Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

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BarKokhba
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Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#1

Post by BarKokhba » 12 Feb 2017, 19:45

With the exception of the First Gulf War, American forces, despite overwhelming air superiority, technology, training, logistical and tactical support and trillions $$ spent have had little field success in Iraq or Afghanistan. I'd like to see your reactions as to why, considering that a new 'surge' there is likely soon. Thanks to all!

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#2

Post by James A Pratt III » 13 Feb 2017, 03:59

In both Iraq and Afghanistan too few troops for the areas, Add to this "Allies" that are sometimes more trouble than the enemy. to make things worse inept high level US leadership. One must also point out the US army was trained to fight a mobile blitzkrieg style war. It got stuck fighting insurgencies that it was not trained and it seems their leaders have forgot every lesson on how to fight an insurgeny that should have been learned from the Vietnam war. Afghanistan the US had to suddenly fight a war there at short notice do to 9/11 and the country was neglected after the US went into Iraq. As for Iraq it seems the idiots who planned the war did not anticpate an insurgeny (!?) which any one who had any knowledge of the country or its history could have said this was a real possibility.


BarKokhba
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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#3

Post by BarKokhba » 14 Feb 2017, 02:56

Thanks James A Pratt 3, good thoughts, appreciated. It's amazing how few military historians, or journalists, either left, right or objective will tackle this subject. I'm afraid 'thanking them for their service' is not quite enough. Some analysis is necessary, or we'll have more quagmires.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#4

Post by James A Pratt III » 16 Feb 2017, 00:43

Glad to be of help shorty before the US invaded Iraq I stumbled across a book in a out of town library "The Insurrection in Mesopotamia 1920"
sadly as 2003 went on Iraq started looking more and more like the Iraq in this book in 1920. I pointed out to my friends that the US could be faced with a major insurgency in Iraq. One said "this is not WW I" If I had pointed this out to the people in Washington DC who planned this war I would have been laughed out of town. This book is online now lookup General Aylmer Haldane (the author) and you can find it there. Also right before the Iraq war started a US military magazine recommended two books on WW I in Iraq "The Bastard War/The Neglected War/ The First Iraq War" A.J. Barker and "Ends and Means". It looks like some people who planned this war should have read them as well.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#5

Post by Paul Lakowski » 16 Feb 2017, 03:40

Western democracy don't do insurgency wars very well. For it to work well you have to be brutal & ruthless or it won't work.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#6

Post by Sejanus » 10 Mar 2017, 06:03


fuser
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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#7

Post by fuser » 10 Mar 2017, 09:45

Paul Lakowski wrote:Western democracy don't do insurgency wars very well. For it to work well you have to be brutal & ruthless or it won't work.
Like Malayan insurgency, Kenyan uprising, Lumbaa of Congo etc.?

Western democracy are hardly adverse to brutality and ruthlessness.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#8

Post by Sheldrake » 10 Mar 2017, 10:54

This is still a debated and sore point.

In military terms the US military did well. They overwhelmed the Iraqi conventional forces and were quick learners in counter insurgency.

But, to what extent could the US, and its coalition and NATO allies could achieve their objectives by purely military means? What were those objectives. If you look at the different objectives desired by the different participants they were neither realistic, consistent,unitary or agreed.

GW Bush's main objective was re-election. One reason why for his father's one term presidency was going soft on saddam. His advisers were mainly concerned about US public opinion: what the Iraqis ansd Afghans thought was of little consequence. Afghanistan was about revenge for 9/11. Had they gone in': turned over the taliban and left sprnikling bribes they would have followed the pattern of successful punitive British expeditions 1830-1947. But they didn't. They committed one of the cardinal strategic sins they decided to occupy Afghanistan. Occupying Afghanistan, is second only to invading Russia as a sign of military hubris.

The occupation has been a tale of inconsistent objectives, competing agencies and incompetent and corrupt administration.

Two friends were senior British soldiers. One told me in 2006 that the Afghans were giving us one last chance. He had been in charge of reconstruction in a region. In his opinion the locals wanted to join the C21st. They wanted clean water, access to markets, decent roads and local government. They didn't want to live in a medieval theocracy - ( a view shared by Afghan refugees In know here) BUT if we were not going to deliver, they knew we would leave and they would have to live with the Taliban.

Another had his career terminated for talking truth to power - he said that 2006 was a Dieppe moment for the British.They needed to invest more

There were nothing like enough troops deployed to pacify Afghanistan. In the 1930s the policy was never to try to move in the North West Frontier in less than brigade strength ( see Lessons in Imperial Rule: Instructions for British Infantrymen on the Indian Frontier yours for £00.01 from Amazon) Helcopters mean you can ignore that - but you don't control the gorund.

Before the Iraq war there was a lot of talk about "energy security" I attended part of a conference by this name in London in 2002. The essence of this , in the pre fracking era was that the Iraqis were "sitting on our oil". The outsourcing of much military effort to private companies put another another set of motives into the game. Both wars have been very good for shareholders and employees in private military and contracting businesses.

A old comrade of mine was involved in the old G5 (civil-military affairs) for Iraq. He was staggered by the lack of thought about what to do with Iraq after the invasion - the phrase quoted to him was "faith based planning." General Tim Cross said ‘I saw no evidence of a clear strategic-level end-state for what we were about – the omens were not good … No declared end-state; no campaign plan.’ He compounds his critique, describing how a briefing to the Chief of the General staff entitled Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory ‘did not go down well.’

I can recommend the book Edited by Jonathan Bailey (Artillery and firepower) and Hugh Stachen. British Generals in Blair's Wars https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Genera ... 1409437361 This is quite a controversial book. Before the 2nd Gulf war there was an agreement that All Souls College in Oxford would debrief British commanders for the historical record and lessons learned. Read about five years of intervention and its groundhog day. The same problems re-appeared. The second volume has been withheld by the MOD

Here is a final thought. The enemy has has their say.

Guerrilla warfare is endemic to Afghanistan. Its their national sport. If they haven't got an external enemy their will bush wack neighbours over some blood feud. They have a tradition of field-craft, guile and marksmanship.

The invasion of Iraq managed to provoke a ferocious uprising. The population for one reason or anther were moved to expend their lives with courage and determination. They didnlt werar body armour and lacked the medical backup offering the best medical care in the platinum 10 minutes

Did i mention the blood feud? Insult or injure a kinsman in much of the middle east and they have a moral duty to avenge their death. A friend of mine commanded Omani soldiers in the 1970s. It was reasonable for a soldier to take leave to settle a feud and he might or might not come back.

What proportion of people in the west really cared enough about either country to be willing to get into a Did anyone in the USA?

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#9

Post by Sid Guttridge » 10 Mar 2017, 12:58

I don't think the "American military has done so poorly in Iraq and Afghanistan". They have proved quick learners and adaptable.

As in Vietnam, the political will to follow through long term and in sufficient numbers was lacking, not military aptitude.

The other problem is local failings. A US officer remarked of Cambodia during the Vietnam War era that the USA would have done better to reform the country's administration than its armed forces. The same might apply in Iraq and Afghanistan. Particularly in Iraq, the armed forces seem to have been corrupted from within.

The Obama administration staying out of direct involvement in Iraq on the ground has resulted in the Iraqi armed forces and administration having to improve their own performances. The fall of Mosul will be to Obama's credit.

Afghanistan is dragging on in a stalemate but at little cost in blood to the USA. Furthermore, the local forces are holding their own and improving qualitatively bit by bit.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#10

Post by Paul Lakowski » 11 Mar 2017, 04:56

fuser wrote:
Paul Lakowski wrote:Western democracy don't do insurgency wars very well. For it to work well you have to be brutal & ruthless or it won't work.
Like Malayan insurgency, Kenyan uprising, Lumbaa of Congo etc.?

Western democracy are hardly adverse to brutality and ruthlessness.

Yes all political embarrassments that could only work in the context cold war hysteria. You could never have done this from the 1980s on. It would be political suicide.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#11

Post by Sheldrake » 11 Mar 2017, 11:35

Paul Lakowski wrote:Western democracy don't do insurgency wars very well. For it to work well you have to be brutal & ruthless or it won't work.
I think you have to have an achievable end state, consistency and determinations. That has been lacking in both conflicts. The reluctance of the west to take casualties. Bug splatting from a continent with a drone is the opposite of feet on the ground. Encumbering soldiers in armour isn't the best way to chase nimble Pathan light infantry. Both send a message to the locals.

This reminds me of a comment by a British soldier over 100 years ago about burning down a Boer farm in South Africa. The women watchinmg their house burn told him that they would win. They could burn down the houses, but they would remain long after the briotish had gone home. I suspect that sentiment sustained the opposition in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#12

Post by BarKokhba » 12 Mar 2017, 07:12

Great comments guys, thanks. One guy who had it right re Iraq early on was V.P. Joe Biden who said during the Democratic campaign of 2008 that Iraq should be divided into three viable and independent nations- Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish. After he said that he was immediately stifled by Obama and the State Dept, and things have spiraled downward since (ISIS, etc).

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#13

Post by Sheldrake » 12 Mar 2017, 10:56

BarKokhba wrote:Great comments guys, thanks. One guy who had it right re Iraq early on was V.P. Joe Biden who said during the Democratic campaign of 2008 that Iraq should be divided into three viable and independent nations- Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish. After he said that he was immediately stifled by Obama and the State Dept, and things have spiraled downward since (ISIS, etc).
While looking tidy in Washington and on Western media, it would involve a degree of messy ethnic cleansing and unlikely to be sustainable.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#14

Post by Sid Guttridge » 13 Mar 2017, 13:19

.....or supportable by the Turks or Iranians who have Kurdish problems of their own.

That solution could, perhaps, have been tried after WWII, when the British and French were drawing random lines on maps of the area, Turkey was a defeated state and Persia's influence weak.

The Kurds clearly merit their own state, but have never had one before, so their neighbours/occupiers don't want to create a precedent for them now.

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. Individual Kurds have been influential historically. Saladin was one, but they have never had their own state.

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Re: Why has American Military Done So Poorly in Iraq & Afghanistan?

#15

Post by Sheldrake » 13 Mar 2017, 16:45

Sid Guttridge wrote: That solution could, perhaps, have been tried after WWII, when the British and French were drawing random lines on maps of the area, Turkey was a defeated state and Persia's influence weak.
Gertrude Bell, one of the most influential women of the First World War was involved in setting up the Iraqi state. If you read her comments she writes of tribes and people - never simply lumping all co-religionists together . She backed Faisal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_I_of_Iraq Accordign to wikipedia he "fostered unity between Sunni and Shiite Muslims to encourage common loyalty and promote pan-Arabism in the goal of creating an Arab state that would include Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Fertile Crescent." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_I_of_Iraq

Here are some extracts from her letters
[25 March 1921] Suez March 25 I'll tell you about our Conference. I came very reluctantly and am now so very glad I came. It has been wonderful. We covered more work in a fortnight than has ever before been got through in a year. Mr Churchill was admirable, most ready to meet everyone half way and masterly alike in guiding a big meeting and in conducting the small political committees into which we broke up. Not the least favourable circumstance was that Sir Percy and I, coming out with a definite programme, found when we came to open our packets that it coincided exactly with that which the S. of S. had brought with him. The general line adopted is, I am convinced, the only right one, the only line which gives real hope of success. We are now going back to find Baghdad, I expect, at a fever pitch of excitement, to square the Naqib and to convince Saiyid Talib, if he is convinceable, that his hopes are doomed to disappointment - it's a disappointment which will be confined to himself. But I feel certain that we shall have the current of Nationalist opinion in our favour and I've no doubt of success.........it's going to be interesting! if we bring it off we shall make a difference in the world, for it will be the beginning of a quite new thing which will serve as an example - let's hope not as a warning.
http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_detai ... ter_id=464
The project was the founding of Iraq.
This evening I've been having a long talk with Capt Littledale down from Arbil [(Hawler)], a most capable and sensible person who has done admirably with his police there. He thinks matters look pretty black; a Turkish attack in any force, 200 or 300, might mean a hurried evacuation of Arbil on our part - and they've got a force of 120 in Rawandaz [Rawandiz] already. His conclusion is (and it's a kind of refrain which we all sing in chorus) peace with Turkey is the one solution. And meantime the high and mighty at home, so far as I can judge, continue to hold solemn debate as to Smyrna [Izmir] and Thrace which don't matter a damn in comparison with the responsibilities we've assumed here. When Faisal says he can't for the life of him understand our policy, I can only agree with him. While Turkish hostility is filling the Near East with the bitterest propaganda against us, the French have stolen a march on us - who can blame them? - and are already profiting by their agreement, vide my Report No. 27. I cannot think that we can now shuffle out of the embroglio with dignity but I would readily throw dignity to the winds provided we can shuffle out of it by any means whatever. To the south the Ibn Sa'ud business is fortunately in the hands of Sir Percy not of HMG. The sooner we get a settlement there the better. I haven't any doubt that the capture of Hail will have far reaching consequences. He has stepped therewith onto the Syrian and Palestinian scene, not to speak of Trans Jordania and the whole L of C to the Hijaz. Trans Jordania implies Mr Philby who is now in authority there, so far as anyone is in authority. It's possible that he may espouse the cause of his princeling - though I hear from TE Lawrence that he's a "real rotter" - or again he remain staunch to his old devotion to Ibn Sa'ud. Faisal takes a gloomy view - "yin basat", he says - but on the whole I think that as our influence alone can keep Ibn Sa'ud from eating up the Hijaz or even Trans Jordania, it's on the whole an advantage that the British representative there should be on good terms with him. Ibn Sa'ud has so far adhered consistently to his agreements with us, though the underlying bitterness between him and the Sharifian family baffles description.r letters are here;
http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_detai ... ter_id=529

Those were the days when a a few chaps could carve up the middle east....
I went far down into the marsh country, almost dry at this season before the floods have begun, and saw an incredible wealth of agricultural land where even under Turkish misrule the tribes have grown rich and prosperous. The great houses of the shaikhs, fortified with mud wall and tower, rose among the palm trees by the river's edge like so many English country houses, and the owners, stalwart men, living in abundance, have all the air of authoritative and wealthy landed proprietors - which is what they are. They are rogues by taste and tradition - what else can you expect? - but like the land that bred them, they have stuff in them and that is the first essential, for land or for men. You can make something of them given time and opportunity - and patience. They have given us no trouble, being wholly occupied in sowing the seed with which we have provided them and bent on reaping the harvest they anticipate from their labours - and ours. I have always thought that this country will be easy to govern during the early stages of development. Not only does the Arab want to grow rich but he wants to spend. He asks immediately for schools, hospitals, steam pumps, and in a year or two he will be asking for steam ploughs and buying[?] motor boats; the exquisite native craft, the yoke of oxen, the music of the water wheel will have gone - to my regret, I don't deny it - but the loopholed mud tower will have gone too, and the old violence which called it into being will be a thing of the past. In a generation Mesopotamia will have moved forward 100 years - in less than a generation perhaps. Then the pinch will begin, when the first great burst of prosperity is over; but I shall not be there to see.
http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letter_detai ... ter_id=283

Here is an extract from one letter home on the subject of Israel
By the way, I hate Mr Balfour's Zionist pronouncement with regard to Syria. It's my Bellief that it can't be carried out; the country is wholly unsuited to the ends the Jews have in view; it is a poor land, incapable of great development and with a solid two thirds of its population Mohammadan Arabs who look on Jews with contempt. I think myself that they will ficher themselves pas mal of Zionist ambitions, which it would be an invidious task to try and force upon them. To my mind it's a wholly artificial scheme divorced from all relation to facts and I wish it the ill-success it deserves - and will get, I fancy.

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