Does America Support Our Military Strategy?

This blog has been operational for about three weeks. It gets a few visitors but no comments. So I’ve been thinking about a redesign in appearance and in the theme and content.

I began with an interest in counterinsurgency operations which is the driving theory behind the current surge of troops in Iraq. There are many web sights dedicated to counterinsurgency operations (see Links for some of the best). It was not my intention to replicate those web sights because they are somewhat esoteric and are tailored to the experts and the troops actually engaged in Iraq.

My intent was to bring some of the ideas to a more general public. I believe this is important because our new national military strategy will necessarily lead to greater risk and casualties for our troops and will require a long-term commitment from the American people, a commitment far longer than we have accepted in any other “small war.” I hoped to present some war fighting theory that will be important to American voters in the coming elections.

I have to guess that I’ve either presented the information badly or that there just isn’t any general interest in this new warfare. As to the first possibility, I believe in brevity. My last tour of duty was at the Navy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. and was quite good at the one page briefing for admirals, generals, and congressional staffers. But my posts to date have been quite lengthy. However, as in the case of the post on the insurgency approaches, I could see no way to covers all the approaches and keep the post short – although I covered each approach only briefly. Even so, my post may have been too long for casual reading.

As to the second possibility that there isn’t any general interest in the subject, if that is true then that opens up a whole new area of discussion.

I’ve been reading some articles on the future of warfare and whether the Western democracies are capable of fighting the new warfare. It doesn’t look promising. Most of the articles admit that insurgent-driven wars will become more frequent and more threatening to Western democracies. Direct attacks within Western nations will also become more frequent with some writers noting that even the mid-term survival of the West may be in jeopardy as the number of non-assimilating foreigners rises. (Some very good articles are in The American Interest, (some articles required subscription, but I usually read the print version).

Many of these writers also note that combating insurgents in their own countries with ground troops will require lengthy counterinsurgency occupations lasting years and into decades. None of the Western democracies seem to have that kind of staying power at the present time.

America’s role as the only remaining superpower and as the leader of the free world has a nasty side affect that our allies tend not to take action on any front without our taking the lead. But America cannot deal with this problem alone. The European Union may be a disappointment but we need Europe in this battle. We need to renew NATO and other useful military alliances.

Some say that America has no stomach for greater troop casualties. I’m not sure that is really true since the population under arms is less than 1% of our total (0.4% I believe). What is true is that few Americans have any idea of nature of military service or the many sacrifices they and their families make. Congress is a little better off with about 23% having some form of military experience, including such token service similar to that of our President.

The 2008 election may be the most important one in many years. I would like to be assured that our current Congressmen and Senators are discussing the Iraq War because they think we actually need a change of course. Sadly, I feel that most of the discussion is all about November 2008. Too many Republicans are afraid the voters will connect them with an unpopular war and President. The Democrats are afraid that the voters will see that they too have no solutions. Worse, I believe the current Democratic push for action is a fear of being left with responsibility for a withdrawal.

There are exceptions in Congress. As a recovering Republican of some 40 plus years, I’ve had great respect for Senators Lugar and, especially, Warner. I also understand, to some degree, their reluctance to disagree with the President or the Party manifesto early in the war. But I am also disappointed by their not acting when it was needed.

We have an angry voting public. About 71% are mad at the war and the President. But just what are they angry about? I’ve researched the polls and no poll that I can find goes beyond a simplistic, “Are you for or agin the war?” Are those polled just angry at a bullheaded (or principled, depending on your view) President? Are they frustrated by continued fighting in a war that may already be lost?

Perhaps the voting public is more aware of threat of insurgents – more specifically Islamic jihadists. I think there is fear but that fear is not focused. As part of my blog makeover, I hope to get into the future of insurgent wars, the jihadist terrorism threat to the U.S. homeland, the public perceptions the terrorist threat and to still cover the important aspects of counterinsurgencies and other small wars.

I invite your comments on any of these issues as well as the overall presentation of my blog. I’ll be on travel but should be posting again by 26 July.