War as a Test of Wills

There have been spectacular attacks in Iraq on police stations, political leaders and on the headquarters of international organizations and coalition partners. Ambushes of American, coalition and Iraqi security forces average dozens per day, including the shooting down of several U.S. helicopters. The level of violence has sent shock waves through the American media and has shaken the faith even of some who had supported the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

President George W. Bush has correctly characterized these attacks as terrorism, as attempts to weaken American resolve and undermine Washington's political will.

"During the last few decades, the terrorists grew to believe that if they hit America hard-as in Lebanon and Somalia-America would retreat and back down," said President Bush in his November 1 radio address. "They have learned the wrong lesson. The United States will complete our work in Iraq. Leaving Iraq prematurely would only embolden the terrorists and increase the danger to America. We are determined to stay, to fight and to win."

The current level of violence in Iraq must be kept in perspective. It still does not constitute a military crisis or a threat to the coalition's strategic position. As of this writing, more than 400 U.S. servicemen and women have been killed during the course of the Iraq campaign which started on March 20. By any rational standard, the Iraq campaign has been one of the greatest-and least bloody-military success stories in history. By way of comparison, almost as many people have been killed in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding metropolitan area this year as concern has been rising about increasing street gang activity.

Despite car bomb attacks and helicopter downings, the violence in Iraq does not cross the threshold between terrorism and guerrilla warfare. Given the availability of weapons and explosives in Iraq, if there was a real popular uprising against Americans, the U.S. presence would quickly prove untenable. But this is not the case, not even in the Sunni areas. The vast majority of Iraqis know they are better off today than a year ago and that by cooperating with America their future will be even brighter.

According to the foremost theorist of guerrilla warfare, Mao Tse-tung, among the missions to be conducted when a movement is in the early stages of formation are "raiding and mining the enemy" and "cleaning up traitors and spies." Ambushing American troops, destroying infrastructure and assassinating Iraq leaders all fit this stage of war. The path towards the expansion of "revolutionary" movements is well known and can be blocked.

Outside support is essential to a "revolution" that lacks the active support of the people. Money, weapons and even "volunteer" troops are needed to give insurgents the means to fight. Foreign sanctuaries are important for the training and protection of fighters, or at least of their leaders. Diplomatic support is also important in weakening the position of the legitimate government and reducing the aid it receives from abroad.

Terrorism is the weapon of the weak and cannot defeat the superior military presence of the United States and its allies. As Mao knew, victory comes only when guerrillas are strong enough to shift to mobile warfare and large scale combat that can annihilate entire government units, not just pick off a passing soldier or two. Insurgents do not become a true threat until they are able to field such an army, either from their own growing ranks or, more often, from the intervention of foreign troops. In the Vietnam War, these troops came from North Vietnam, an organized state whose survival was never threatened and whose will to wage large-scale war was never broken.

The flow of militant Islamic fighters from Syria and Iran must be stopped. More coalition troops will be needed to seal the borders and provide a show of force to Damascus and Tehran to deter them from widening the war. Outside the region, interference by powers hostile to the American position, especially through the United Nations, must be contained.

There is little chance that the remnants of the Baathist regime and infiltrating Islamic terrorists can ever create the kind of armed force needed to win a military conflict. No one is predicting that the occupation of Iraq will cost the United States the 58,000 killed in action in Vietnam or even the 38,000 lost in Korea. The only hope of the insurgents is that a steady drip of much smaller casualties will act like a Chinese water torture to break the American will or induce a political change in Washington that would lead to a withdrawal of U.S. troops. This is still war, as defined by Karl von Clausewitz: "An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy to accomplish our will." The emphasis should not be on the scale of the violence, but its effect on the will to resist. The debate on the American homefront over interpretations of what is happening in Iraq is very much a part of the war.

Before Mao ordered Chinese troops to intervene in the Korean War, he advised his commanders that while the United States relied on air and naval forces for massive firepower, it was always short on infantry. Once American forces moved inland, they would become vulnerable and beatable, he argued.

The belief that the United States cannot stomach ground combat has given enemies from Imperial Japan to al Qaeda the confidence to challenge American power. They tell themselves that behind the high-tech machines is a decadent society unable to stay the course. Chinese strategists believe that America lost both the Korean and Vietnam Wars because of this weakness.

Lack of victory left a legacy of tyranny and genocide in a communist-dominated Southeast Asia. Millions died after "peace" had been imposed by triumphant Red armies. Despite some attempts to expand trade, the region continues to languish in poverty and oppression. In North Korea, a half-mad despot still threatens world peace with the specter of nuclear weapons while letting his people starve. Having failed to adopt a strategy of decisive warfare leading to the removal of the brutal regimes in Pyongyang and Hanoi when the opportunity presented itself, the United States has suffered the adverse strategic consequences for decades.

The liberation and reconstruction of Iraq offers the chance for a much better outcome at a much lower cost. In contrast, Saddam's legacy of mass graves warn of the kind of bloodbath that would ensue if a premature withdrawal of U.S. leadership allowed the forces of tyranny to return.

How the United States behaves in Iraq will have equivalent long-term consequences. It will either reinforce or refute the perceptions that other major powers have towards American credibility and stamina in the world arena. In a 1999 study by China's Central Military Commission on a possible confrontation with the United States over Taiwan, Beijing's strategists concluded, "If the U.S. forces lose thousands or hundreds of men under our powerful strikes, the anti-war sentiment within their country will force the U.S. government to take the same path as they did in Vietnam." Chinese strategists also doubt that the United States could defeat North Korea today due to the deep cuts in its military strength since the Gulf War and the prospect of very high casualties.

The campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with operations against global terrorist groups, have severely stretched American military resources. The Bush Administration has been struggling to fight a series of battles around the world using a downsized military. The same 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review which proclaimed the "decisive war" concept, with its emphasis on "regime change," also acknowledged that the "two war paradigm" which had supposedly guided U.S. force planning in the 1990s had been a myth.

This year, 24 of the Army's 33 active brigades were deployed for at least some period of time overseas. At the end of July, the Army reported to Congress that 232,000 of its 480,000 troops were deployed in 120 countries.

Among the Marines, 19 of 24 active duty battalions, and four of nine reserve battalions were serving outside the United States. In addition, as of November 5, over 221,000 Army Reserve and National Guard troops had been called up, along with some 11,000 Marine Reservists. Mao's observation that the United States is always short of ground forces is still valid.

At his press conference in London November 20, President Bush said, "We'll match the security needs with the number of troops necessary to secure Iraq," even if that means increasing force levels there in the near term. But from where will these soldiers come?

In 1990 when the first Gulf War was fought, the Army had 18 divisions. President George H. W. Bush reduced the Army to 14 divisions, what then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney called the "irreducible minimum" needed to protect American interests. President Bill Clinton then cut the Army further to 10 divisions. The last time the Army had only 10 divisions was just before the Korean War. The Pentagon needs to find a way to expand the Army by at least two, and preferably four, new divisions. The United States needs more troops to support the leadership position in world affairs it has assumed and to prove to rivals that it is not afraid to fight for its interests.

WILLIAM R. HAWKINS is senior fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Copyright Association of the United States Army Jan 2004
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