New at Reason

David Weigel | July 20, 2006

Jesse Walker discusses wars past, present, and future with military maven Chet Richards.

Comments

|7.20.06 @ 8:24AM|#

Chet Richards for President!

|7.20.06 @ 8:25AM|#

That interview was long but riveting. Also provocative and highly informative. Well done, Jesse Walker.

It's amazing how someone so steeped in his area of understanding could come to such libertarian conclusions without any pronounced ideological presumptions.

Maybe there's some science to this liberty thing after all!

|7.20.06 @ 9:03AM|#

Fascinating stuff. I think there was something of an artful dodge to the key questions, but still fascinating.

So, what does the military force look like to wage 4th gen warfare? We would really be better off with our own FARC than small, highly maneuverable units with massive firepower, airforce integration, and so forth? What happens to C3I (communication, commmand, control, and intelligence)? Who issues orders? Logistics?

He notes that the reason a group like Hezbollah is successful is that they are para state actors but with state like firepower. Okay. He says Israel shouldn't be engaging them. Okay. He says that they should strike a deal with Lebanon. Okay, er, eh? Lebanon, demonstrably, can't do anything to Hezbollah. It is good to strike a deal with Lebanon. How does that stop Hezbollah though?

He talks about containment, but he doesn't really tell us how to contain non state actors or even state sponsors thereof. Of course Saddam was militarily contained. The point was never that we thought he was going to mount an armored assault across the Kuwaiti border again. The relevant point regarding containment was that we didn't want him to become Syria to AQ's Hezbollah.

|7.20.06 @ 10:08AM|#

A good source to understand what is going on over there is the book, CounterInsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice by David Galula.
http://www.hailerpublishing.com/

The greatest asset an insurgency has is a cause. To defeat the insurgence you must remove its cause. That's why I think we are screwing up left and right. Counterinsurgeny warfare is 90% political and 10% military. This is why Clinton's way is better than Bush's way. Dispite what the knuckleheads on Fox news pretending to be conservatives say. Clinton knew the battle would have to be won politically and he had the will to do it. But it takes decades and you don't ever have total defeat, you keep them in obscurity. One man shaking his fist at the sky is a crazy man, 100 men doing it and you have a situation.

Islam extremist were not able to propagate their cause on a larger scale under Clinton. The Iraq war has been a great P.R. tool for the extremist, it has expanded and re-enforced their cause. What better way to convince them they can take on the military greats of the world than bogging us down in Iraq. Three years of war and we have yet to defeat them. Our failure to properly secure Iraq has proven to them that their mission is a can do. That provides more comfort to the enemy than any NY Times article could ever do.

|7.20.06 @ 10:35AM|#

Well done, Jesse.



Jason Ligon � The best we can do to fight 4th generation forces is to move from our current 2nd generation force to 3rd generation (think German tactics in WWII, more flexibility, more leadership and authority at the tip of the spear) and try to learn how to fight them. Avoiding a fight is the best plan of all. 4th generation forces gain strength when they are attacked by states. Richards and Lind never offer a silver bullet for fighting 4th generation forces, because there isn�t one. Hezbollah and 4th generation forces only need to survive to win. Rather than fight, Israel is better off connecting itself to as many centers of power as possible (a deal with Lebanon). I don�t know what a deal would look like, but Israel and Lebanon would both like to clean out Hezbollah, and they would be better off working together than against one another. One reason you are starting to see Arab governments criticizing Hezbollah is because they are beginning to fear 4th generation forces like Hezbollah as much as Israel does. The best way to contain 4th generation forces is to remove their reason for existence. Hezbollah, for example, came into existence because of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in �82. bin Laden gained power from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the first Gulf War. There are no easy answers, but the best formula is to avoid idiotic interventions that breed 4th generation forces, connect ourselves to as many centers of power as possible (i.e., governments), and create a more nimble and less centralized military (whether government forces or a combination of government forces and contractors) to use when we have to.

|7.20.06 @ 11:06AM|#

"Do you have an ethnic cleansing? Could Israel get away with that?"

Judging from recent posts from many on this blog they would not only get away with it, but many here would clap loudly, some professing their "clean hands" as they do. Israel can do now wrong in some folks eyes. No argument can be too poor, no peice of evidence too silly to get them to start clapping loudly at anything the bloody IDF does. They don't even consider how this immoral invasion is going to be bad for even Israel in the long run.

|7.20.06 @ 11:55AM|#

"Rather than fight, Israel is better off connecting itself to as many centers of power as possible (a deal with Lebanon). I don�t know what a deal would look like, but Israel and Lebanon would both like to clean out Hezbollah, and they would be better off working together than against one another."

I agree with this, but I think the question remains unanswered. What happens when a 4th gen force just decides to go on the offensive? Are we really saying that non engagement, even in the face of artillery barrages, is the best option? Rockets are falling on your head, cross border incursions are happening, soldiers are being kidbnapped within your borders, and there is no military response? I can't believe that helps things. Why doesn't beating on Israel with no costs in and of itself make Hezbollah more attractive?

Concerning the 90% political component to insurgencies, what if their political demands are kooky or just not feasible? How do you give AQ or Hizbollah what they want?

|7.20.06 @ 11:55AM|#

Holy Crap! That guy makes sense- how did he get in here?

Good catch, Mr Walker.

-------

This addendum may result in a double post (or even none at all) but: for President, I don't know, but if I were a Senator, I would certainly approve him as Sec'y of Defense

|7.20.06 @ 1:08PM|#

Jason,



I do not think non-engagement is the best option in the face of attacks. When 4th generation forces go on the offensive, you have to act, but the answer is not retaliation. You have to be smarter than that. One key to defeating 4th generation forces is willingness to take more casualties than the enemy (I believe this was the case with British forces in N. Ireland, one of the few places that has had relative success in dealing with terror). No tit for tat paybacks. The moral level of war trumps the physical and mental levels (John Boyd). If Israel was not seen as a threat to Lebanon by the Lebanese (see �82 invasion and 18 year occupation), Hezbollah would be weaker. If Israel worked with other countries (openly or not) in the region and convinced them that Hezbollah is bad for everyone, and put together a plan to remove Hezbollah from Lebanon, they would be better off. This plan might include military action. It might include pumping money into the area in the form of rewards for giving up Hezbollah, building clinics etc� to replace what Hezbollah is doing. The military actions shouldn�t be air strikes. Military action needs to be quick in and out work on the ground with no civilian casualties. This has to be done with the realization that your side might take more casualties than the enemy. People do not like 4th generation forces like Hezbollah. It should be fairly easy to turn the average citizen against them. This is not done by bombing infrastructure from far away. States came into existence to eliminate bands of thugs like them. For the state to be legitimate, it needs to take care of these groups, not attack other states (Lebanon) who had nothing to do with the attacks. The solutions are less �tough-guy� and sexy than F-16 strikes on airports and lighthouses� but the current plan is not working.

VM|7.20.06 @ 2:27PM|#

[insert "Weird Science" reference here]

Good work as usual Jesse! Thanks!

(also note that Chet shares Mediageek's (?) view that Al Qaida is a shoestring/discount organization)

cheers