Two Unwinnable Wars

February 12, 2008

Nicholas Berry

Analyzing how wars are won has taken a back seat to measuring the level of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, as if a mere downturn in violence is the key path to victory. Perhaps one reason for this is that any proper analysis would indicate neither war is winnable, at least by the United States. That Bush administration officials and military commanders are talking about both wars lasting into the indefinite future only confirms that winning them is more than illusive. It is impossible.

The formula for winning wars is actually rather simple.

Two outcomes are required:

First, the enemy has to stop fighting. It can do so a number of ways. The enemy can change sides, it can surrender, it can disappear via slaughter, it can leave the field of battle never to return, or it can lay down its arms and melt into the population for good.

Second, once fighting ceases, a non-enemy controlling authority must be established in the territory in question. This authority can be either foreign or indigenous, but it must be sufficiently unified and powerful to control the population. There has to be a stable end state that consolidates winning.

The winning of all wars throughout human history has followed these two outcomes. Achieving these outcomes, of course, is rarely easy. But they at least must be possible.

Why are both impossible for the United States (but not for indigenous forces)?

IRAQ
As long as the United States is the principal fighting force against the insurgents and their foreign allies, there is no way that these enemies will stop fighting.

Although some Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar Province have changed sides and now battle elements of Al-Qaeda in Iraq along side the United States, other Sunni leaders have not, especially in Mosul and Dyala and other provinces in the north and east. They see Americans on the side of the Shiite-led government and are battling to get the foreign forces out so that they can confront their Shiite opponents, at a minimum for a good political deal. And not all Shiite militias are allies of the United States. Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, despite occasional cease-fires, targets U.S. forces, as increasingly do Iranian backed militias around Basra. They also want to compel foreign forces to leave Iraq.

Surrender is also meaningless. The insurgents are not sufficiently organized and under a unified command to even have that option. In addition, their aims, which they consider entirely legitimate, are too precious to abandon when the costs that would compel surrender are not that great.

A Carthaginian Peace where the United States would slaughter or incarcerate every real or potential enemy cannot be implemented. Genocide could not be ordered because it would not be obeyed. Counterinsurgency doctrine calls for a force of over 350,000 to be able to police Iraq. This is not possible under current U.S. force levels. Nor is a dramatic increase in the Army and Marines politically viable. Current plans anticipate only a modest increase in Marine and Army recruitment.

The insurgents are Iraqis. Where would they go to leave the field of battle? Very few of the two million refugees who have fled to Iran and Syria were combatants. And why should the insurgents go when their aim is to gain or regain political power in their homeland?

Insurgents laying down arms and melting into the population are also not outcomes. Arms are kept for more reasons than to kill Americans. They are seen as security in conditions of sectarian violence and in the absence of a functioning police force. And they are the population, into which they are already melted.

As long as the fighting cannot be stopped under the occupation, it is moot that no single authority can control the population. In addition, enemies of the occupation infiltrate at will from Iran and Syria, using both countries as boosters, weapon suppliers, and training grounds. This further makes population control illusive.

Winning is not an option for the United States. Of course, losing is not an option either as long as the United States is willing to spend $15 billion a month and keep 150,000 troops on the ground. Gen. David Patraeus, backed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, recently indicated he favors holding steady troop levels in Iraq.

Maybe it would be best to let Iraqis win the war.

AFGHANISTAN

When analyzing the war in Afghanistan, there is a great deal of similarity with Iraq.

As long as the occupation persists, fighting is not going to stop.

The insurgent Taliban forces – almost exclusively Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country and eager to regain control – and bin Laden’s al-Qaeda fighters have absolutely no intention of changing sides. They want to bleed the U.S.-led occupation forces and force their withdrawal.

Why surrender when their war increasingly goes their way? In a report to Bush authored by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the first line made this clear. “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan.” Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week that, “We are seeing only mixed progress.” At the same hearing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed. “I would say that while we have been successful militarily, that the other aspects of development in Afghanistan have not proceeded as well.” One could question Gates’ contention about military success; 2007 saw more U.S. casualties than in any year since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban. But the “other aspects” he noted, namely political stability, have clearly deteriorated.

As with the Iraqi insurgents, America’s enemies blend with the population, and slaughtering them has both moral and practical impediments. The moral issue needs no explaining. The practical impediments are two: there are not enough occupation forces to do the job, and a good number of them don’t want to fight, especially those from Germany, France, and Italy; and there are adverse consequences from too much collateral damage in that the Afghan culture requires retribution. Evidently, the 43,000 foreign troops (30,000 under NATO including 14,000 from the U.S., and 13,000 U.S. troops under U.S. command) are insufficient for domestic control. Some 3,200 Marines will be sent as reinforcements this spring. According to the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, official American military counterinsurgency doctrine stipulates that more than 400,000 troops would be required in Afghanistan.



No one expects the Taliban to leave Afghanistan, except to train and R & R in the adjacent tribal areas of Pakistan that they control.

Virtually every male in Afghanistan is armed.

Combat has raged continuously in Afghanistan for 36 years, fed by foreign intervention – American, Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Iranian, and now by American again.

The fighting will not stop.

Nor has any government controlled the country. Afghanistan is a tribal society, where one’s tribe demands loyalty over nationality. Tribes exist within the main ethnic groups – Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara. Even without the foreign occupation, the social fragmentation of the country guarantees fighting over land, opium, religion, and office.

The current puppet government of Hamid Karzai only controls Kabul with the aid of foreign forces.

CONCLUSION
It is not a stretch to conclude that Iraq and Afghanistan are among the most impossible countries to be politically instituted by foreign forces. And creating a functioning state is what winning is, as defined by the Bush administration. Bush even goes further by adding the element of democracy to the governments he seeks in both. The traditional, divided, antagonistic, and parochial social fabric of Iraq and Afghanistan provides infertile ground for democracy. Whatever political construct finally emerges will only come once foreign forces leave.

Nicholas Berry is Director of Foreign Policy Forum