Eurasia Press & News
America has become an imperial power that aims to invade and dominate the weak countries. This tendency has created global insecurity and led America to lose wars.
In terms of natural resources and firepower, America dominates like no other country. It has the largest and most flexible military, the most weapons, and the most devices to spy on and kill people from afar. At this point, it would seem American soldiers can win any war. But since 1945 America has fought a lot of wars and lost almost every one of them. In Vietnam, eventually communist forces unified all of Vietnam. America’s decades-long and hugely costly intervention in Afghanistan ended with the Taliban back in power. America’s quick and easy invasion of Iraq eventually turned into a mess with a protracted and expensive effort to rebuild the country and restore some sort of order. American superiority during the wars didn’t really solve anything. There was obvious American frustration with the futility of the wars and, in the process, the American military killed, and continues to kill, a lot of innocent people. There was a disconnect between America’s political aims and the aims of people in the countries America invaded.
The US must consider what political outcomes will flow from her military victories and what will be the case on the first day after she achieves military dominance
This difference between battle and campaign-level tactics is important to understand. The military can physically subdue enemies to capture land, but it can’t construct legitimate legal and governing institutions. The military can overthrow unpopular governments, but it can’t get the populace to accept the new, foreign-imposed government. The 2003 Iraq War is an example of this. The US quickly achieved its military objective of removing Saddam Hussein’s government, but that achieved little to nothing to answer the political questions. What would the new Iraqi government look like? How would different community and ethnic groups in Iraq accept and work with the new government? The new Iraqi government would need to answer these questions to gain the populace’s trust and support. Until that happened, an answer to the political questions would be impractical.
The US Debacle in Afghanistan
US policy in regard to post-2001 Afghanistan also demonstrates mission creep. Initially, the U.S. focused on removing the Taliban government and providing assistance to capture or kill members of Al-Qaeda*. Over the years, U.S. policy toward Afghanistan broadened to include the creation of democratic institutions and an effective, sustainable, and accountable Afghan National Security and Defence Force to uphold and protect the new political order. Between 2005 and 2007, the U.S. broadened its strategy to include virtually all aspects of government and society. The strategy became almost impossible to achieve because of a severe resource imbalance and the political objectives became unrealistic.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) looked at a different, but related, aspect of the U.S. war and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and released its report in 2012. Its findings strongly resembled those of previous reviews of reconstruction efforts because of “unrealistic timelines, lack of sufficient local context, and the absence of integral political and security analyses.” The report cited multiple examples of “fragmentation” of the various U.S. government agencies involved in reconstruction and found that programs were implemented without sufficient consideration of the capacity of the local government to support the programs. The report concluded that policymakers need to consider the political implications of the actions they take and realize that not every conflict and situation can be resolved by the application of military and political might.
The US Military intervention in Vietnam
Virtually all criticisms of U.S. involvement in Vietnam are equally applicable to other U.S. interventions. U.S. forces experienced little threat to life, and they regularly inflicted high enemy body counts. But body counts and other conventional measures of military operations did not reflect the political factors that ultimately determined the outcome of the war.
American bombing strategies were based on achieving target saturation and creating a sense of inevitable enemy collapse. Ultimately, these strategies failed to achieve their political objectives. US Army Lieutenant Colonel William J. Astore and other critics of U.S. military policy have repeatedly argued that military institutions developed a faith in the ultimate success of a given strategy, even in the absence of political ends or when strategy and policy were clearly misaligned. These critics argue that, had the institutions been more realistic, they probably would have found strategic and policy failures, and potentially adopted more politically flexible policies to attain their end state. Military and policymakers must be synchronized in evaluating the conflict and ultimate end state.
Conclusion
These sheds light on the United States’ apparent inability to win wars. We must consider the context of the political goals of these wars. The US does have the ability to defeat foreign armies. However, the obstacle lies in determining what comes after the US forces occupy a foreign capital. Sometimes, the US assumes that by assisting and/or installing foreign governments, it is achieving the political goals of a war; however, this is not always the case. Military solutions do not always translate to durable and lasting political solutions. Despite the complexity of political solutions, the US military does have the capacity to identify and address political issues. However, in doing so, the US must accept a lengthy and time-consuming process. The military has to be integrated into a political solution in order for it to achieve the objectives set forth by the US government. This is particularly the case in nation-building operations. Even the Government Accountability Office has acknowledged these points in relation to the ongoing military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The lesson is not that the US should never use force. The lesson is not that US interventions have always been failings. Situations exist where US interests have been served by limited objectives using military means as part of a politically integrated strategy. Situations exist where US interests have been served by using her military means to forcibly shape the international order to better reflect US interests. However, the greatest hurdle the US faces with the use of her military means is the temptation that inherently flows from possessing the ability to shape the international order to suit her interests. The US can be tempted to use her military might to forcibly make others adopt political and economic arrangements that misshape the US-ordered international system.
The greatest strategic concern facing the US is not the means, but the ends. The US has to be clear about the political arrangements it wishes to impose on the international community and to consider the likely costs. Most importantly, the US must consider what political outcomes will flow from her military victories and what will be the case on the first day after she achieves military dominance. The fact that the US focuses on these questions only after a war has been fought will ultimately result in the country winning battles and losing the peace.
