There seem to be two distinct camps in the debate on the War on Terror:
The Big War crowd argues that there are alliances and common interests among terrorist groups that extend far beyond al Qaida and anything short of total ideological warfare is doomed to failure (i.e., we’ll be targeted again unless we rip this worldwide threat out by its roots and destroy its ability to regenerate, and quickly).
The Little War crowd argues that we have a known, dangerous enemy, still at large, and we should have focussed our energies on targeting that enemy and its leader, so that we’re fighting one battle at a time, and fighting each one well (i.e., we’re using resources in Iraq that could be better used at the Afghanistan/Pakistan border).
The Little War people see the Big War approach as unfocussed, unefficient, and eventually unsuccessful.
The Big War people see the Little War approach as too narrow, too meek, and eventually too little too late.
Both approaches strike their supporters as systematic, wise, and standing the highest chance of protecting us from the threat.
Which do I support?
Well, let me say, the Big War approach seems the more ambitious of the two. As such it requires more faith in our leaders. As it’s being waged, it viturally demands blind faith, at least momentarily, as the intelligence that connects the enemies cannot always be made public, the interrogation of prisoners seemingly must be done outside international law, and the stated reasons for invading a country must sometimes be understood in “bureaucratic” terms, not always absolute ones. Not being so good in the blind faith department, with anyone, this approach makes me uncomfortable.
However, seeing Islamists in London calling for an England ruled by Islamic law, and seeing the English unable to effectively silence those idiots, does make me anxious. Seeing American lawyers associated with the bastards who planted the bombs on the trains in Madrid, and wondering how many other sleeper terrorists are among us, does make me paranoidly suspicious. Seeing the nuclear weapons bazzaar uncovered in the Middle East, and imagining it’s only a matter of time until some weapon makes its way to Manhattan, does make me extremely nervous.
There are some fundamental questions that either approach must consider: How far spread and, more importantly perhaps, how dangerous is our enemy? What if we’re fighting with all our might in Afghanistan, but quietly our enemy is planning attacks far away from there? What good is focus then?
The obvious first answer to these question, however, is we cannot be in all places at all times. We must choose where to fight. Regardless of how far-spread the enemy may be, we have limited resources and must choose our battles.
The major drawback I see in the Big War approach is not that it leads us to spread our resources too thin, but that it leads us to spread our ability to be accountable too thin. No effort beyond the control of the Commander in Chief can survive very long. Accountability is the key to what we’re ultimately fighting for: the presevation of our way of life.
The Big War approach opens up more opportunities for chaos than it closes, more opportunities for corruption, more opportunities for widespread disaster. It purposely destabilizes the world. As such, it’s more dangerous.
The Little War approach is the more defendable of the two to the international community, and as such is the approach we can take from a position of strength. And that’s the only way to fight if you have the choice.
I expect supporters of the Big War approach to feel we don’t have the choice.
Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the things that would make you lean in favor of Big War weren’t just suspicions and likelihoods, but proven facts on the ground. If that were the case, does a true choice between waging Big War and Little War actually exist, or is waging Big War the only choice for winning?
OK, I’m joining you in Speculationland here Fredrik, so I hope folks will give me some leeway.
It would depend on the imminence of the threat. If you know there are 50 terrorists in Malaysia, say, who really, really hate the US and scream about “death to the Infedels” “Death to the Great Satan” at weekly meetings, and they’ve sent the $3000 they were able to raise to someone who knows someone who may have a connection to bin Laden, do we send in the Marines and round them all up?
The threat is real (they could grow in coming months), but it’s perhaps not worth diverting resources to fight that battle at this moment. Isn’t it better to use the Marines to get those terrorists who are better organized first?
There are hundreds of such groups remember.
One thing that many of us think about the “Big War” approach is that it is ultimately counterproductive unless one is willing to embrace wholesale mass murder.
The math doesn’t work otherwise.
asdf —
I don’t get it. Why is embracing mass murder a necessary condition for the Big War approach?
Fredrik-
Because of blowback and retaliation. Fallujah writ large.
You’re right Edward, I don’t think that we have a choice. I feel that big war has been thrust upon us. In that context Iraq makes sense to me mainly because, as you say, we can’t be everywhere and so we must enlist aid.
However, I think our opinions may differ on the type of aid we need. IMHO we already have the aid of our traditional allies in that they are working hard to snuff out terrorism in their own countries. We need the aid of Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Libya etc. And the best way to either obtain that aid, such that it has been from Libya and Pakistan, or better identify our enemies, i.e. The mullahs in Iran, or the Baathists in Syria, was to prove to them and their people that we’d sacrifice to remove the Iraqi government and help the Iraqi people. I certainly wish we were doing a better job of the latter, but I believe the success of the former has reaped benefits in the big war.
Without Iraq, we’re left with, as you properly point out, a lot of groups in a lot of countries with ties to terrorism but no real moves on the parts of those states to clamp down on them. Do we send strike teams into them all? I’d prefer that their governments clamp down on them and I don’t particularly care whether its because they are afraid of being Saddamized (Libya) or because they now are convinced that the US will support them (Pakistan).
Excellent post.
Well, you know where I stand, Edward. I was calling for Total War Sept 12, less than half the resources spent militarily. But all our possible resources.
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“It would depend on the imminence of the threat”
If we had 5 states (I think we might) simultaneously developing nukes, each reaching capabilility in five years, we don’t have an imminent threat, but a really big problem. One at a time might not work.
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I have no certainty here. Let’s go microcosmic. Presume, for the sake of argument, that Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction, that negotiations or concessions won’t help. Is the killing of Hamas’s leadership going to solve the problem? I don’t think so. New leaders will arise.
And destroying al-Qaeda, for me, is like killing Yassin. Yes, we should do it, no it is not the answer. But we are facing as brutal and difficult a problem as Israel. Israel looks about to give up. We can’t build a wall.
I was calling for Total War Sept 12,
Never been quite sure what that would look like Bob. Invade the entire Middle East? Occupy Mecca? What?
What it would look like? Well, cancelling the tax cuts and reinstituting the draft would have sent a message.
Imagine, with the actually needed 500k troops rolling into Baghdad, another 500k draftee doctors, engineers, lawyers, plumbers rolling into Baghdad a month behind them. With whatever materials they need to follow. Move to next country as needed. Or several countries at once.
Blanket the Middle East with Americans. We are not so bad, especially in quantity. Right now, the only American an Iraqi sees is tired and pointing a rifle at them.
Yes, there will be 10k casualties just in transpost. And you can forget the world economy for a few years.
But I am a Big War guy. We might have 5-10 years, but how long will it take at this rate to make Cairo anything but a breeding ground for jobless terrorists. We don’t have a century.
So you’re saying cast aside any claims of being liberators and simply occupy the place? Well you’re certainly not meek Bob, but I’d like to see you try and sell that plan.
And the innocent Iraqis who die. What do you say to their families? Sorry, might makes right?
Will there be more innocent Iraqi’s dying under my plan than under Wolfie’s?
Are we occupying Iraq now? I don’t think so. How many Iraqi’s have died at the hands of Iraqi’s in the last year because there really is no police force? We don’t know, no one is able to count. How many women have died or been damaged in childbirth because of inadequate medical facilities. This halfway occupation is worse than none at all.
And How many Iraqi’s are going to die in the coming civil war? And still liberators, I included lawyers. We are actually turning over control far too soon, the Bush plan is just to get Iraqis to do their killing for them.
Oh. If you are saying we should never have gone in. We were going into Iraq, Edward. It never was in question. At least my plan would leave the Iraqi’s better off for our presence.
I am in an intermediate camp. I think there are lots of different terrorists with different levels of connections between them. Some of them are a lot more threatening than others. We have to combat them on three levels: first, by going after some of them when we can; second, altering the underlying conditions that make terrorism seem attractive to people when we can, and finally by conducting ourselves in such a way that the idea of being against us seems less and less appealing. (“The war of ideas”, “hearts and minds”.) So far I think I am in agreement with most conservatives, with this administration, and with the ‘big war’ school.
Where I disagree totally is in my views on what conduct actually follows from these views. I think that one of the best things we could have done to win the big war was not to invade Iraq but to do Afghanistan right: to provide security throughout the country until a trained and centrally commanded Afghan army could take over, rebuild a lot more infrastructure than we actually did, and in general do whatever it took to make sure that representative government and the rule of law really took hold in Afghanistan, and then just turned the country over to the Afghans. This would have done more to win over hearts and minds in the Muslim world than any amount of advertising and subsidized Arabic-language media. It would have created a real beacon of democracy in Central Asia, bordering Pakistan and Iran, in a country where people actually wanted us to be there, and where as a result we were much more likely to actually succeed. And it would have allowed us to focus on getting Osama bin Laden.
Instead of which, we have gone and invaded a country with no connection to al Qaeda, in the process diverting resources from the actual war on terror, and hugely damaging our efforts to win hearts and minds. And this is the most important part of any big war: it’s much, much easier not to create enemies than to kill them once they’re determined to fight you.
So I’m a big war person, but one who thinks that this war requires being extremely careful about what we do and where, and that there is, in particular, no reason at all to think that invading countries is a good tactic to use if we’re serious about our objective. One of the things I find most unforgiveable about the Bush administration is that they are not fundamentally serious: they invade countries with no plans for the occupation, allow security to collapse without, apparently, any sense of the damage this does, and the upshot of it all is that we hand the terrorists we are supposedly at war with more recruiting tools than they could possibly have hoped for, deepen the sense of humiliation and anger in the Middle East, endanger the lives of our soldiers, and shame our nation.
I wouldn’t put myself in either camp, really. Or at least I wouldn’t call them “big war” and “little war”, as it allows hawks to falsely claim they take the problem more seriously.
I don’t think we’re in a war of civilizations at this point, but even if we were I would think we were going about it stupidly.
I don’t see why we couldn’t spend billions and billions on liberal reform movements in places like Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, and Central Asia.
One thing we really need to do is fire every person who thinks that AlHurrah is a good idea.
“So you’re saying cast aside any claims of being liberators and simply occupy the place? Well you’re certainly not meek Bob, but I’d like to see you try and sell that plan.
And the innocent Iraqis who die. What do you say to their families? Sorry, might makes right?”
I’m neither here nor there, not backing Bob (who damned well should have his own blog), nor Edward, at present in this argument.
But I’d like to know what Edward thinks of the US’s behavior in Germany, Europe, Japan, and Asia, in 1946. And in the five previous years. We killed a lot of innocent people. The correct response, looking back, is to have not done so?
It’s not the easiest answer, and that’s why I’d like to see Edward’s thoughts on that, since he seems to be (an entirely subjective reaction; I know he wouldn’t agree with this characterization, and I’m not trying to put words in his mouth) putting forth answers to today’s problems as if they were simpler, and obvious.
War is hell, said General Sherman.
I’m not sure we should have done this one. But the fact that it is so is not, it seems to me, a prima facie case to state against any war.