How to win the Long War

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Summary: Yesterday’s post explained why our Long War has produced so few gains at such a high cost in money and blood. It did not explain why our military — led by the best-educated officers in history — repeats the tactics that have failed in so many similar wars? This leads to a second question: after that problem is fixed, how do we win the Long War? Winning the Long War requires answers to both questions.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

The most plausible reason for our failure to learn, as so many have explained since 9/11, is that the leaders of our national security apparatus run it for the money. They run wars to keep the funds flowing and build the power of the Deep State. Victory is nice but optional. “War is the health of the state.“ That is as true today as when Randolph Bourne wrote those words in 1918.

Chuck Spinney (Wikipedia) is one of America’s top defense analysts. He sent me this summary of the core problem with our military today.

“Traditionally, the military–industrial–congressional complex (MICC), including the people who really counted in the Pentagon, preferred a Cold War to hot war. Hot wars send money to the Operations & Maintenance budget and readiness-related Procurement accounts (like spare parts and depot maintenance). In contrast, cold wars spend money on “future” threats to our existence. But the future is unknowable, so the threat construct introduces huge uncertainties — making it easy for defense advocates to inflate threats in order to justify all sorts of new bells and whistles.

“But the Cold War ended and the Soviet threat disappeared unexpectedly. That made “long wars” the focus — all low tempo operations and requiring few weapons and soldiers vis a vis major conventional wars like Vietnam or Korea. Another factor perpetuating the status quo is the increased privatization which really took off in Cheney’s last years. Before the privatization binge, the main players in the MICC focused on modernization, but now companies like Lockheed have major divisions that rake in money from contract services support in the readiness accounts, including privatizing fighting with mercenaries. In short, there is a growing political-economic constituency for the never-ending long war that is going on now.

“You want to see decay, just look at what is going on inside the Pentagon and try to parse the decisions and plans that are supporting the military budget (the PPBS).

“Moreover, the sudden end of the Cold War led to a spontaneous evolution of efforts to start a new one. These efforts were not centrally planned but represented the survival instincts of the MICC’s individual constituencies. These efforts can be seen in the NATO expansion that began under Clinton and continued through Obama, the demonization of Putin and Russia, the scuttling of the ABM treaty, the across the board nuclear modernization program that Obama acquiesced to into order to win approval of the New START treaty and win the Nobel Prize.

“These and other efforts are all now coming to fruition. Congress has just approved a $700 billion defense budget. The level of corruption and incompetence in the budgeting process exceeds anything I saw in my 33-year career by a wide margin. Experienced guys like Tom Christie and Pierre Sprey would agree with me on this point.

“To fix or reform the American military you have to unwind the MICC you have to understand the politics is about money — where it comes from and where it goes.

“George Kennan summed up the magnitude of the problem in 1987:”

“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”

— Cold War diplomat George Kennan (Wikipedia) in At a Century’s Ending: Reflections, 1982-1995.

How do we break the hold of money on DoD? All it takes is our willingness to act — and our work. The price is cheap, nowhere near “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Nowhere near the price paid by so many of our soldiers fighting our incompetently run Long War.Both sides want to win.

“Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.”

— Abba Ebban (Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs), 19 March 1967. Let’s not wait until then.

Breaking the hold of money on US grand strategy creates the opportunity to win the Long War. Then comes the hard work of winning.

First, stop listening to people whose advice has proven to be so wrong. As Martin van Creveld’s said in “On Counterinsurgency: How to triumph in the age of asymmetric warfare“ (a speech given at the Henry Jackson Society on 26 February 2008).

“When people ask about how we should study counterinsurgency, the first step should be to gather 95% of all the literature on the subject, put it aboard the Titanic and sink it. In fact, there is so much of it that if you put it aboard the Titanic the iceberg becomes unnecessary!

“The logical answer for why the materials on counterinsurgency are so inferior is that most of them were written by people who failed to achieve victory. Ninety-five percent of the literature is written by the losers, who in trying to justify their own actions, put the blame for their failure on others. Therefore, there is little reason to expect the literature to be any good. Indeed, the best thing to do with it is to put it away.”

Second, stop “repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results” (that’s insanity per an ancient insight of Alcoholics Anonymous, who know all about dysfunctionality). If we do not, eventually our foreign wars will go badly for us.

Third, admit that we do not have the best military in the world at fighting these “unconventional wars” (i.e., most wars of the post-WWII era). Our arrogance encourages us to intervene in fights that are none of our business, in which we have low odds of accomplishing anything.

Fourth, fight only where the stakes are high and we have reason to believe we can win. For details, see COIN, another example of our difficulty learning from history or experience.

Fifth, rely on methods that have worked for America in our past. Let’s try a defensive strategy in America’s wars, and win.

Last, and most important, understand we are the attackers in the Clash of Civilizations. When handicapping the clash, bet on the West to win big (we’re already winning in Saudi Arabia) — if we can avoid foolishly losing along the way. This is the key insight that can guide our geopolitical strategy — and win.