way threatens either the occupation or the operational capabilities of the United States. Total casualties relative to the force are insignificant from a military point of view. Nevertheless, the fact that the movement could not be crushed -- but continued to operate for months -- made it appear that the United States had become militarily trapped. The U.S. response compounded this perception: Rather than pressing forward with regional operations, the United States first tried to crush the guerrillas with search-and-destroy missions, and then seemed to halt offensive operations and simply take casualties. The result appeared to be paralysis, and this appearance undermined the second goal: It negated the psychological value of the fall of Baghdad. The solution for the United States rests in the first goal. The United States has seized control of Iraq and is capable of mounting political, covert and overt operations against neighboring countries. The guerrilla war, though irritating, does not undermine the United Statesâ operational capability: First, the war is primarily confined to one region; second, the tempo of operations in that region does not constrain military operations. Therefore, the key is to use the military capabilities obtained through basing in Iraq and exploit the occupation, despite the guerrilla war. In a sense, the guerrilla war is irrelevant -- it will be there whatever the United States does, at least for a while. Whether the United States proceeds with exploitation operations or not, the war is a constant. There is no logical reason to halt operations. That appears to be just what is happening. The United States, for example, opened a psychological campaign against Syria the weekend of Oct. 11-12 by pointing out that the Israelis have submarine-, air- and land-based nuclear weapons. Two U.S. officials made the point in such a way that the Syrians couldnât miss it. This came just days after Turkish lawmakers voted to send troops into Iraq. Though those troops are important, the real importance of the vote was its declaration of belligerency by Turkey, which has moved from a neutral stance established in March back into active collaboration with the United States. The United States used the Turkish shift to create a massive coalition against Syria along most of its borders. With the Israelis, Turks and Americans all arrayed along its frontiers, Damascus has no choice but to reconsider its strategy. The alternative is to assume that the United States will be unwilling to use its forces -- and those of Israel -- to compel regime change in Syria. The Syrians might believe that to be the case, but the risk of error is too great. It is useful to examine Syrian behavior more closely. The Iraq campaign ended with U.S. forces dueling Syrian forces along the Syria-Iraq border. Damascus, clearly surprised by the U.S. victory, seemed to shift their policies in April and May, suppressing some Palestinian and Islamist activity within the countryâs borders. Then, as the guerrilla war intensified over the summer, Syria seemed to reconsider. Officials clearly perceived American weakness in Iraq and concluded that so long as the guerrilla war continued, the United States would be exceedingly cautious in expanding the conflict. Indeed, during the six months of U.S. absorption with the guerrilla war, the Syrian perception solidified into the view that the United States was trapped in Iraq in a war it could neither win nor exit. Syria permitted Palestinian and Islamist activity to resume, discounting the U.S. threat. Thus, the United Statesâ failure to achieve its second strategic goal created a situation in which Syria drew judgments that were not warranted, since the United States had achieved the first goal. The United States was the dominant military power in the region; it simply wasnât perceived as militarily powerful. That perception was driven by the inability to stop the guerrillas. Therefore, the United States had to demonstrate that the guerrilla war did not weaken its ability to coerce its neighbors in the region. The United States appears to have decided to treat the guerrilla war as a military side show -- not insignificant, but certainly not militarily decisive. Given this, there is no reason for Washington to halt aggressive actions in the region to force change in behavior toward al Qaeda and associated groups. By doing this, the United States not only exploits the military advantage it has won, but also shifts back the psychological perception to something that more reasonably matches U.S. capabilities. Therefore, we expect to see more aggressive U.S. moves in the coming months. The situation facing the Syrians is a paradigm created by the U.S. strategy at this point: Washington is using a coalition of regional powers to put Syria in an untenable position. The Bush administration accepts the fact that the United States will be seen as collaborating with Israel -- under the valid theory that whatever the United States does, it will be seen as Israelâs collaborator and therefore might as well enjoy the benefits of collaboration. Finally, Washington is using the real threat of action to create a situation in which Damascus either must comply with Washingtonâs wishes or place a life-or- death bet that the United States will refrain from action. The Saudis at this point are not an issue for the United States, but Iran is. The United States is open to a deal with Iran, but the Iranian perception that the United States is desperate for a deal must be changed, from Washingtonâs point of view. Iran, like Syria, has perceived the U.S. position in Iraq as causing strategic paralysis for Washington. That has made closing the deal with Tehran impossible. Iranâs high expectations of what it would get from the deal kept rising as the sense of American vulnerability increased. Washingtonâs intent is clearly to change that perception and reconfigure the negotiation process. The test case will be Iranâs response to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on its nuclear weapons program. The United States is now trying to accept the guerrilla war as a semi-permanent feature of its occupation of Iraq. It is trying to restart its strategic engines in spite of that reality. From a strictly military point of view, there is no reason why this canât happen. From a strategic point of view, it is a logical necessity. From a domestic point of view, the administration must demonstrate that Iraq was a means toward an end and not an end in itself. It must return to the strategic principles that drove the invasion. Many things can go wrong with this strategy -- and they might. All strategies are vulnerable to reality, expected and unexpected. The Syrians might not buckle and the United States might not have the ability to coerce them. The Iranians might trigger a massive rising among the Shiites that the United States cannot control. The guerrillas might increase their operations and become strategically significant. And most important, something totally unexpected might happen. The United States decided to climb aboard the tiger when it invaded Iraq. That is not a bad strategy; the problem is there is no safe way to climb off the tiger. For six months, the U.S. response to the unexpected guerrilla war was to hang onto the tiger and hope he would fall asleep. Hasnât happened. Wonât happen. Being on the tigerâs back leaves the United States only one option: Ride the tiger. It is interesting to note the paradox in Rumsfeld. Having been perceived as an enormously aggressively strategist, he turned out to be remarkably passive in the face of unexpected countermoves. This has happened to many strategic planners: Effective in planning a war, they become ineffective in dealing with the unplanned and unexpected. The most dangerous point in a war comes when the unexpected happens and the old plan must be thrown away and a new one devised on the fly. Thatâs what happened in Iraq. The challenge facing the United States is defining a plan to deal with the unexpected and unwelcomed. If the United States succeeds in doing so -- and in a long war, it will have to do this over and over again -- it can succeed. If the United States behaves as France did in 1940 -- paralyzed by an opponent behaving unexpectedly -- the outcome can be grim. It is unclear whether the United States will succeed. The issue is not to deal with the guerrillas in Iraq, but to redefine the entire strategy of the war against al Qaeda -- to revive the link between the Iraq campaign and the effort to destroy the primary adversary. It appears to us that the United States now has begun to do that. However, it is unclear whether it will succeed. The first crisis of the war that began Sept. 11 is being addressed, but it is unclear whether it will be solved. Copyright Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Fair Use - Consider this article an arbitrary sample of the quality analysis you can receive from StratFor. Click the title to go to their site and see for yourself the breadth of content. Multiple levels of subscription are available. Posted by: .com 2003-10-19 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=20073 |