25 September 2014
America's military strategy must start with measures to restore its credibility. Its reputation of leaving friends and allies midway in the battle is known
I had ended my column, published on September 20, by observing that until the Iraqi Army, Pesh Merga and allied forces can take on the Islamic State, the US needs “to formulate a military response that is demonstrably capable of crushing the IS.” I had then asked, “Will it be able to do it?”
Two things are involved here. The intrinsic merit of a military strategy is important in winning a battle or a war; a flawed one can bring defeat. One can recognise some strategies as flawed at first sight. But even seemingly impeccable ones can come unstuck in the battlefield. Recall how, during World War II, Hitler's Panzer divisions bypassed the Maginot line which the French thought was impregnable. The second is implementation. Battles are fought by men whose morale, intelligence, judgement, training, physical strength, courage and determination count enormously, as does, increasingly, their ability to handle sophisticated, computer-driven modern weapons and avoid rash, precipitate action. One reason why the Pakistanis were routed in the famous tank battle at Khem Karan during the 1965 India-Pakistan war, was their ineptitude in firing Paton tanks' guns and cavalier disregard of one of the basic principles of armoured warfare — that tanks have to be accompanied by infantry to protect them when they are stationary. They had just launched their tanks leaving infantry behind.
Morale, which is generally high when an Army is convinced of its ultimate victory, is a key determinant of its fighting ability and staying power in the teeth of overwhelming odds. A single battle is an episode in a war whose outcome is determined by the result of a number of battles. A couple of spectacular victories would not matter if a series of critical defeats follows. What counts in a war is a country's economic and industrial staying power and the determination to turn what seems an imminent defeat into victory. Example? Britain, pounded mercilessly by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz and threatened by an imminent German invasion, refused to surrender, and eventually played a critical role in Nazi Germany's final defeat.
A country's ability to sustain its morale though prolonged and severe adversity and turn defeat into victory depends to a very large extent on the credibility of its leaders their determination to see crises through. The feeling that they may abandon a conflict because of unwillingness to shoulder the burdens it imposes, will make an Army unwilling to fight. It will also deter countries from allying — at least wholeheartedly — with it in a war. An example is the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the war in Afghanistan had been far from won. As Ahmed Rashid states in Descent into Chaos: How the war against Islamic extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, “The US attack on Iraq was critical in convincing Musharraf that the United States was not serious about stabilising the region, and that it was safer for Pakistan to preserve its own national interest by clandestinely giving the Taliban refuge.”
Perhaps, the biggest problem before the US today is credibility. Even countries threatened by the IS hesitate to join Washington against it because they are not sure whether the Americans would not pull out if the going got tough. The first step in the Obama Administration's effort to cobbling up a military strategy will be finding a way to convince the middle-eastern Arab countries that it means business. Otherwise, they might participate in bombing, as some of them hit targets in Syria on Tuesday, but would balk at providing the kind of infantry and other support on the ground on which the US banks on winning the war against the IS without deploying substantial ground forces of its own.
No comments:
Post a Comment