No – American ground troops in the middle east (when we haven’t been attacked militarily by a state actor) is bad for America and weakens America. That doesn’t mean that Kurdish ground troops in the region is bad for the Kurds. These are different countries/peoples under different circumstances.
By that logic, if Israeli troops occupied the area, that would be better than US troops occupying the area.
That seems pretty simplistic. There is no magic bugaboo that is ground troops. Troops on the ground is just military projection of force by other means. There is nothing that says ground tools should only be used against state actors. It may or may not be wise at this time, but that does not a rule make.
Ground troops were used to kill OBL. I don’t think that weakened America.
The real issue, which Obama supporters want to transform into something far more intelligent and thoughtful than it is, is that the public doesn’t want an occupation, liberals certainly don’t want an occupation, so we’ll call it the Kurds’ and “moderates”’ problem and promise to help as long as it doesn’t cost us much.
I understand the pros of such a policy, but let’s not make it into something that sounds more high minded and intelligent than it is. It really doesn’t come down to much more than “We don’t wanna.” Until we get attacked directly, at which point we’ll wanna.
Hm. Actually there is a fairly bright line. US special ops folk are currently in Syria, but they aren’t considered ground troops in popular discourse. Ground troops involve much greater numbers of American lives at risk, and after a certain point quantity has a quality all its own. Not to mention that special op fatalities don’t receive the same level or type of press coverage for some reason.
Generally speaking, it’s likely that some sort of Iraqi settlement among the Shiites and Sunnis is a prerequisite for stability in the region. Either they have to figure out how to live together or partition. Though the idea of dividing up the country causes most observers to blanch.
Have the Sunnis thrown in with ISIS or do most of them hate ISIS?
For the US? Yes, much, much better for the US than US troops in the region.
Implementing a policy whose cost is commensurate with the magnitude of the problem is certainly more thoughtful and intelligent than the alternative.
You’re probably right that if there’s an attack in the US so much as even “inspired” by ISIS there will be strong political pressure to escalate. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Unfortunately, neither the media nor our political leaders have any incentive to put the ISIS threat in reasonable perspective, so as usual cooler heads are unlikely to prevail.
THe ISIS threat is greater than the Al Qaeda threat, so I’m not sure how it could be taken out of perspective.
I’m fine with using special forces and the like for targeted ops (with a clear and necessary target/mission). But the last decade or so has shown, to me at least, that large-scale involvement of US ground forces in the region, when we haven’t been attacked militarily and don’t have a clear international and regional mandate, cannot make things better except perhaps in the very short term, and greatly weaken America.
If there were a huge international outcry, with an accompanying international military commitment including significant ground force commitment by the rest of the region, I might consider supporting US large-scale ground troop involvement. Otherwise, I think it would do nothing but make us weaker and make the situation more chaotic in the long term.
A couple points -
I would say large scale involvement of ground forces under the circumstances you identify aren’t good at nation building. To me it depends on what the goals are. Some goals can be achieved even in the circumstances you state.
I don’t think international sentiment is a necessary condition for achieving certain military goals with ground forces.
Our most recent experience doesn’t mean ground forces makes us weaker in all instances. You carry the lessons of recent history too far.
Okay, so you disagree. Maybe you’re right, and maybe there are circumstances in which I’d change my mind. But any such circumstances seem very different than the present, or anything likely to happen in the near future. And in any case, erring on the side of “don’t invade” is much, much better than erring on the “invade” side, which partially explains my caution.
I agree with that - erring on the side of “don’t invade” is personally preferable. I just think it’s carried too far when you conclude that ground troops absent the criteria you state weakens America and is bad for America.
I was misled when it came to Iraq and if I knew then what I know now I would not have supported it. That is going to influence my thinking probably forever. But I am not so convinced that ground troops weaken America. There are legit goals that can be accomplished with ground troops.
Yes, there are legit goals for ground troops, but I’m very, very (extremely!) skeptical of any such goals in the absence of a state actor that actually attacked us militarily, in a region with an extreme history of chaos and instability.
I think my biggest disagreement is your criteria of there being a state actor. Why does that make ground troops go from a bad idea to a good one? What does being a state actor do that could flip the decision matrix? To me, it’s a data point in decision making but not a necessary or sufficient condition.
Was the Taliban in Afghanistan a state actor in 2001?
It doesn’t necessarily make it into a good idea, but it may make it less bad, in my view. But it’s very complicated and I may have stated it too simply. In any case, I think my larger advocacy of no ground troops (and less involvement overall) in this particular circumstance is very appropriate and reasonable.
It is reasonable, IF you have a goal in mind and that goal can be achieved without ground troops. But as yet another person in a position to know said, in this case Chuck Hagel, there’s just no strategy, no plan. The decision to not use ground troops is not part of any sort of plan, it’s still just “I don’t wanna”.
So we have to get through one more year of this, and then we’ll get a President with some ideas. I have a great deal of confidence in the better Republicans and Hillary Clinton on this issue, so fingers crossed that we get through the next year without a lot of dead Americans.
Here’s something that’s bugging me though:
Okay, so we can’t wait for local ground forces, what does that mean? That the EU is willing to commit major ground forces with us to route them from their territory? Or that the US should just do it for them?
That’s… hard to say. Many of the educated and able have fled from ISIS controlled areas. But that doesn’t mean that they are eager for, say, an assault on Mosul, Iraq: [INDENT]Nor, for all their distrust of ISIS, is it clear that most Sunnis favor such an assault. Many have come to regret promises of liberation since the Americans first marched into Iraq. They fear it could be a euphemism for a fresh bout of sectarian cleansing. “Why should militiamen from Basra in the south invade a city in the north?” asked Taha Hamid al-Zaydi, a Sunni preacher and spokesman for the capital’s Sunni clerical establishment, which is based at Baghdad’s Abu Hanifa mosque. “It will simply make matters worse.” Each time I try to talk to him about ISIS he lists the crimes the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad continues to commit against Sunnis. “Life is normal in Mosul,” al-Zaydi says. “People of Mosul are more afraid of the future than of the present. We fear huge massacres to come.” [/INDENT]
Article. There are a lot of moving parts in the region, to say the least. I doubt whether the Sunni clerical establishment in Bagdhad speak for all ethnic Sunnis, though they are a major player. Anyway, you have to dig a bit to get halfway decent info on this topic.
From your link, it looks like routine diplomacy occurring as a result of a 3rd tier political problem rising to the first tier overnight in France. I seriously doubt whether France’s actions will come anywhere close to matching their words. But that’s ok. Maybe the timetable will be moved up a notch and France will contribute more.
I understand that foreign bases are really useful for insurgencies. So ISIS’s Iraqi presence props its Syrian presence and visa versa. National armies can be reluctant to chase their adversaries when they retreat far across borders. All that said, we’re winning: DAESH lost 25% of the Iraqi territory last year and more losses have occurred this year.
Feb 23
Jul 30:
Unfortunately, territorial losses increase the incentive for DAESH to compensate with terror attacks.
My take is that any decision to use ground troops should involve a checklist procedure: we should revisit the Powell Doctrine, adding to and subtracting from it as appropriate.