Friday, November 03, 2006
Would more troops on the ground have made a critical difference?
Just after 9/11 when the Administration was thinking big thoughts, I wrote a short paper entitled "A Rescue Mission to Afghanistan" It outlined what we should be doing in Afghanistan after our impending invasion. It was a plea for an intense and lengthy effort comparable to the assistance we offered Europe and Japan after World War II. In other writings at the time, I suggested that we should bring in at least 100,000 troops immediately. Of course, I did not know then that the Iraq invasion was in the offing and would make such a commitment to Afghanistan next to impossible.
However, now that we have the experience of the last few years, I wonder if the problems we set out to solve in Afghanistan and later Iraq were not so intractable that even a massive and much more competent effort would have been unlikely to yield the peace and development that we desired.
The problem is that we are foreigners in strange lands. While for a few people in Afghanistan and Iraq we represent a vision of a better world, for the vast majority we are simply outsiders who will be resented the longer we stay and the more ubiquitous our presence becomes. While on the one hand, more troops will be applauded if they improve security, resentment will also grow faster as the numbers of foreigners increases. There are bound to be people that we mistakenly kill or injure. There are bound to be other public relations nightmares involving locals and the troops; the more troops, the more incidents. There is bound to be corruption, and the more aid we give, the more corruption there will be. The nativists, whether "jihadist" or not, will find it easy to convince the majority that we are in their country for no good, and the more of us there are, and the more money we spend, the more convincing their argument.
The situation would be improved, if we could offer reliable security and development to the populations. We have shown that we can accomplish this for short periods in particular places. But when we move elsewhere, the security situation declines rapidly, particularly for those who have cooperated with Americans or other outsiders, or are seen to be too cooperative. When we leave, the development projects we have undertaken are frequently destroyed; the schools and hospitals are closed.
The only way out of this policy bind would be for the United States and its allies to occupy one or both countries with decisive forces on the order, for example, of 300,000 in Iraq. In this case, we and the Iraqis would have to know that this massive commitment is for the long haul, not just for a year or two. These forces must not pull punches or worry too much about collateral damage. Whether we bring in large police forces, much of the effort must be by our police and those arrested must be tried, sentenced and committed to prison by the occupiers. Half measures will not do. Countries can be successfully invaded and occupied and administered by outsiders. The British certainly showed that (although they had a particularly hard time with this model in Iraq and Afghanistan). But we are not about to do this in countries as large as we are faced with here. We do not have the capabilities any more and we do have a public that would back such an enterprise.
I am not trying to diffuse the responsibility of the Administration or the military for the errors they have made in the planning and execution of our efforts in these countries. But what I am saying is that it may have simply been a mistake to imagine that we could with feasible troop levels do anything like what we accomplished after World War II. We forget that Japan and Germany were much more modernized countries than we are dealing with in the Middle East. Both countries had had considerable experience with the modern institutions that the outsiders tried to impose on them. Their peoples felt that they had been defeated by the Allies. As such, they felt that the Allies had something like a natural right to rule them for a while. For these and other reasons their people were much more open to "reconstruction" in every sense of the word than the Afghanis or Iraqis could be.
I hope we have learned some valuable lessons, that we will be a little less expansive in our plans to unilaterally reconstruct the world in the future.
However, now that we have the experience of the last few years, I wonder if the problems we set out to solve in Afghanistan and later Iraq were not so intractable that even a massive and much more competent effort would have been unlikely to yield the peace and development that we desired.
The problem is that we are foreigners in strange lands. While for a few people in Afghanistan and Iraq we represent a vision of a better world, for the vast majority we are simply outsiders who will be resented the longer we stay and the more ubiquitous our presence becomes. While on the one hand, more troops will be applauded if they improve security, resentment will also grow faster as the numbers of foreigners increases. There are bound to be people that we mistakenly kill or injure. There are bound to be other public relations nightmares involving locals and the troops; the more troops, the more incidents. There is bound to be corruption, and the more aid we give, the more corruption there will be. The nativists, whether "jihadist" or not, will find it easy to convince the majority that we are in their country for no good, and the more of us there are, and the more money we spend, the more convincing their argument.
The situation would be improved, if we could offer reliable security and development to the populations. We have shown that we can accomplish this for short periods in particular places. But when we move elsewhere, the security situation declines rapidly, particularly for those who have cooperated with Americans or other outsiders, or are seen to be too cooperative. When we leave, the development projects we have undertaken are frequently destroyed; the schools and hospitals are closed.
The only way out of this policy bind would be for the United States and its allies to occupy one or both countries with decisive forces on the order, for example, of 300,000 in Iraq. In this case, we and the Iraqis would have to know that this massive commitment is for the long haul, not just for a year or two. These forces must not pull punches or worry too much about collateral damage. Whether we bring in large police forces, much of the effort must be by our police and those arrested must be tried, sentenced and committed to prison by the occupiers. Half measures will not do. Countries can be successfully invaded and occupied and administered by outsiders. The British certainly showed that (although they had a particularly hard time with this model in Iraq and Afghanistan). But we are not about to do this in countries as large as we are faced with here. We do not have the capabilities any more and we do have a public that would back such an enterprise.
I am not trying to diffuse the responsibility of the Administration or the military for the errors they have made in the planning and execution of our efforts in these countries. But what I am saying is that it may have simply been a mistake to imagine that we could with feasible troop levels do anything like what we accomplished after World War II. We forget that Japan and Germany were much more modernized countries than we are dealing with in the Middle East. Both countries had had considerable experience with the modern institutions that the outsiders tried to impose on them. Their peoples felt that they had been defeated by the Allies. As such, they felt that the Allies had something like a natural right to rule them for a while. For these and other reasons their people were much more open to "reconstruction" in every sense of the word than the Afghanis or Iraqis could be.
I hope we have learned some valuable lessons, that we will be a little less expansive in our plans to unilaterally reconstruct the world in the future.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
How to Leave Iraq
We left Vietnam when we realized that we had no viable theory of victory. We no longer have any viable theory of victory in Iraq. As this sinks in, we will leave. If we are leaving, the sooner we leave, the less costly for everyone. But whenever we leave, the costs for Iraqis will continue long afterwards.
Unfortunately, those who have decided that we should leave Iraq are confused as to how to get out. I suggest they should begin by agreeing on the following principles: (1) Coalition forces will be completely out of Iraq in two years. (2) Our goal in exiting will be to reduce Iraqi and coalition casualties in so far as possible, and as soon as possible.
To devise a strategy that accords with these principles, we need to first recognize that most killing is now the result of fights among ethnic groups and sects and of coalition and government efforts to controls these fights. Most violence is taking place in mixed communities or along the boundaries of areas inhabited by different communities. Relatively few deaths occur outside these areas. The best strategic alternatives will recognize this fact.
Several "wars" are taking place in Iraq. The first is between Iraqi nationalists and Jihadists fighting coalition forces. When coalition forces leave, this war will be over. The second is between Iraqi nationalists, Jihadists and several militias fighting untrusted government forces who are regarded as representatives either of other sects and ethnic groups or as foreign puppets. When coalition forces leave, the intensity of this struggle will lessen. The third war is between Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds and militias associated with these groups. When coalition forces leave, without careful preparation this war could well gain in intensity, particularly in those regions, such as Baghdad and Mosul, where people of different communities still live intermixed with one another. In such areas, the grassroots Iraqi answer today is for families to move into areas dominated by their own ethnic or religious group, or to flee the country entirely. A second answer has been for people in unmixed communities to rely on coalition forces or their own militias for defense rather than on untrusted government forces.
This suggests that our best chance to stabilize the lives of ordinary Iraqis is to intensify the internal migration that is already underway. We should strive in the short-term for an Iraq in which nearly all people live in self-sustaining unmixed communities with clear if informal boundaries, and defended by their own militias. To supplement this effort, we should establish and fund for one year unmixed refugee camps for those people unable to settle immediately in existing unmixed communities. Coalition forces would temporarily guard the camps before turning them over to militias composed exclusively of members of the their own communities.
This alternative would require a new deployment of military and police forces. Coalition forces would concentrate their attention on guarding borders, major supply routes, and infrastructure. They would no longer conduct clearing operations elsewhere in areas exclusively controlled by one or another community. Government forces would be used primarily to strengthen this deployment. They would later take over these tasks as coalition troops leave. Militias would be given the task of defending the communities with which they are identified. In some cases, they might even be given additional arms and training to accomplish this task.
This alternative would have its own costs and casualties, but American and Iraqi costs over the next few years should be far less than those of "staying" the present course.
Unfortunately, those who have decided that we should leave Iraq are confused as to how to get out. I suggest they should begin by agreeing on the following principles: (1) Coalition forces will be completely out of Iraq in two years. (2) Our goal in exiting will be to reduce Iraqi and coalition casualties in so far as possible, and as soon as possible.
To devise a strategy that accords with these principles, we need to first recognize that most killing is now the result of fights among ethnic groups and sects and of coalition and government efforts to controls these fights. Most violence is taking place in mixed communities or along the boundaries of areas inhabited by different communities. Relatively few deaths occur outside these areas. The best strategic alternatives will recognize this fact.
Several "wars" are taking place in Iraq. The first is between Iraqi nationalists and Jihadists fighting coalition forces. When coalition forces leave, this war will be over. The second is between Iraqi nationalists, Jihadists and several militias fighting untrusted government forces who are regarded as representatives either of other sects and ethnic groups or as foreign puppets. When coalition forces leave, the intensity of this struggle will lessen. The third war is between Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds and militias associated with these groups. When coalition forces leave, without careful preparation this war could well gain in intensity, particularly in those regions, such as Baghdad and Mosul, where people of different communities still live intermixed with one another. In such areas, the grassroots Iraqi answer today is for families to move into areas dominated by their own ethnic or religious group, or to flee the country entirely. A second answer has been for people in unmixed communities to rely on coalition forces or their own militias for defense rather than on untrusted government forces.
This suggests that our best chance to stabilize the lives of ordinary Iraqis is to intensify the internal migration that is already underway. We should strive in the short-term for an Iraq in which nearly all people live in self-sustaining unmixed communities with clear if informal boundaries, and defended by their own militias. To supplement this effort, we should establish and fund for one year unmixed refugee camps for those people unable to settle immediately in existing unmixed communities. Coalition forces would temporarily guard the camps before turning them over to militias composed exclusively of members of the their own communities.
This alternative would require a new deployment of military and police forces. Coalition forces would concentrate their attention on guarding borders, major supply routes, and infrastructure. They would no longer conduct clearing operations elsewhere in areas exclusively controlled by one or another community. Government forces would be used primarily to strengthen this deployment. They would later take over these tasks as coalition troops leave. Militias would be given the task of defending the communities with which they are identified. In some cases, they might even be given additional arms and training to accomplish this task.
This alternative would have its own costs and casualties, but American and Iraqi costs over the next few years should be far less than those of "staying" the present course.
