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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Stupid, Incompetent, and Obsolete - Military analyst Anthony Cordesman rips the strategy of Israel and the U.S.: Most modern combat...will be wars against enemies that use terrorism, insurgency, and asymmetric tactics and fight at the political and ideological level. Winning will require victory at that political and ideological level, and in the tactics of shaping the psychological, perceptual, and media dimensions of the conflict. Defeating the enemy will not be more important than winning the support, or at least tolerance, of the population. Local, regional, and global perceptions of the conflict will be as important in sustaining a war, and in terminating conflict on favorable and lasting terms, as the number of enemies captured and killed. Israel has so far failed to understand this in Lebanon as the US to some extent failed to understand it in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This is all too natural in wartime, and Israel - unlike the US with the exception of the attacks on 9/11 -- is under direct attack. “Understandable,” however, is not “excusable” in modern war. Carelessly seeking immediate tactical advantage at the cost of major strategic risks and penalties is stupid and dangerous. Creating more enemies than you kill is self defeating; making it politically and ideologically impossible to end a war and so is spreading new levels of anger and hatred to other countries and/or factions.... Modern war is going to be war fought by both state and non-state actors that seek to compensate for US, Israeli, and other countries' conventional military superiority by using populations and civil facilities as a shield, and constantly finding and exploiting new ways to use civilian casualties and collateral damage as ideological, political, psychological, and media weapons. It is also a duel that favors the enemy actor. It is easier and cheaper to disperse, shelter, hide, and collocate, and then exaggerate and lie if civilian casualties and collateral damage occur. The officer or official who responds by accusing such enemies of being cowards or endangering their own people is simply stupid, incompetent, and obsolete. Quite aside from the fact that the US and UK found no problem in using the same tactics against Nazi Germany, and democratic resistance fighters have used them in many wars, such talk is based on the fundamental strategic and tactical fallacy that wars have rules based on the past. Enemies always seek to fight on advantageous terms and modern enemies will seek to fight below our level of conventional military advantage at the tactical level and above it at the ideological level. It is equally stupid, incompetent, and obsolete to simply call such enemies “terrorists” and talk about “democracy.” This may work within the confines of Israel or the Beltway, but wars are being fought for the minds and perceptions of very different people with very different values. Ethnic identity; perceiving such tactics as authorized by God or as the only workable route to liberation and “freedom fighting;” putting faith and culture first are military realities that no amount of prattle about universal Western values is going to defeat. It may simply be too late for Israel to react in this war. It entered it based on deeply flawed grand strategic and tactical principles, and seems to have fought the ideological and political dimension on the basis of the perceptions of Israelis and Americans. The IAF and IDF have so far been clumsy in both air and artillery operations, and sought tactical advantage at serious risk of excessive civilian casualties and collateral damage. Military cultures do not change in mid-operation and the incredibly clumsy IDF and Israeli government response to Qana is a case in point. Israel will, however, have to learn in the future if it does not want to take a largely passive region and turn it into an active enemy. The question for the US is will it learn in time to win in Iraq and Afghanistan, and seek the new military reality it faces in shaping its force transformation. One critical case will be the battle of Baghdad, where any major American mistake could alienate large numbers of Sunnis - or more seriously - turn a large number of Shi'ites against the US. Baghdad is a political struggle for stability and security; not a counterinsurgency campaign... More broadly, however, the Bush Administration and US military need to drastically reshape their priorities and methods to deal with suspected terrorists and detainees.
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#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
Good find, Morgana. Cordesman is important to watch since he is a confirmed globalist, CFR mouthpiece and a neocon apologist at times, though he is more aligned with the old guard plutocrats and foreign policy people around Scowcroft and Brzezinski. In this article he clearly embraces Zionist war propaganda and at the same time lashes out at the failed policies of the neocons (specifically the Clean Break strategy of Wurmser and Perle), and the Bush administration while trying to maintain that the neocon inspired "force transformation" of the military is the only way to deal with the new 4th generation warfare. (Did anyone ever suggest that peace might be an alternative?) It's quite a balancing act, but Cordesman has the experience in dealing with these matters and can come off in a convincing manner. He is still echoing the wishes of the CFR regulars since the handwriting is long on the wall now which tells us Bush and Cheney are history and will likely face impeachment as more and ever greater scandals erupt in the coming months.
#2. To: All (#1)
Correction, should read "CFR mouthpiece, though never a neocon apologist, due to his alignment with the old guard plutocrats..." Doo-doo happens. ;0)
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