For the amount of lives and money our military has spent nation-building in nonexistent Middle Eastern nation states, we could have locked up our border, defeated the cartels, chased out the Mullahs in Iran, and evinced a strong deterrent against China. In fact, we could have done so at a fraction of the cost and without sparing too many lives. Instead, we have sunk trillions of dollars into Islamic tribal civil wars with so many of our best soldiers killed and have nothing to show for it other than cartels controlling our side of our own border, Iran as belligerent as ever, and China on the ascendancy.
According to Task and Purpose military magazine, every one of the 12 active-duty Special Forces groups (better known as “Green Berets”) has lost at least one soldier in Afghanistan or Syria this year. For an important war with a clear and sustainable purpose directly related to our national security, that would be an unfortunate but reasonable cost. But could someone answer the basic question of what are we doing in those two countries and on behalf of which tribes?
In past generations, when we lost soldiers in battle, we could point to the ground gained or preserved, the purpose of it, and the assurance that this was the absolute necessary cost of that imperative mission. In the case of places like Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, which have historically never really been nation-states along presently recognized boundaries, nobody is explaining which ground we are gaining or holding on behalf of whom, and in what sustainable way that will be supported by the locals without tipping the balance to another enemy. Most of all, how do these tribal wars affect us?
For example, are we fighting Iranian proxies in Syria or are we fighting the Sunni insurgency on behalf of Iran, thereby helping them? Or are we aimlessly taking turns alternating between the two? Who are we trying to prop up in Afghanistan, on behalf of whom are we rebuilding territory, and which tribe is supporting us? These are basic questions that not a single member of Congress is able to answer.
The problem is, as retired Col. Dan Steiner said on my show last week, our military-industrial complex and interservice rivalries has allowed what was originally supposed to be targeted strikes against specific terrorists to become a nation-building mission on the ground. This needlessly puts our troops at risk for no reason in unsustainable tribal warfare rather than investing in strike and maneuver to identify the threats and hit them with our air superiority.
Steiner, a veteran of Desert Storm, which was won with overwhelming air power, tells me we need to learn the lessons of Effects Based Operations (EBO) and what works in the field.
“As the nation has struggled to find a 21st century model for defeating its enemies, the concept of Effects Based Operations has been debated multiple times,” said the retired Air Force commander in an interview with CR. “As complex as I could make this statement, let me make a controversial analogy: ‘You can’t teach an old dog a new trick.’ Tanks will never work on a modern battlefield. Battleships cannot be sunk by Air Machines. Jet engines are too unreliable to replace prop driven aircraft. We are simply not updating to a 21st century model.”
“An effects-based approach starts with the end-game of action as the starting point in planning the appropriate application of each of the elements of security — diplomatic, information, military, and economic — to reach the desired end-state. Accordingly, EBO concepts traditionally take a ‘systemic approach’ to security challenges, evaluating the situation through the lens of strategic centers of gravity — leadership, key essentials, infrastructure, population, and military forces. Were we to apply this to Afghanistan, we would never be deploying ground troops for this long.”
Imagine if this is what we would have been doing for 18 years? We would have conserved our money, troops, hardware, research and development, and most importantly, our resolve to deter the more serious threats like Iran, China, and the cartels at our own border with a fraction of the cost and a more effective strategy.
Instead, what we have done is try to hold together the entire fractured Afghanistan with special operators, as if they are a convention infantry. Presidents of both parties have done that so that we are officially preventing a “Saigon moment” with Kabul being sacked by the Taliban, but also get to repeat the talking point that there aren’t too many troops on the line. The problem is that special operators weren’t designed to be used that way.
It also stems from the fact that Green Berets are working with mythical “Afghani soldiers” that are unreliable, corrupt, and often bribed by or working with the enemy. This is why they are constantly led into ambushes. But nothing has changed over 18 years in terms of the capabilities of the Afghani forces no matter how many tens of billions of dollars we pump into them. That is because there is no united tribal constituency that is definitively pro-America with a drive to defeat that Taliban that we can work with.
We can have the strongest military in the world, but there is no way we can send isolated units into these types of cities on foot patrol and leave them there indefinitely without any defensive lines or strategic offensive vision, while any suicide bomber dressed as a civilian can attack them. This isn’t a war; this is a social work operation in a war zone – the worst combination of all.
This week, Congress is debating passage of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Ideally, this would be the time to debate a vision for our military – where they are needed and in what capacity. Instead, every NDAA debate revolves around how much money we spend, not which policies to pursue.
Were we to finally define and then prioritize our policies abroad, the question of appropriations on military spending would become so much easier. Sadly, certain interests within government need failed policies that succeed in nothing more than perpetuating their own failure in order to justify the budget. (For more from the author of “Aimless and Missionless: Every Special Ops Group Has Lost a Soldier This Year” please click HERE)
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