Tooth versus Tail

One major factor in warfare that I find is often overlooked is the balancing
of the means available and thus the strategies that can be attempted.

The eternal tension between ends and means springs from the fact that the
natural human tendency is to envision the desired ends or objectives and
then stretch the means to meet them, rather than study the means (or
resources) and find an objective well within reach. Because of this, there
is a constant feedback loop from ends to means, as we seek a certain
outcome, find that it may not be possible, and either adapt our desires, or
attempt to expand our resources to meet the original goal. The way we get
from resources to objectives is our strategy or plan, and in the feedback
loop between means and ends, all three items (objectives, resources, and
strategies) all change. The balancing act is to not allow one factor alone
unbalance the whole of the equation, or allow a short term problem effect
long term planning. (Yarger 2006, 110)

This last problem is due another human tendency, that of prioritizing a
short term or immediate concern over a long term one.

As a concrete example of this concept, consider the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The U.S. initially believed it would be a short war, and planned and
budgeted accordingly, with no money or troops set aside for stabilizing the
country after the shooting stopped. The objective was to remove Hussein and
create a stable, free, democratic Iraq. The means was the U.S. military
(and a certain amount of money allowed by Congress). The strategy was to
invade, remove Hussein, and hand the country over to the Iraqis.

After it became apparent that Iraq couldn't be a stable democratic nation
without a true occupation and years of nation-building, the U.S. had to
reconsider the points of the formula. A lengthy occupation would have both
a monetary cost and a cost in the readiness of the military. To leave in
late 2003 would mean to concede part of the objective (stable democratic
Iraq). Caught between these two horns, the U.S. decided to expand the
resources allocated and pursue the objective, even at the new, higher cost.
Because of this decision, the strategy likewise had to change, from one of
short term intense combat to one including years of peace keeping and
nation-building. (And then adapt strategy again in 2007 when it became
apparent that the current methods were failing.)

The possibility of error in balancing these three points gets accentuated
when the cycle time of decisions gets longer. For example, in the world of
American fighter aircraft design, it can take ten to twenty years to design
and field a fighter, before it even goes to the production line, and given
the expenses involved, there is usually only one fight in the design phase
at any time. In the intervening decade or so, the strategic environment can
change and thus create new conditions that the fighter currently entering
the fleet is not prepared for. This is the situation for the F-22 and F-35;
design work for both planes started before the end of the Cold War, when the
conflict the DOD was planning for was a massive conventional battle in
Western Europe versus the Warsaw Pact nations (and was budgeted
accordingly).

Today, a massive battle in Western Europe seems highly unlikely, and the US
is in the midst pivoting into the Pacific to meet growing Chinese military
dominance (after two highly unconventional wars), and doing so while cutting
military spending. In this new environment, a short range, single engine
fighter with stealthy capability and high operating cost (the F-35) may not
be the best choice, but the Air Force has chosen to go that route.
(Pietrucha 2014, 134) In doing so, it is retiring the A-10, leaving the Air
Force with no specialized ground attack capability, and cutting pay and
benefits for personnel (Tritten 2014), an action that will have consequences
for all those currently in the military and those yet to come in, lasting
twenty years or more. It may be that the F-35 will warrant those choices; I
doubt this, but only time will tell.

Yarger, Harry R. 2006. "Toward a Theory of Strategy: Art Lykke and the Army
War College Strategy Model." In U.S. Army War College Guide to National
Security Policy and Strategy, edited by J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., 107-114.
Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2006.
www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=708 (accessed
June 15, 2014).

Pietrucha, Michael W. 2014. The Comanche and the Albatross About Our Neck
Was Hung. Air & Space Power Journal May - Jun 2014: 133-156,
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/article.asp?id=204 (accessed 16 June,
2014).

Tritten, Travis J. 2014. Over strong Joint Chiefs objections, House moves
to preserve military pay, benefits. Stripes.com, May 6,
http://www.stripes.com/over-strong-joint-chiefs-objections-house-moves-to-pr
eserve-military-pay-benefits-1.281766 (accessed 17 July, 2014).

Iraq

http://www.stripes.com/american-way-of-war-it-may-surprise-you-1.292182

I must respectfully disagree with the author. We could create a stable,
democratic government in Iraq, if we were committed to the task. Nation
building requires patience and commitment, which are hard to find in any
country when their sons and daughters are dying to protect and help another.
Patience is even harder to come by when it turns out the initiating event
was overstated or outright false.

The author quite accurately points out the negative pattern of American war
making, that of going to war quickly over an initiating event (real or
fabricated), and notes that in the case of Iraq, the narrative that led us
to war was false.

But Iraq is not (and never was) an impossible task; as an example of the
American capacity for nation-building, we almost single-handedly rebuilt
Japan, carried the lion's share of rebuilding Germany, as well heavily
assisting the rebuilding Europe in general after WWII, and did all three of
these things simultaneously, while ourselves transitioning from a war
economy to a peacetime one. Today it is inconceivable to think of the US
going to war with Japan or Germany, or they with us. We did nation-building
right in those places, and as a testament to our commitment there, we still
have bases in Germany and Japan. (I grant that the major reason for their
continued existence after nation-building was the Cold War.)

Agreed that our major mistake in Iraq was going there in the first place,
but nevertheless, we could have accomplished nation-building, were we
committed to it. Why weren't we? Because the stated reason for it didn't
ring true after IEDs started killing young Americans. Notably, the reason
for getting into WWII did stand the test of time, and we committed to
post-war reconstruction, while in both Iraq and Vietnam we had trumped up
reasons and sloppy execution. Both quickly became unpopular in the U.S.,
and both are (my opinion) failed wars. The lesson I would take from this is
that your reason for going to war better be solid, or society's support for
your actions won't be and you will be caught short.

Regarding the present situation there, I am in the
"we-broke-it-we-bought-it" school of thought. We, on our own authority,
subjected the Iraqi people to more than a decade of war and sloppy,
shortsighted postwar planning; for this reason we still have a moral duty to
them. I'm not saying we need to solve all their problems, or attempt to go
back en masse, but we owe them the actions necessary to spare them the
ravages of a long term civil war, and we should stop pretending that this
mess isn't our problem.