Summary: This is one of William Lind’s most important posts, and one of the most important of the 4500 hundred on the FM website. Please read it carefully. Our apathy and passivity are our foe’s greatest asset.
Numbers are the ultimate measure of the results from the first 17 years of our Long War. They give us bad news about our Long War.
“The Evolution of the Salafi-Jihadist Threat“
By Seth G. Jones, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 20 November 2018.
“Current and Future Challenges from the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and Other Groups.”
“Despite nearly two decades of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations, there are nearly four times as many Sunni Islamic militants today as there were on September 11, 2001. …Attack data indicates that there are still high levels of violence in Syria and Iraq from Salafi-jihadist groups, along with significant violence in such countries and regions as Yemen, the Sahel, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Somalia.”
“The $5.6 Trillion Price Tag of the Post-9/11 Wars“
Brown University’s Costs of War Project, 14 November 2018.
“The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post 9/11 war veterans.”
William Lind explains how these reports show the long-predicted failure of our Long War. He reminds us there is a better strategy, if we had the wit to use it.
Our Failing Strategy
By William S. Lind at Traditional Right.
16 December 2018.
Posted with his generous permission.
“How many more years and trillions of dollars will we waste doing more of what does not work?”
…So, the war of attrition waged largely from the air that is our chosen 4GW strategy has, in seventeen years, cost us almost $6 trillion (not billion) while multiplying our Islamic enemies fourfold. Can we see this as anything other than strategic failure on a grand scale?
This is how much of the world sees us.
The failure was easy to predict. If we consider strategy not only at the physical level but at Col. John Boyd’s mental and moral levels, a war of attrition in which we remain largely untouchable, high above the clouds, could only work to rally young men everywhere to join whomever we are fighting. Of course the number of our enemies has grown; we have spent nearly $6 trillion recruiting them. Every time an American drone hovers ahead, every time we launch an airstrike, every time we flaunt our wealth and power as we bomb people who are poor and weak, we recruit more 4GW enemies. We nourish and feed the hydra, then wring our hands as it grows more heads.
What might we do instead? What alternative strategies should we consider? {The CSIS study mentions} one alternative …
“An important – perhaps the most important – component of Western policy should be helping regimes that are facing terrorism improve governance and deal more effectively with economic, sectarian, and other grievances that have been manipulated by Salafi-jihadist groups.”
That won’t work either. Just as our military fights wars of attrition because that is all it knows how to do, so our foreign policy establishment remains trapped in the ruins of Wilsonianism, the wholly unrealistic belief that we can instruct other people on how to run their countries and cultures. We can tell them, but they are not going to listen, in part for the good reason that we are likely to be wrong. Our policy elites’ understanding of how other societies work is both shallow and warped by ‘Globalist’ ideology. Outside Washington, almost everybody has figured that out, so no one listens to them.
There is an alternative strategy I think might work, or at least work better than recruiting more enemies. It has two components. The first is tight border security, far tighter than anything President Trump is planning, tight enough to keep all varieties of 4GW fighters from entering (we will still face the home-grown variety, who in the long run will be more dangerous).
The second component is invisibility. Since what we are doing now feeds hydra, stop it. Stop all overt actions around the world. Bring the troops, planes, drones, and ships home. Disappear, and thus take away our enemies’ main recruiting tool. No longer will Somalis or Yemenis or Libyans or Syrians live with the constant hum of American drones overhead, waiting for the Hellfire missile in the night. There may still be drones, but they will not be American drones. They will have to fight someone else.
And that will be just what we want them to do. It’s the old strategy of ‘use barbarians to fight barbarians.’ Sunni jihadis have a lot of enemies besides us: Shiites, Alawites, Hindus, other Sunnis, other tribes, etc. ad infinitum. Removing our overt presence will remove a unifying factor and encourage them to fight each other. Covertly, there will be ways for us to ramp up that fighting – and we should. In some cases, we may even be able to make money doing it. Have we no Sir Basil Zaharoff?
Chosen as a strategy, inaction can be a form of action, one with far less blowback that our current failing strategy has generated – and far less expensive. How many more years and trillions will we waste doing more of what does not work?
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Editor’s afterword
See an explanation of what we’re doing now: What is America’s geopolitical strategy? Spoiler: it’s quite mad.
Lind advocates a defensive strategy for America, much as Fabius Maximus did for Rome during its war with Carthage. See his “Strategic Defense Initiative”! I have done the same. See my most recent version: Let’s try a defensive strategy in America’s wars, and win.
Our current policy works for our elites, at the cost of America’s wealth and the blood of our most patriotic young men. We change course and win. Our apathy and passivity are our greatest foes. See these posts about using a defensive strategy to win.
- Why the West loses so many wars, and how we can learn to win — about the two kinds of insurgencies (we’re fighting the kind we can’t win).
- The Cult of the offense returns: why we’re losing the long war, & how to win.
- Darwin explains the futility of killing insurgents. It makes them more effective.
- Will we repeat our mistakes in the Middle East & lose, or play defense & win? — Ignore the book. This tells you how to eat soup with a knife. That’s how to win playing defense.
- How I learned to stop worrying and love Fourth Generation War. We can win at this game. — Contrasting offense and defensive strategies.
- The key to playing defense: Militia is the ultimate defense against 4GW.
- Handicapping the clash of civilizations: bet on the West to win big.
About the author
William S. Lind is director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation. He has a Master’s Degree in History from Princeton University in 1971. He worked as a legislative aide for armed services for Senator Robert Taft, Jr., of Ohio from 1973 to 1976 and held a similar position with Senator Gary Hart of Colorado from 1977 to 1986. See his bio at Wikipedia.
Mr. Lind is author of the Maneuver Warfare Handbook
He’s perhaps best known for his articles about the long war, now published as On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009
- His posts at TraditionalRight.
- His articles about geopolitics at The American Conservative.
- His articles about transportation at The American Conservative.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
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- Our generals reveal why we lost in Afghanistan, and will continue to lose.
- Why does the US field the best soldiers but lose so often?
- Why the US military keeps losing wars.
- Why America Loses Every War It Starts.
- William Lind: why America’s foreign policy fails so often.
Essential reading to understand modern war
The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz
The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts
By Harlan Ullman (Naval Institute Press (2017).
“This book should be read by all practitioners and serious students of national security as the guide for avoiding failures and miscalculations in using American military power.”
— General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-1993) and 65th Secretary of State.
“Anatomy of Failure is part Von Clausewitz, part Tom Clancy, with personal insights by Harlan K. Ullman that brilliantly translate why the United States, the most powerful nation on earth, has so often fallen short of its objectives.”
— Michael Lord Dobbs, creator of the series “House of Cards.”
From the publisher …
“Why, since the end of World War II, has the United States either lost every war it started or failed in every military intervention it prosecuted? Harlan Ullman’s new book answers this most disturbing question, a question Americans would never think of even asking because this record of failure has been largely hidden in plain sight or forgotten with the passage of time.
“The most straightforward answer is that presidents and administrations have consistently failed to use sound strategic thinking and lacked sufficient knowledge or understanding of the circumstances prior to deciding whether or not to employ force.
“Making this case is an in-depth analysis of the records of presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama and Donald Trump in using force or starting wars. His recommended solutions begin with a ‘brains-based’ approach to sound strategic thinking to address one of the major causes of failure: the inexperience of too many of the nation’s commanders-in-chief. Ullman reinforces his argument through the use of autobiographical vignettes that provide a human dimension and insight into the reasons for failure, in some cases making public previously unknown history.
“The clarion call of Anatomy of Failure is that both a sound strategic framework and sufficient knowledge and understanding of the circumstance that may lead to using force are vital. Without them, failure is virtually guaranteed.”
