Commenter Pete Bingham raises some familiar points in his response to our post on the hidden costs of defeat.
I say "familiar" because they have been echoed by others on both the right and left, military and civilian.
The crux of his argument can be found in this proposition:
When in the course of events a military action is called for, I believe it should be short and as sharp as possible with a victory and exit strategy included in the plan. I don't believe we should ever engage in the long term military occupation of a land unless we are raising the American Flag over the soil.
There are two huge problems with this. The first, and by far the most obvious, is that by this argument the United States should have annexed Cuba, the Philippines, Korea, German, France, Belgium, Italy, Britain and Japan.
Because we engaged in long-term occupations in all of those places, yet withdrew our forces (for the most part) once civil government was restored. I'm all for waving the flag and I yield to none in my credentials as a hawk, but forcibly added a large chunk of Europe seems a bit much.
The second and more pertinent problem is that it is ultimately a self-defeating strategy. If the US is unwilling to fight a long war, all our potential opponents need do is persist. Is that not what happened in Vietnam?
He mentions China as a potential adversary we should be building our "readiness" up for. But China cannot be overrun in a year or even ten. Thus what kind of "readiness" would we have? How could we possibly prevail if the definition of victory is that it has to be swift and painless?
That is the problem with the quest for the "perfect war." It doesn't exist. It ignores the very real problem that the adversary won't cooperate.
Of all people, I should think a Vietnam veteran would understand this. The VC did not oblige us by fighting massive set-piece battles with armor and field artillery in the open. Instead they neutralized our advantages by using ambush and stealth.
It shouldn't be surprising that the Saddamites and Al Qaeda in Iraq did the same thing. The march on Baghdad was as crisp, clean and quick as one could ever ask. Indeed, it has gone down in the annals of military history as the most rapid advance ever.
The problem was the "exit strategy," and the fact that the enemy didn't cooperate. Funny, enemies rarely do.
Al Qaeda is on to this. If we were bound by the "Bingham Doctrine," we would be unable to retaliate against a rising tide of terrorist attacks. After all, what target in Afghanistan is worth nuking?
And if we were to level Mecca and Medina, how would that win "hearts and minds?" Once the deed was done, what other leverage would we have?
The current course of the war is far from satisfactory and the Bush Administration has done a miserable job of articulating our goals or building public support for them. The entire White House press office should have been fired long ago.
But the truth is that we have little choice but to prevail. Hearts and minds are being won in Iraq, and in great numbers.
None of this was according to plan, of course, but no plan survives first contact with the enemy. It's surprising how many military people seem to have forgotten that.
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