That Global War On Terror(TM): Why U.S. Raid In Syria Exposes Its Utter Failures
Indeed:
Striking Out in Syria
The US air strike against insurgents in Syria illustrates exactly what is wrong with how states fight terrorism.
by: Lionel Beehner
The US military carried out an aerial attack on Sunday against foreign insurgents holed up in Syria along the Iraqi border, US officials confirmed today. Although details of the operation remain vague, the attack reportedly killed eight civilians and drew condemnation across the Muslim world, from Damascus to Tehran. Similar bombings by US special forces have also been stepped up in recent weeks against al-Qaida and Taliban strongholds in northwest Pakistan.
Are such cross-border strikes wise policy, and should the next US president continue with them? The answer is no. Not only do such strikes violate state sovereignty - which also requires that states control their inhabitants - and end up killing civilians, but they are unproven to work, do nothing to address the socioeconomic conditions that invite terrorism and too often just turn local public opinion against us.
By now it is conventional wisdom that counterinsurgencies are not won by military force but by political means. Yet the bulk of US defence spending continues to go toward military operations, not governance or reconstruction programmes. No wonder much of the Middle East hates us. Its locals must be given security and protection first if their - pardon the cliché - hearts and minds are to be won over, similar to what we achieved in Anbar Province and the Brits achieved in Malaya many years back.
The US strike against Syria is the latest in a series of cross-border attacks against non-state actors and provides an indication of what many wars in the future will resemble. Like Turkey's conflict with the PKK, Colombia's attack against the Farc in Ecuador or Israel's skirmish with Hizbullah, these kinds of conflicts will be fought primarily in the unruly frontiers of countries and entail cross-border incursions by special forces or surgical air strikes, not major ground operations against population centres. These wars will be more limited in scope yet more frequent in number. The circumstances under which they will be fought will be murkier and the casus belli less clear. There will be no victory parades after the cessation of hostilities because it will be difficult to determine the victors (after all, who won the war between Israel and Hizbullah?).
And here's another stubborn truth the next US president must grapple with: The deck is stacked in favour of the non-state actor, not the state. That is because this kind of warfare is not waged over territory or ideology or religion, but is fought over hearts and minds - a public relations battle that cannot be measured in body counts. As the underdog, the non-state actor only has to stand up to Goliath, as it were, and its victory in the mind of the public is virtually sealed. "How war is perceived has as much importance as how it actually is fought," historian Daniel Pipes noted in the New York Sun in 2006. "The Clausewitzian centre of gravity has moved from the battlefield to the op-eds and talking heads."
Hizbullah emerged from its July 2006 war with Israel arguably stronger and more popular among average Lebanese than before. Most Kurds have no love lost for the PKK, which has waged a violent, decades-long campaign for greater Kurdish autonomy against Turkey, but Ankara's heavy-handed response to the PKK has only endeared the PKK to local Kurds. They are now seen as freedom fighters, not terrorists.
Does this kind of strategy limit war to the extent that states can accomplish their military objectives - wiping out terrorism - without losing the war of perception? History, unfortunately, shows it does not. The trouble is these raids are not forceful enough to dislodge the terrorist threat but just heavy-handed enough to turn local sympathies against the state. The outcome is a worst-of-both-worlds scenario: a prolonged conflict with local public opinion decidedly against the aggressor.
(Keep reading ...)
The US air strike against insurgents in Syria illustrates exactly what is wrong with how states fight terrorism.
by: Lionel Beehner
The US military carried out an aerial attack on Sunday against foreign insurgents holed up in Syria along the Iraqi border, US officials confirmed today. Although details of the operation remain vague, the attack reportedly killed eight civilians and drew condemnation across the Muslim world, from Damascus to Tehran. Similar bombings by US special forces have also been stepped up in recent weeks against al-Qaida and Taliban strongholds in northwest Pakistan.
Are such cross-border strikes wise policy, and should the next US president continue with them? The answer is no. Not only do such strikes violate state sovereignty - which also requires that states control their inhabitants - and end up killing civilians, but they are unproven to work, do nothing to address the socioeconomic conditions that invite terrorism and too often just turn local public opinion against us.
By now it is conventional wisdom that counterinsurgencies are not won by military force but by political means. Yet the bulk of US defence spending continues to go toward military operations, not governance or reconstruction programmes. No wonder much of the Middle East hates us. Its locals must be given security and protection first if their - pardon the cliché - hearts and minds are to be won over, similar to what we achieved in Anbar Province and the Brits achieved in Malaya many years back.
The US strike against Syria is the latest in a series of cross-border attacks against non-state actors and provides an indication of what many wars in the future will resemble. Like Turkey's conflict with the PKK, Colombia's attack against the Farc in Ecuador or Israel's skirmish with Hizbullah, these kinds of conflicts will be fought primarily in the unruly frontiers of countries and entail cross-border incursions by special forces or surgical air strikes, not major ground operations against population centres. These wars will be more limited in scope yet more frequent in number. The circumstances under which they will be fought will be murkier and the casus belli less clear. There will be no victory parades after the cessation of hostilities because it will be difficult to determine the victors (after all, who won the war between Israel and Hizbullah?).
And here's another stubborn truth the next US president must grapple with: The deck is stacked in favour of the non-state actor, not the state. That is because this kind of warfare is not waged over territory or ideology or religion, but is fought over hearts and minds - a public relations battle that cannot be measured in body counts. As the underdog, the non-state actor only has to stand up to Goliath, as it were, and its victory in the mind of the public is virtually sealed. "How war is perceived has as much importance as how it actually is fought," historian Daniel Pipes noted in the New York Sun in 2006. "The Clausewitzian centre of gravity has moved from the battlefield to the op-eds and talking heads."
Hizbullah emerged from its July 2006 war with Israel arguably stronger and more popular among average Lebanese than before. Most Kurds have no love lost for the PKK, which has waged a violent, decades-long campaign for greater Kurdish autonomy against Turkey, but Ankara's heavy-handed response to the PKK has only endeared the PKK to local Kurds. They are now seen as freedom fighters, not terrorists.
Does this kind of strategy limit war to the extent that states can accomplish their military objectives - wiping out terrorism - without losing the war of perception? History, unfortunately, shows it does not. The trouble is these raids are not forceful enough to dislodge the terrorist threat but just heavy-handed enough to turn local sympathies against the state. The outcome is a worst-of-both-worlds scenario: a prolonged conflict with local public opinion decidedly against the aggressor.
(Keep reading ...)
There's a reason it's called "The War of the Flea." The history of guerrilla warfare is both rich and fascinating. It's bewildering how the state actor tries to wage a military war while his opponent succeeds in fighting a political war. That's the lesson we're only beginning to comprehend in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested in this business, the latest and greatest digest of irregular warfare is the US military's new counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24, produced by a team headed by noneother than David Petraeus himself.
I haven't checked lately but you used to be able to get FM3-24 in PDF format free of charge on the web.
If you read it, you'll see that we're literally making every mistake in the book in Afghanistan.
FM 3-24 really doesn't hold anything new. It's a compendium of the wisdom of guerrilla warfare going back to the Romans and straight on through T.E. Lawrence, Che, and Giap.
This type of warfare really is as old as the hills. Curious that we didn't understand that when we decided we could tame Kandahar province with a mere thousand combat soldiers. And we consider Rick Hillier a great hero. Go figure.
... especially in light of the failed adventure of the former USSR in that same country, eh?
ReplyDelete(thanks for the head's up - I'll be checking this out definitely!)