Here We Go Again?
According to the Guardian, per the CJCS, GEN Martin Dempsey, the US is currently considering “military options” in Syria.
There may indeed be a case to be made for US intervention in Syria. After all, Syria has recently been a close ally of Iran/Hezbollah, has generally complicated things in the Middle East for decades, is reputed to have an active WMD program, and is no friend of the US. And ever since the “Arab Spring” uprisings, Assad has been acting like a lightweight wannabe trying to channel Saddam Hussein or Idi Amin while massacring parts of his own country. But two parts of GEN Dempsey’s remarks trouble me anyway.
First: GEN Dempsey indicated that the US would be prepared to act if it “were asked to do so”. I could be wrong, but I don’t think he’s talking about the POTUS “asking” the CJCS to begin operations. So I’m kinda wondering: why are we basing the use of US military force on getting an “invitation” to do so from some foreign entity vice on what best supports US national interests?
Second, the stated justification for US intervention is “because of the atrocities.” Presumably, GEN Dempsey is referring to one or more of the massacres attributed to the Asad regime in Syria. Apparently I missed the memo. When in the hell did preventing evil anywhere in the world become justification for US military intervention?
Call me cold, cynical, old-school, Machiavellian, whatever – but unless US national interests are at stake, I just don’t see any valid justification for asking US troops to risk life and limb. And IMO, being “world policeman” is a losing national strategy in the long-term. All that will do is make the world safe for everyone else but us, while we end up paying the cost of doing so.
So far, I haven’t seen anyone make the case that it’s in US interests to intervene in Syria now, and that said intervention is worth the cost in blood and money that would be involved. And until I do, well, I for one am not exactly keen to jump into yet another foreign war.
The case might well be there. But I haven’t seen it yet.
Over to you, GEN Dempsey. Or should I say Mr. President?
Category: Politics
… another stint overseas where we are required to serve as targets rather than clean out the rats’ nest.
NO!
No. Bad idea.
Thank you, Mr. Lilyea.
American self-interest is rational and moral, not suicidal.
Perhaps your old school was a good one.
The same argument that I had for Bosnia, Kosovo, and Libya. While the killing of innocents is horrible and deserves retribution, the ones dealing the retribution should not be doing so in the name of the US government.
Mr. Hondo, I should have written — I was not paying attention.
Hondo, your post brings up some good points, and touches on a major issue we’ve been seeing over here. During countless BS sessions with soldiers and officers alike the Syrian situation has come up. On one hand, I absolutely agree with your statement that US interests should be at stake if we decide to commit our armed forces overseas. On the other hand, sitting here in beautiful Kandahar Province, writing this after having just recieved yet another brief on the restrictions and permissions required before US soldiers can “fight”…..e.g. notify the PGOV for night ops, partners lead in all things…no house clearances unless partnered, no patrols at all unless “partnered”-you get the idea…. I start to wonder if a “morally just” war is not exactly what our country should be committing its armed forces too. I’m not even in my 30’s, but I’ve spent a large portion of my adult life fighting for my nation, and I’m thankful for the unique perspective that gives me. Unlike our President, who believes in “American exceptionalism……just like British exceptionalism, Chinese exceptionalism…etc” I truly think our country is the greatest in the world, and as such has a unique position and responsibility to those who did not win the lottery at birth by being born American. Despite what our media, most of the European population, and even many of our own citizens may claim, The United States is responsible for shaping the world as we know it today. Soldiers, new and old, wonder why we sit here getting killed for a mission in a country that has already been written off, when there are innocent people being slaughtered for lack of someone stronger stepping in with the big stick and saying-ENOUGH. That, in my humble opinion, is what’s worth dying for. It’s what my Grandfather fought for over Japan, it’s what my father fought for over Kosovo and Bosnia, and it’s why I fought and bled in Iraq and now Afghanistan. I’m not here to debate the merits of the conficts we are already in. I’m a good soldier, and I’ll go where I’m… Read more »
It is all very sad, but it is not our fight or our business. Right and wrong are entirely too subjective to enter into committing us to picking sides in a civil war. If we want to stop being the world’s policeman then we need to stop jumping into places that have no part in American interests. I say No and apparently so does the rest of the planet because none of them are volunteering.
Until we can get some maturity in deciding how we conduct military operations (do it quickly, annihilate the adversary, then come home), there is no reason to play these silly games. Death by a thousand cuts is neither fun nor good policy.
The news reports this morning referred to only the latest “massacre.” What about all the others? Are those thousands of souls insignificant, but somehow these 90 or so are important? Very suspect at least if not downright sinister.
I agree. Ya know, if we do decide to go in, it sure would of been nice if there was a heavy combat brigade still in Iraq. I think that all we would of had to of done a year ago is just move them closer to the border with Syria. Yea, yea, I know, they say we shouldn’t have troops stationed there.
Time will tell.
ArmyJ: ‘Fraid I have to disagree.
Go down the road you advocate, and two questions come up: “Where next?” and “Where does it end?” Unfortunately, it soon becomes obvious that the answers are “Pretty much anywhere and everywhere” and “It doesn’t”, respectively.
Attempting unilaterally to “remove evil from the world” or “protect all innocents” is nothing less than an open-ended commitment that we as a nation simply cannot afford. Our nation’s resources, while great, are not infinite. We can’t afford to squander them in a Quixotic attempt to bring about world peace. When one tilts at windmills, the windmill eventually wins.
Protecting innocents is a laudable goal. But while laudable, it’s also not the primary raison d’être of the US military. That raison d’être is to defend the United States – nothing more, and nothing less. All else is secondary.
US troops can legitimately be ordered to risk – or even give – their lives to protect the United States. However, absent some significant American interest at stake I have a very difficult time justifying sending American troops somewhere to fight and die. This is particularly true when they’re sent to fight and (potentially) die for an ill-defined reason, such as “protecting innocents” or “preventing evil”. IMO, doing so is nothing but a feelgood exercise for national leadership paid for using the blood of US troops as currency.
Yes, that probably sounds cold and hard. Maybe. But IMO, it’s also reality.
I’ve seen what I consider exactly that (e.g., a useless military feelgood exercise) happen several times during my lifetime. And IMO, each instance turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea – and accomplished essentially nothing.
The 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismark once famously remarked: “All of Bosnia is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” We could learn much about prioritization from that past practitioner of Realpolitik.
Hondo, I don’t think we should go in to Syria. what we should be doing is trying to create a coalition with the neighboring countries, similar to what President Bush did with the 1st Iraq war. Whether or not in this day and time it can be done…I doubt it.
But I am kinda simple person…yup I believe in good & evil. But I don’t think in this day and time, one can prevent evil you can only rout it out and annialate it routhlessly without prejudice.
Unfortunately, countries have been laying waste to their own
citizens for ages. So maybe whats really changed is the definition of what is really evil. If we have managed to do nothing over Rowanda & Darfor then when are we too.
This is another example of why the UN gets more people killed and actually allows evil to exist on this planet.
Keep up the good work.
@Hondo – A fellow history nerd quotes Otto von B. I love it!
And I think you are exactly correct. National defense of this nation is the primary [dare I say sole?] mandate or both our military and the framework constructed to utilize it.
Hondo, what is your view of Vietnam?
@12 Found this one fron OvB:
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
Otto von Bismarck
Bang!!
Not only no, but HECK NO!!
If there were nothing else going on, we weren’t in a quasi-Depression, weren’t already in a decade long war with no real end in sight, if I could trust this administration a little farther than I can shot-put the moon, I’d a least consider it. Oh yeah, and if we weren’t in debt up to our eyeballs and broke to boot…
I won’t even get into the myriad problems associated with being the world’s policeman…
Screw intervention. The average American is fickle and lazy. As soon as one accidental injury to an innocent civilian happens the populace will forget how much they thought we were morally obligated to intervene, and be back to painting the military is evil again. Not to mention the percentage of the country who serve will still remain in the single digits.
Ann–as insulting as that sounds to Americans, it’s spot on. The average American can’t name half the Bill of Rights, but they can tell you who won the last five seasons of American Idol.
Frankly, when life becomes that easy, people become that lazy, both physically and intellectually.
ArmyJ, I agree. I just don’t trust the commitment of the American people. I would willingly deploy to free Syria, but only if I can be assured that we won’t cut and run once we’re knee deep in time, money, and lives sacrificed for it.
If we had competent leadership, coherent strategy, and anything resembling sensible rules of engagement (“you shoot at us, we kill you”) I could see some level of involvement. Unfortunately, we have none of the three – if their neighbors are so bleedin’ worried about it, let them sort out the mad dogs on their own doorstep.
I’d be hesitant to intervene in a country where the cure is going to be worse than the disease. If we go in there, and put the rebels in power, who have we backed? Or we stabilize the country, and open it to elections. Who will run for office? The Muslim Brotherhood? Or some variant thereof?
You see my point. Even if we took control of every square inch of that country, there would be no peace.
A175, Russia and China would never let any talk of a coalition against Syria get off the ground. Sparky, I don’t think there is another topic that the military, law enforcement, firemen, and civil servants agree on more than this. Like I posted earlier, I would be okay with deploying to liberate Syria, but not losing friends only to turn tail and run because the average American realizes this whole war thing requires work. 97% of my graduating class never joined the military. Of the 20 or so that did only myself and four others chose active duty. When I’d ask them about enlisting (I wanted those Blues!) they did the usual hemming and hawing. I heard everything from ‘I couldn’t handle being told what to do’ to ‘My Mom doesn’t want me to join.’ Regardless of what they said it was obvious that they really meant that military service was an inconvenience they didn’t want to bother with. And this was a patriotic area in Mississippi. Even the area’s so-so economy, and having next to no money for college didn’t provide enough of an incentive to enlist. Granted, I joined the DEP in 2005 and shipped in 2006 when Iraq was at it’s most lawless and there was serious talk of a withdrawal. But I was still surprised at how almost everyone felt no obligation whatsoever to serve their country. Looking back I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked to learn that we produced Souljah Boy, the epitome of all that is conceited, spineless, cowardly, and selfish. God help us if we ever actually have a conflict on the scale of WWII. I was med sepped towards the end of my enlistment because of non-combat injuries I developed during my time in. But should we ever get into a large scale war you are guaranteed to find me camped out in front of MEPs, busted knees and back be damned. I know I’d see every reader of this blog not currently in to be there as well. I just wish I could say the same of most everyone… Read more »
I forgot to add that in addition to commitment the American people need to allow us to actually fight a war instead of halfass it.
Just about everyone, myself included, see WWII as the good war. What most of them don’t realize is that the Allies did quite a few things we’d consider war crimes (incendiary rounds against civilians, at times not treating wounded enemy soldiers, purposely bombing civilian areas, use of land mines, cutting off supplies, shooting at houses of worship, etc) today. If we hadn’t we’d add years to the war, if not lost it outright.
For as much as people love ‘reality tv’ they are completely dissociated with the reality they do their best to avoid living in.
Alas Ann, I fear you are putting ’em all in the 10 ring.
Woe unto the Republic …
What do we all agree to clean up the narco state across our southern border. Something truly in our national interest since the Mexican military and law enforcement neither has the will nor interest to do anything other than to blame the United States. The cowardice, corruption, and willingness to let their own citizens be slaughtered while using the United States as a political and economic relief valve will never be solved by the Mexicans.
Screw the Syrians, They have reaped the benefits of their relationship with Iran and Hezbollah, now let them pay the price.
Count me as a Nay vote. I didn’t support going into Libya and I don’t support going into Syria. It’s as much in the interest of our national defense as nearly every other nation on the planet that we have neither the resources, the money, the will, nor the reason to go into.
Bosnia: we were told we were there for 1 year. Except for those 30 year leases that were signed.
If we can get out of Bosnia after 16 years, and maybe Germany after over 66 years, I’d be willing to suspend my disbelief.
Ann: have to say that I disagree with you, at least for now.
Like Libya, I’m not convinced that intervention in Syria will produce an outcome better for US interests than leaving well enough alone. I could be convinced of that, I think – but I’ve not yet seen a decent argument as to why. And until I am, I cannot support US intervention there. Period.
Libya is instructive here. IMO, we (the US) supported operations against Qadaffi in Libya for no good reason – if we had a reason at all – and doing so served no significant US interests. I refuse to accept “NATO solidarity” as sufficient reason; that’s a damned feelgood platitude, not a reason to go to war and overturn a friendly government.
And yes – I did say “friendly government” above by design. For all his past faults, Qadaffi had apparently decided post 9/11 to throw in his chips with the West vice radical Islam, and had become largely cooperative with the US over the past 10 years or so. I’m not sure we’ll be able to say the same about the regime that succeeded him; if anything, early indications are the opposite.
In short: in Libya we ignored Clausewitz’s more important but less famous maxim: “No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” Unless we examine the situation in Syria closely a priori, I fear we risk doing the same in Syria.
These animals have been slaughtering each other for hundreds if not thousands of years. Even if we were to send our troops to Syria, once they pull out would the violence stop? Uh, let’s see.supposedly our troops have pacified Iraq yet the keep blowing each other up, hmmm. comrade obama and his puppet leon pendejo are talking about leaving while these paki animals are still blowing each other up.
As a father and grandfather the thought of babies being slaughter repulses me but we can’t reprogram them in a year, five, ten or fifty. That is their culture and mentality. I mourn for the children, I curse the animals that did it but i would not commit one America GI to a hopeless cause.
@22 – Ann
What we need to start with lies much closer to home than Syria or any other sandbox country …
Frank, I agree. Venezuela would be high on my list, but the repeated failure of almost every program Chavez has implemented is taking care of the issue quite nicely. Whenever I talk to the tinfoil hatters who insist we invaded Iraq for oil I always shut them down by asking why we didn’t invade Venezuela instead.
streetsweeper: Vietnam? Mixed feelings. IMO, that one is “betwixt and between”, as the old saying goes. With the benefit of nearly 40 years of hindsight, I’ve personally come to believe that Vietnam was a war the US need not have fought. That is not in any way intended to belittle or denigrate the service of any Vietnam veteran. As I’ve said previously here on TAH: soldiers do not choose the wars they’re ordered to fight; soldiers merely do their duty and fight when and where ordered. And in Vietnam, our troops fought magnificently, against perhaps the most capable and motivated foe we’ve ever faced. However, having studied the Vietnam war on and off for 20+ years (I was a few years too young to see it up close and personal), I’ve come to the conclusion that we (the US) made multiple strategic errors in Vietnam, stretching all the way back to the Truman administration. I’ll summarize my perception of them below. First, Vietnam was always at best a peripheral US interest. Other than as a symbol of Cold War competition between the US and USSR, Vietnam had little impact on US national interests one way or the other. We never really asked ourselves one key question: “Is Vietnam important enough to warrant a major war? What’s the impact if we don’t intervene?” Instead, we forged ahead without really knowing what we intended to achieve; how we were going to achieve it; or even seriously considering whether or not it was worth the effort. Second, our baseline assumption about Communism acting as a monolithic entity to achieve world domination was (by the time we became heavily involved in Vietnam in the early/mid 1960s) very obviously flawed. Here, we neglected long-term historical trends – the historical China/Russia and China/Vietnam animosities – to our detriment. We could have exploited both to our benefit. We didn’t. Third, we failed to get on the “right side” of the historical floodtide of post-World War II nationalism. Rather than supporting Vietnamese nationalistic aspirations after World War II, we (IMO very foolishly) supported an ultimately futile re-imposition of… Read more »
Nice Hondo……that was articulated very well.
President Eisenhower, too, had U.S. Tax $$ sent to the French in Indochine, for years.
Eisenhower did warn J.F. Kennedy, in late 1960, NOT to permit the Soviet Russians to control LAOS
(Ho-Ho Minh Trail just being constructed there — some name it The Averell Harriman Memorial Highway).
“TRIUMPH FORSAKEN,” — book by DR MARK MOYAR — contains Cables, other facts recently revealed .
Hondo, awesome post.
IMO the government should have been better at picking it’s battles during the Cold War. A lot of the present day third world instability is a consequence of being overzealous with the Domino Theory. We ended up sponsoring a fair number of coups and despots. It’s not surprising that a country whose citizens live in poverty, have little to no education, and decaying infrastructure sparked post-Cold War destabilization and civil war as happened in El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Congo, Iran, Guatemala, etc.
Ann: have to disagree with your implied point in 34. In each of the nations you offer as examples – El Salvador, Nicaragua, Congo, Iran, Guatemala – US intervention IMO produced results favorable to the US strategic position at a cost the US could bear. The alternative was to sit back and do nothing while forces hostile to the US took control of each nation.
The latter in each case would IMO have NOT been in the US long-term strategic interest. Each of the above countries, due to geographical location (Iran, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador) or possession of resources vital to the US (Iran, Congo), were of strategic importance to the US. Allowing any to become non-friendly would have been a decidedly bad idea.
Further, IMO you’re using the wrong criteria to select which movements/regimes the US should support. In international relations, the choice is only rarely as clear-cut as you imply above. Countries don’t usually get a choice between good and evil when choosing who to support; the choice is virtually always between “indifferent-to-bad” and “Oh, shit!” bad. And in any case good-vs-evil is the wrong criteria. National interest is the correct criteria. To paraphrase Lord Palmerston: interests are important and lasting, while allies are ephemeral and transient.
In each of the cases you cite above, the situation the US faced was a choice among imperfect alternatives. In each case, IMO the US chose the best available alternative.
Vietnam was IMO different, in that we failed to evaluate the situation up-front before “jumping in” with both feet in 1965. We simply never asked (1) if Vietnam really mattered to US interests, (2) if so, how much, (3) if we had any realistic prospect of success, and (4) if it was worth a major land war. Had we done that, I seriously doubt we’d have sent between 2.5 and 3 million men and women to fight in SE Asia.
I’ll point out that JFK & Eisenhower started our participation in Viet Nam. I’ll also point out that we cannot judge those decisions using the fragmentation of China-Russian relations in the 70’s.
I will point out the errors of Eisenhower judgement in being more loyal to Charles de Gaulle than the freedoms of future allies (Ho Chi Minh first approached the US to support independence and democracy before turning to the Soviets and Chinese for support in ridding the nation of our French allies.)
While I put the blame of pulling a strategic loss, two years after tactical victories had been completed, on decades of politicians micromanaging the realm of Generals, much should have been learned from Viet Nam, and was by many, though not our current crop of politicians.
Not only will I say that, generally speaking, we have supported the correct side of things in central America, those decisions were generally the best for the Freedom of our Neighbors, and the world, as well as for America, and OUR Freedoms. Reagan was the first President to oversee the loss of countries to Communism (Grenada) and a turning of the tide, that is our backyard (Nicarauga and El Salvador). As of the late 70’s/early 80’s, it was a very real threat that communism, with its oppression would walk right up the Southern continent. This has seen a resurgence in recent years, through elections rather than warfare, but in the 80’s it was a very dangerous place. And even today, the Communist Guerillas, turned Narco-Terrorists, founded in the 50’s in Colombia continue to plague, though to a lesser degree that nation.
Overall, I agree with Hondo, though I continue to find fault with politicians that pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory in SE Asia. Unfortunately, I see politicians that seem hell-bent on doing the same today as their forebears did then.
WOTN: Chinese/Soviet relations were on the ropes well before the 1970s. There were public signs of a rift as early as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and significant behind-the-scenes indicators well before then. The Soviets stood by and let China do the bulk of the “heavy lifting” in the Korean War (Mao’s son died in that war; I think he always blamed that on the Soviets). Ideological divergence began in 1956 regarding how to approach the West (the Soviets wanted peaceful coexistence, while the Chinese did not). The Soviets refused to help the Chinese develop nukes in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a further point of friction between the two (Mao absolutely and publicly excoriated Khrushchev afterwards, and the two nations also broke relations). The 1964 nuclear test by the Chinese “sealed the deal”. All of these occurred well before the US publicly committed combat troops to Vietnam began in 1965. Further, US mistakes regarding Vietnam did not begin in the Eisenhower Administration; they go back to at least the Truman Administration (and arguably to the Wilson Administration; Ho Chi Minh attempted to secure Vietnamese independence there, but was rebuffed). As you note, Ho approached the US during and after World War II before turning to the Communists for assistance. It’s not that well known, but in his 2 September 1945 speech declaring Vietnamese independence Ho also quoted from/paraphrased the Declaration of Independence. It was the Truman Administration – not the Eisenhower Administration – that first began giving the French assistance in prosecuting their “dirty war” in Indochina. As I recall, the US provided transport to move French troops to Indochina in the immediate aftermath of World War II (I could be wrong, and that might have been the British vice the US). The Truman Administration also (1) recognized the Saigon government in February 1950, (2) began US military aid to France to assist them in their pursuit of the Vietnam War, releasing $15M in funds in July 1950, and (3) established the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Saigon in September 1950. Aid to France… Read more »
Hondo, I expect we could have a great discussion on the topic, and find that we agreed more than we disagreed on it, IF the material in my memory were less dusty, or I had more time to dust it off.
I don’t, off the top of my head, know the extent of Truman’s involvement, but it was Eisenhower that sent Special Forces there, and JFK expanded that. Granted that program was working well, but 1965 was not the beginning of Our Troops battles with the VC. As you noted, that was only the year of public acknowledgement of our involvement.
And it cannot be denied that McNamara’s personal involvement in choices of what to bomb (as well as other military decisions at the strategic and tactical levels) directly hamstrung the General’s ability to fight the war effectively. While there were wholesale errors made, the course to political defeat on the battlefield was not set in 1956. Though the decision to fight the war as if the war did not include North Viet Nam was a political policy error of greatest magnitude. The failure of successive Presidents to provide clear reasons for why that war was important is a direct failure of those leaders. But their failure to articulate it, or convince the American People, and particularly the Troops they sent, does not mean there wasn’t a need, or a way to win.
Many of those wholesale political errors are being repeated today. The difference is that in Afghanistan, we can demonstrate that the vast majority of Afghans WANT democracy, WANT their daughters educated, and OPPOSE the enemy (Taliban), and we had a clear purpose in fighting this war. And while Afghanistan is not Iraq, the Petraeus Plan of COIN was proven in a “hopeless, unpopular” war to work. Conversely, most Americans STILL do not understand the scope of what the Petraeus Plan was, and hence why it worked.
[…] We Go Again – Part II? June 1st, 2012 I wrote about the possibility of US intervention in Syria recently. Well, it looks like it’s not only the CJCS who’s hinting at potential US intervention […]