El Borak's Myopia

El Borak's Myopia

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I really hate to play the grinch

especially when all seems to be going according to the plan:

Is the troop surge in Iraq working? ...

There is no question that violence in Iraq has ebbed since the troop surge announced by Bush in January reached its full capacity in June with about 162,000 troops. Even Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House subcommittee that controls defense spending, a key ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and a leading Democratic opponent of the war, recently returned from Iraq saying, "I think the surge is working."

The only problem is that it's not going only according to our plan, but Mao Zedong's as well.

Having finished all my history books for the week, I jumped with both feet into one that I purchased a while back but have been ignoring, Colonel Thomas X. Hammes' "The Sling and the Stone," a book about 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). In it Hammes examines the changes in warfare over the past few centuries and specifically since WWII, when the world shifted from state vs. state maneuver warfare (3GW) to the kind of asymmetrical warfare that states generally lose, precisely the kind of warfare we are involved in in Iraq.

Hammes argues that 4GW was conceived by Mao and modified by Uncle Ho and General Giap, and continues to be the preferred method for weaker and non-state fighters to take on and defeat powerful, well-financed, hi-tech armies. 4GW has its own strategy, created by Mao, which can be summed up thus:

Di jin, wo tui, [when the] enemy advances, we withdraw,
Di jui, wo roa, [when the] enemy rests, we harass,
Di pi, wo da, [when the] enemy tires, we attack,
Di tui, wo Jui, [when the] enemy withdraws, we pursue.

One mistake we are making is expecting the enemy will be fool enough* to throw his strength against ours - and taking his failure to do so as evidence of weakness. But he is not such a fool. The enemy** is instead following the first dicta of Mao and of 4GW, simply withdrawing as we advance. Throwing his fighters against the best the US has to offer is a surefire way of losing, at least on the battlefield (see: Tet Offensive). He knows he cannot face us muzzle to muzzle, and he also knows that to win he must simply avoid losing. Someday we will go home, but he lives there.

Therefore of course it looks like the surge is working. It would look exactly as it looks whether it was working or not.

* most unsuccessful commanders are unsuccessful precisely because they think their enemies are stupid.

** and I say this even though we don't have a single enemy in Iraq. We have many enemies there, who are fighting with us (and with each other) for many different reasons. That's one factor tat makes 4GWs so hard to win. From whom do you accept surrender?

Labels: Iraq

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