War casualties, counterinsurgency and the stab-in-the-back excuse

I've commented before on the notion, deeply ingrained among our foreign policy and military "elite", that the American public has a low tolerance for casualties in war. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world in which our Serious Foreign Policy Experts sometimes live, this is taken to be a bad thing and a weakness. Why any damn fool would be indifferent to casualties incurred in war is very hard for me to even imagine.

But it's also not true in the sense that the conventional wisdom of the "experts" holds it. The American public is perfectly capable of distinguishing between a necessary war along with the casualties it involves and a war that is unnecessary with the unnecessary casualties that are part of it. (The ability of a dishonest and irresponsible administration to stampede the country into a war initially is a separate issue.)

But this notion is amazingly resilient among people who one might think would take a more critical look at it. For instance, Beyond Iraq: The Lessons of a Hard Place by Anton Smith with Conrad Crane (US Army Center for Strategic Leadership Student Issue Paper) July 2007:

As illustrated by French knights' resistance to the British introduction of the longbow in 1346, or the British befuddlement when confronted by colonial snipers during the American Revolution, advantage accrues to the creative. Innovation can shift the odds of victory. Low-tech approaches can threaten high-tech yet doctrinaire capabilities, the very deployment of which is delicately balanced on fragile political will and low tolerance for casualties in the U.S. Military superiority relegates conventional force-on-force conflict to the past, and today’s strategic leaders must recognize the vulnerability created by power that shifts our opponents' targeting to the civil society our military is designed to protect. Eisenhower's warning has come true. The juggernaut of our defense bureaucracy and the attendant industrial complex is animated by factors that have become obsolete. (my emphasis)

Let's give Smith and Crane credit for creativity here. This is the first time I've ever seen Eisenhower's famous warning about militarism in the form of the military-industrial complex in support of the notion that the American public is just too dang weak-kneed and cowardly to support the glorious wars our Serious Experts dream up for American soldiers to fight.

Later on, he says that Muslim terrorists groups "now target the West, taking aim at the will of the population, nibbling away at public confidence."

Smith and Crane make some good points, like about the blowback we've experienced from assisting the brave mujaheddin freedom fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets. That would be the mujaheddin freedom fighters of the kind that we know call The Terrorists who Bush repeatedly reminds us hate us for our values and want to kill us all in our beds or whatever.

But the more valuable ideas like that are heavily mixed in with more dubious notions about the nature of transnational terrorism and this flawed notion about the gutless American public and highly dubious clash-of-civilizations ideas. They even rely on the theory of nations from Catholic mystic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, which kind of boggles my mind to see. Although it's not surprising that the way they use it doesn't make much sense.

They also rely on the mystical theology of economist Milton Friedman on the magic power of the Free Market. In their view, the occupation authorities didn't apply enough free-market shock therapy to Iraq in the first year or so. Teilhard's mystical notions look like rock-solid pragmatism next to such a fanciful view.

The synopsis of the article on the Army War College Web site is misleading:

The war in Iraq is revealing the weakness of a U.S. foreign policy focused disproportionately on conventional military power and unilateral action. Current policy overlooks the ways in which a global jihadist insurgency is undercutting the modern states system. Understanding cultural and historical differences between the West and the rest of the world, as well as the primacy of economic development over political process is critical to ensuring U.S. interests are advanced. Alliances with and mechanisms for support of regional states are essential to safeguard the current order. Rebalancing our focus on the instruments of national power – with particular attention to diplomacy and economic development – will be key to the containment and shaping of inevitable instability in the Middle East.

That synopsis makes it sound like Smith and Crane are arguing against the expansionist, unilateralist thrust of the Bush Doctrine.

In fact, their argument provides a great example of what I've been saying about the notion of shifting American military forces to a greater counterinsurgency (COIN) capability. This is not a matter of predicting the challenges of some inevitable, immutable future. The mix of forces should be driven by a sensible foreign policy. Smith and Crane are arguing that wars like Iraq could be won if we just were less concerned about all this democracy and human rights crap and were willing to be more ruthless in applying faith-based free-market economic theories to the countries we conquer and occupy. (That seems to be what the synopsis-writer transmuted into "the primacy of economic development over political process".) For example:

As the National Security Strategy notes, many countries accumulating oil revenue suffer weak leadership. The problem is not so much in the transfer of power, through money, to these countries as it is distribution of that power within them. Saddam Hussein maintained a tighter grip on economic power than he did on political power. He did so by concentrating oil wealth in a single account under his control. Such power has a corrupting influence. Essentially, we left Saddam’s economic system intact for a weak and divided government to squabble over. We should not be surprised if the result is unfavorable. When faced with similar opportunities in the future, we should focus on establishment of capitalist, free-market systems that disperse power, and which complement the political and humanitarian goals we also wish to advance. Absent new exercises in preemption and regime change, economic reforms should remain at the very top of our national agenda in all international relationships, particularly in the Middle East. Strong and economically vibrant middle classes will do more to support our goals than all the military power we can muster. (my emphasis)

Now, is it wimpishness and cowardice that would make most people say, "What the [Cheney]?!?", when they see supposedly serious analysts referring to more situations like the Iraq War as "similar opportunities in the future"? Or is it simply curiosity and astonishment at their seeming disconnection from reality?

Similar opportunities in the future? Maybe what we need is a Tom Sawyer Fence Doctrine, in which we concentrate on conning other countries - preferably ones that we don't like very much - into pursuing such "similar opportunities" in our place.

But this idea of the American public being too reluctant to accept casualties in war is a key element of the already-developing "stab-in-the-back" arguments that are being used to exonerate Republican politicians, neoconservative ideologues and our infallible generals for the disaster known as the Iraq War. So the concept deserves the closest and most critical scrutiny when it pops up.

Tags: anton smith, beyond iraq the lessons of a hard place, conrad crame, counterinsurgency, iraq war, stab-in-the-back