In Defense of Devastation

There are quite a few of us warbloggers who have put forth various arguments on devastation vs. negotiation. In fact, I have written a couple of times on this, and have heretofore been on the side of negotiation. I won’t get into why in depth here, suffice it to say you can read my earlier blogs, or you can just put me into the camp that thinks that if there is a chance to bring about the required or desired end, and it doesn’t involve killing a lot of people, I’m for negotiation.
I may be ready to switch sides, and I will base my switch on the seven simple words in the sentence above, “bring about the required or desired end”. It seems to me that there are times when simply capturing a land area, or killing a leader, or crushing an opponent’s army, is not enough. The desired end is not always just to win a war; sometimes it also needs to be such an overwhelming victory as to bring about a change in a fundamental belief within the culture, the persona, the very being of the enemy’s society.
There are, of course, very good examples of this type of victory; from Alexander the Great thru WWII and on to Vietnam. In Alexander’s time, he so thoroughly devastated his opponents armies that they often switched sides, and legions of previously conquered soldiers became some of his most loyal fighters. In WWII, both German and Japanese citizens who had believed in the infallibility of their leaders were shown how utterly facetious that belief was when they were subjected to firestorms and nuclear weapons and defeat after defeat after defeat. By the time the Allies were at the gates of Berlin, or nearing Tokyo harbor, the average German or Japanese citizen no longer believed that they were on the cusp of a thousand year reich, or that their leader was a demi-god and infallible.
Today we would view most of what was done to bring about such fundamental societal changes as excessive, even barbaric. The Smithsonian, in 1995, preparing to display the forward portion of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, found itself embroiled in a controversy when it tried to walk a fine line between celebrating the subjective fact that the Enola Gay’s historic mission likely saved hundreds of thousands of lives, both American and Japanese, and the more fundamental and objective loss of up to 200,000 lives in a matter of seconds. It is perhaps the utmost in revisionist history that most recently there have been many authors who forward the idea that Japan was on the brink of surrender just prior to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If they were, they don’t seem to have gotten that point effectively to anyone on the US side, and it is inconceivable that they didn’t understand that any attempts at negotiating a peace would have to be done with the Americans, and that the war would continue during such negotiations. Whether the US would have negotiated is another matter, although I find it completely without merit the idea that President Truman would have dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan if they had clearly stated their intent to surrender peacefully and fully. But as near as the record shows, there was no attempt on the part of the Japanese to surrender. In fact, it took three days and another atomic bomb on Nagasaki to get the Japanese to acknowledge that the devastation of Hiroshima heralded the end of the war and the end of their emperor’s divine rule.
In the military, there are two terms that might be useful to this discussion, though they aren’t usually applied, as I will here. The first term is Area of Operations, the second is Area of Interest. The Area of Operations is loosely defined as that area in which a commander has the authority to conduct military operations. The Area of Interest is that area from which information and intelligence are required to execute successful tactical (and strategic) operations. The definitions are quite clear when used to define battlefield operations, and all good staff officers understand where their commander’s Area of Operations are (and these are usually hard defined, with lines, on a map) and where their commander has said his Area of Interest is (less hard defined, but usually clearly stated).
A commander can conduct military operations as he sees fit in his area of operations, but cannot conduct military operations outside of that area without prior coordination with his higher headquarters. But he will still be interested in what’s happening to his front, his rear, and his two flanks, since those areas are where attacks are likely to come from. That is why he has interest in those areas.
These terms as usually applied refer mostly to geographic areas, though an Area of Interest can include electromagnetic spectrum, weather, and other less geographically defined “areas”.
I would like to modify the Area of Interest to include as well, the psychological makeup of the population (I don’t want to use the term civilian populace because I am intentionally including those military and militia types who hide among the civilians.) This is a very tricky, and oftentimes avoided, area. How the population reacts to your operations is taken into account in all battle plans, though like most battle plans, it is never with 100% surety. But it is clear that how the population reacts is clearly an area of interest to a commander. He may not have the authority to conduct operations in that “area”, i.e., he cannot step on the State Department’s toes, and he may be hindered in that area simply because he doesn’t have the equipment or personnel or training to work in that area. But how the population reacts is clearly within a commander’s Area of Interest.
So how does one conduct operations that encompass this additional area of interest, the enemy population’s psychological makeup? The spectrum goes from conduction Special Ops types of operations, commonly referred to as “winning the hearts and minds”, all the way to, how shall we put it, Hiroshima type operations, where one’s intent is to so completely devastate the population as to preclude a military response.
We are able to provide both with our military, though the latter is much easier to do than the former. So why choose the former? I’ve pointed out in my earlier posts that this is preferable some of the time when you don’t want to hurt the infrastructure, or you are still trying to win the hearts and minds. One of the last considerations should be the problem of civilian (here used to mean true civilians) casualties, because as shown in WWII, often an increase in civilian casualties of an unexpected and devastating nature can led to fewer civilian casualties and military casualties later on.
So when do you move down the scale from SpecOps to nukes, and how far do you go down the scale?
Clearly, as in the case of Fallujah and Najaf and a few other enclaves of al Sadr and Baathist and islamists holdouts, we need to move down the scale. We are already past the SpecOps, into the small battles that we hoped would move the enemy to negotiation. The enemy did offer to negotiate, but it wasn’t in good faith, as we are getting mostly old and unusable weapons being turned in (one of our demands in the negotiations for a cessation of hostilities.) One good thing that has come of the current cease-fire is that quite a bit of the true civilian population in these towns has seen fit to leave the towns. That will give our commanders more flexibility in choosing the level of operations should they decide to renew the offense.
Now, finally, comes the defense of devastation.
I believe that we are at the point in time, in space, in history, where we need another military victory that changes the very heart of the populace. This is a hard choice in this war, because we have always maintained that the Iraqi people are not our enemy, and we are still valiantly trying to hold onto that belief. It’s a little harder every day, and more so on some days than others, like when Americans are killed, burned, and mutilated to cheering crowds of Fallujans.
But the time has come to measure the heart of the Iraqis, and find what is missing. We cannot easily gauge why they have not picked up the torch of freedom and carried it into the darkest festering recesses of their nation. But we cannot carry that torch for them, if we are still worried that they will try to kill us when our backs are turned, and will then hand that freedom over to the nearest islamic cleric.
Do we dare believe that such a tactic as devastation will work? How much devastation is the right amount? Will Baghdad rally to the cause if we devastate Najaf and Fallujah? What are the historic precedents in the Arab world that would lead us to a better understanding of what we need to do?
These are all good questions, and the only answers I have right now all have to do with Israel. No matter how faulty those examples may be, they represent the best we have.
Do we dare believe that devastation will work on an arab populace? So far, it has. When Israel became a reality, all the arab nations vowed to destroy it as a state, destroy it’s people, and leave nothing but Palestine in it’s place. Several wars later, that victory cry has turned to a few peace agreements, and a fairly stable set of borders with very little military threats evolving in the last thirty years. But these peace agreements and stable borders were achieved through war, not UN negotiations. And even then, the wars did not stabilize the borders until they were devastatingly clear wars that brought home how poorly the arab nations armies were on the battlefield. Even the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which was not as one-sided as the 1967 Six Day War, resulted in huge, yes devastating losses for the arabs. It was this final devastation that pushed Jordan and Egypt to the negotiating table, and moved Syria and Iraq to relinquish all hope of a military victory over Israel. So it looks to me like devastation is workable as a means to change arab populace thinking.
What is the right level of devastation? This is tricky, and I’ve no good examples here. Israel didn’t have to go nuclear in 1973 though it could have, so even they recognize that there is some upper bound to the usability of devastation. We are not anywhere near that upper bound now though in Iraq, so I’m all for moving towards that bound at least a little more.
Will we ignite the arab street? So far, I’ve no reason to even believe there is an arab street. The arabs have always distrusted each other almost as much as they distrust non-arabs, and their level of support seems to be closely related to their belief in an arab victory. So a quick, clearly devastating operation by the US military is likely to keep the much ballyhooed, but still unseen, arab street quiet.
So where to from here? I would say end the negotiations, make it clear that there will be retaliations for the killings of US military and civilians, that such retaliations will not be in-kind, but instead, clearly overwhelming and severe.
We must break a long-standing and well-entrenched myth among the arab populace that all westerners represent evil, that all muslims are their natural allies, and all clerics are to be followed blindly because they represent their best chance at a fulfilling life for them and their family.
Let the devastation begin, and may the thousands we save in the end be worth it.

Comments

[ableiter]

Interesting article. I have a wee problem though. I think it is to late, that for political purposes we have already lost the battle of Fallujah. I say so because the Arab media is already portraying it as a valiant last stand. So what is being produced in Fallujah is an Arab version of the Alamo. With the USMC playing the part of the Mexicans. When fighting guerrillas, it is the leadership that is important. Small unit actions based on hit and run tactics require outstanding leadership by the guerrillas. So killing or capturing guerrilla leaders becomes important, even critical. While new leaders will emerge, they will not be as formidable as the old ones. In the case of technical jobs, such as carbomb making and IED's, there is a learning curve. If the Marines had been allowed to go in and finish the guerrillas in the first few days, then we would have had a victory, or even more importantly, denied the guerrillas their victory. By screwing around with a truce this opportunity has been missed. And there is a long history of Arabs using truces and negoiations as a cover for treachery designed to either let them escape or win outright. Look at the crusades or to be more current, what happened in pakistan last month. While we were negoiating, the guerrillas were finding a way out of the trap. Once they got their C&C staff and technicans out, they went back to fighting. The West in general is still clueless as to the nature of our opponent. They want nothing less then our destruction. They will never surrender, unless they can advance their cause (our destruction) by doing so. As far as hearts and minds goes, please name the last muajhdeen that converted from Islam. Or one of the gito-mo detainees that is now a Mormon, Buddahist, or Baptist. Until that happens, we are left with killing them as the ONLY way to affect their behavior. Anything else is wishfuil thinking. BTW, I think that the number of guerrilla fighters in Fallujha is closer to 20,000 then a few hundred. Figure the original population was 200,000 and that was swollen to about 300,000 by sunni refugees from Baghdad. Polls show 71% are anti-american. that is about 210,000. Figure that 10% will actually take up arms against us. We have killed a couple of thousan or so. That is where I get my number from. Where did the Military get theirs? Did Ike's S-2 come out of retirement? Or maybe Mac Arthur's intell guy, the one who said there were a 'handful' of chinese across the Yula. While Iraq is NOT Vietnam, the media and our enemies are working very hard to turn it into another Vietnam. It lifts the hair on the back of my head to see the US Military command structure co-operating in that effort.