Summary: William Lind cheers the most expansive interpretation of Trump’s remarks about Syria and Afghanistan, Unfortunately he has little support among our elites and less than decisive support among the American public. We have not yet learned the lessons of 4GW. Unless Trump acts decisively, we will have another decade or two of futile war to teach us the lessons we have so far failed to learn.
Hurrah for the President!
By William S. Lind at Traditional Right, 4 January 2019.
Posted with his generous permission.
Finally, President Trump is doing what he was elected to do, namely ending our involvement in wars halfway around the world in which we have no interests at stake. President Trump was elected as a peace president. He promised to bring the boys home. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, was neo-lib/neo-con interventionist. He won, she lost.
Mr. Trump won not because he is a liberal peacenik who appealed to the Left. His constituency was and remains the Heartland Americans whose sons do the fighting and dying in these wars. They do not understand why we are involved in the conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq and Syria, and neither do I. They know why we went to Afghanistan after 9/11, but not why we are still fighting there seventeen years later. Again, neither do I, although I understand that military incompetence at the senior levels has something to do with it. The Washington Establishment has careers and budgets at stake, so of course it wants wars to continue. That’s not much of an argument in the rest of the country.
Editor’s note: That is only somewhat true.
- Gallup: “Half of Americans Approve of Strikes on Syria“. Politico poll: “Majority supports Syrian airstrikes.” Both April 2018. Americans love bombing people who cannot strike back
- A July poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 57% of Americans overall favored using U.S. troops “to fight against violent Islamic extremist groups in Iraq and Syria.” Support for U.S. troop actions in Syria was highest among Trump’s fellow Republicans at 69% vs. 54% of Democrats.
- The Daily Beast reports that “Trump Wanted Out of Syria Immediately. Now U.S. Says ‘No Timeline’ to Leave.“
- The Hill: “Senate poised to rebut Trump on Syria.“, 4 January.
- As for Afghanistan, we can only guess what Trump plans to do.
The President’s decisions to get out of Syria and Afghanistan are not only wise but necessary. In Syria, if we stay much longer, we will have to choose sides between the Kurds and the Turks. Turkey is going to go after the Syrian Kurds militarily, whether we like it or not. If we side with the Kurds we will find ourselves in the inconvenient situation of going to war with a member of NATO. We will also lose, simply because of geography: the conflict would be on Turkey’s border with Syria, where our logistics lines can only support a small American force. If we side with the Turks or try to remain neutral, we would lose our only local ally who can actually fight. At that point our forces in Syria would be surrounded by lots of enemies with no one to help. As President Trump would say, “Not good.” So we need to get out, now.
In Afghanistan, our position is deteriorating at an ever more rapid clip. President Trump is trying to negotiate with the Taliban for the only possible outcome that is not a catastrophe, an orderly and safe exit of our forces. The alternative is a sauve qui peut {panicked} rout where our losses could be serious. Just ask the Brits.
Editor’s note: for those that doubt Lind’s grim assessment, see the 41st Quarterly Report of 30 October 2018 of the Special Inspector General for the Afghanistan Reconstruction. These reports are a continuous record of increasing failure. Trump. of course, does not want us to have this information.
The Establishment is running in circles, screaming and shouting.{Ed. note: see this.} It’s fun to watch. Their latest cause for panic is Secretary Jim Mattis’s resignation. Frankly, there is little reason to regret his departure.
I know General Mattis only slightly. We had one meeting when he commanded the “Marine Corps University” at Quantico. (As Universities go, it has more in common with McDonald’s Hamburger U than with Harvard.) No actions resulted from that meeting.
Mattis is unquestionably well-read, and I had great hopes for him as SecDef. But he proved to be no better than his less well-read predecessors. He did nothing to reform either the services or the Pentagon itself. He promoted the strategic idiocy of turning away from preparing for Fourth Generation wars, the wars of the future, and instead making Russia and China our enemies of choice. Does he not know that both are nuclear powers? Is he unaware of why both the U.S. and the Soviet Union avoided direct engagements with each other’s forces throughout the Cold War, namely that whichever side were losing would feel immense pressure to go nuclear? The Pentagon likes such a “strategy” because “peer competitors” justify vast budgets and programs, but the Secretary of Defense is supposed to represent the real world. Mattis failed to do so.
Secretary Mattis began one initiative that deserves to continue after his departure. Called the “Close Combat Lethality Task Force” (CCLTF), its purpose is to provide more resources and better training for the men who do most of the dying, the infantry. They get a pittance of the resources devoted to, for example, tac air. The CCLTF aims to change that, and it would be a pity if it died because its sponsor was gone. The current concept for the CCLTF has some weakness, which I will address in a future column. But the need for it is real.
So hurrah for the president! He is ending stupid wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, trying to mend fences with North Korea and wants a good relationship with Russia. All those initiatives are very much in America’s interest. Could that be why the Washington Establishment hates him so bitterly?
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Editor’s afterword
Understanding our Long War requires knowledge of America’s geopolitical strategy? Spoiler: it’s quite mad. No technological or economic power can offset a mad grand strategy.
Lind advocates an alternative strategy for America, one focused on defense – much as Fabius Maximus did for Rome during its war with Carthage. See his “Strategic Defense Initiative”! It makes the same points as I have so many times. Most recently in Let’s try a defensive strategy in America’s wars, and win.
Our current strategy – and its foreign wars – works well for our elites, at the cost of America’s wealth and the blood of our most patriotic young men. Our apathy and passivity are our greatest foes. preventing us from changing course and winning.See these posts.
- 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.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about military strategy in theory & practice, about William Lind’s work, about our long war, about Syria, about Afghanistan, and especially these…
- Peter van Buren asks what the Middle East would look like if we hadn’t helped.
- Trump says the truth about our wars. Do Not Listen!
- Secrets about our attack on Syria & Russia to help jihadists.
- Big news about Syria. It’s news for proles! – “Trump agrees to an indefinite military effort.” WaPo on 6 September 2018.
- Trump protects al Qaeda in Syria. The Resistance applauds.
- Syrians don’t own Syria. It’s everyone’s, a devil’s playground. – By anthropologist Maximilian Forte.
- Washington spews lies at us about Syria while madness reigns.
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.”
