Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, America has been living as a country at war. We who live in the depths of the American homeland may not notice it, with the exception of those who have family or personal experience in the military. However, the military and the government have been distinctly aware of the costs of those two wars.
Most Americans know of “the surge,” that large push of troops and resources into Iraq in 2006 and 2007 that is largely credited with stabilizing the country and giving it a chance for the future. At the same time, a new counterinsurgency strategy -— championed by the likes of former Gen. David Petraeus — was taking hold in the military, and especially the U.S. Army.
But as we leave the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the military faces the challenge of learning from these experiences in order to adapt to the new world we are in. Most importantly, the military should not only focus on the successes of these wars, but also the many failures that accumulated in the years prior to the supposed relief of the surge, in a large part centered in the officer corps of the military.
Although the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan led by Gen. Tommy R. Franks were largely successful, quickly eliminating resistance from organized units and deposing the former governments, both quickly began to stumble in the post-invasion situation.
A Pentagon review as early as 2004 found that the war plan from Oct. 2002 assumed an easy and quick transition of security activities to Iraqi authorities. This sort of short-term focus and disregard for a holistic view of the wars we were in was not a singular event, but rather a symptom of consistent failures.
An Army War College review of the war in Afghanistan in 2002 found that the plan “ignores long-term objectives.” Franks’ successor, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez was arguably just as poorly prepared to handle the situation of occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2004, under Gen. George Casey, a review of army forces in Iraq found that only 20 percent of commanders of army forces understood and applied counterinsurgency tactics, 60 percent struggled with those tactics and 20 percent ignored those tactics and attempted to fight a conventional war.
There have been any number of reasons given for the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Supposedly the surge’s effectiveness proves that we should have sent more troops, or that the government — the President and Congress — should have devoted more attention to these wars.
But wars are the domain of the military. The civilians may send the troops there, but the generals need to lead the troops when they get there. There has been systemic failure in the leadership system of the military for the past decade, and the military needs to recognize that and adapt to that reality.
If the military continues to fail to prepare for reality of the wars the government may send it to fight, it will continue to waste lives fighting wars that only exist in theory.
Military leaders need to focus on lessons from Iraq
September 2, 2013
0