The Powell doctrine should apply to all use of military force. This idea that air power can just be used cost-free is going to cost us some day.
Keeping out ground troops will do a lot towards going “without a lot of dead Americans”. Putting in ground troops will mean many more dead Americans.
Very possibly – though any such cost will be far, far less than the cost of using ground troops en masse.
Obama does have ideas; just not the misguided ones you favor. His idea is to aggressively contain them, and it’s working pretty well and at a reasonable cost compared to the alternatives.
Look, throughout this and other threads, you have never really acknowledged the real nature of the threat at hand. Instead, you inflate the threat to whatever proportion is necessary to argue that in the long run, a ground invasion will be necessary, and that Obama is simply delaying the inevitable (even though it’s hurting him and Democrats politically in an election year 
).
Here’s the real nature of the threat: ISIS’ long-term prospects are shit. They are hemmed in by powerful neighbors; their economy is ultimately dependent on oil revenues, of which they can be deprived; they have no allies; no ongoing source of weapons or military equipment; and their methods and incompetence will ultimately erode internal legitimacy. Evidently, a little bit of bombing and some ground skirmishes around the margins have been pretty successful in rolling back a lot of their territory. ISIS is, in fact, contained.
In the meantime, they have little to no ability to hit us directly. At best they can inspire attacks by local Muslims in the West. But that will be an issue whether ISIS is “destroyed” or not. The real issue, which few politicians seem interested in addressing head-on–and many are interested in exacerbating–is, why are (some) Western Muslims receptive to violent radicalization? As I’ve said before, jihadi propaganda doesn’t kill people; terrorists kill people. And for the time being, they are frankly pretty amateurish at doing so, suggesting that better policing and intelligence work could substantially reduce the problem.
Would sending in ground troops hasten the demise of ISIS? I think it probably would, but at a cost that is totally incommensurate with the problem. You’re probably right that such escalation will be (politically) unavoidable if and when there’s an attack in the US even remotely connected with ISIS, but that doesn’t make it smart policy.
As for Chuck Hagel, he’s the one who said that ISIS is “an imminent threat to every interest we have,” a statement so preposterously hyperbolic that his views on the subject shouldn’t be taken as gospel. He may be “in a position to know,” but he’s also in a position to engage in a lot of Cover Your Ass-driven threat inflation.
ISIS is a horrendous organization that has the capacity to make life severely worse for the people living under its direct control, but its ability to harm the West is pretty much negligible in the spectrum of risks to public safety, and can be mitigated still further by better policing and intelligence.
Let’s apply the Powell doctrine to the Iraq war, from the Bush administration’s POV in 2002-2003.
- Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear program and seeks to give weapons to terrorists.
- Do we have a clear attainable objective?
The overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Oil revenue will pay for the war.
- Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Iraq hides its weapon program from UN inspectors. Saddam Hussein refuses to step down.
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
America will train a new Iraqi army to keep the peace.
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
The consequences of not acting are greater than those of acting. The Iraqis will welcome coalition troops as liberators.
- Is the action supported by the American people?
Overwhelmingly so.
- Do we have genuine broad international support?
An entire coalition. Don’t forget Poland!
The problem with war is that you can’t set limits on it and hope to keep it within those limits. History tells us that you either go to war or you don’t go to war. Once you’re in a war, you have to do what you have to do to win. I suppose that as long as airpower contains ISIS’ expansion, then the President can just continue things as they are. But if our allies collapsed and ISIS took over Syria and moved into Baghdad and started moving into Jordan, then it’s not like the President can say, “Oh well, we tried. Guess we lost. Hey, about that jobs bill…”
For wars of choice? Yes you can. “Don’t do ground wars of choice” – don’t make the choice to invade a country when the US is not under anything close to imminent danger.
In the long run, ground war makes us lose, not win, in this case. Your strategy results in America losing, and so I reject it.
Do we have a plan in Antarctica that can be achieved without ground troops? Does that imply that we should send ground troops to Antarctica?
You have the reasoning exactly backwards. You seem to think that the default should be to send ground forces everywhere, unless there’s some reason not to send them. To the contrary, the default should be to keep our troops at home, unless there is some reason to send them. Do we have a plan that would be helped by ground troops? No, we do not, just like we didn’t in Iraq. Therefore, we shouldn’t send them.
If you ask me “we don’t wanna” is high-minded and intelligent.
I personally don’t like dying. I don’t like other Americans dying. (I don’t particularly like anyone dying, really.)
So I don’t wanna. ISTM this is the most high-minded and intelligent way to minimize the number of Americans dying.
The US needs to make sure that potential threats know that if you start something it will cost them. So you needed to punish the bad guys. That’s not the same thing as trying to solve all potential threats via ground wars.
And FWIW, the invasion of Afghanistan was probably a mistake too.
Moreover, saying that Overblown Threat #1 is greater than Overblown Threat #2 leaves it quite obvious how either could be taken out of reasonable perspective.
Yeah, I agree that the invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake, and thought so at the time too. But that one was, at least, an understandable mistake.
That was an interesting exercise, so kudos. I think you might want to distinguish between public statements and responsible internal deliberations though. The Downing Street Memo confirmed that intelligence was being shaped around policy for example.
I’m not convinced that Colin Powell or even Dick Cheney necessarily believed #1, especially with regards to giving nukes to terrorists. What Cheney believed (I’m guessing) is that these were huge risks that you can’t fuck with, and that to sell the war you should ramp up the case for the plebes. Powell believed the evidence was mixed and it was ultimately the President’s job to do the weighing. GWBush believed in avoiding small ball: aides realized that if you used the word “Game changer” during a meeting, you could get a much better chance of receiving Presidential support.
- There has to be some way of incorporating, “Avoid jackass analysis - work with professionals”, in the checklist.
Also scenario sketching and red team blue / team exercises. Some consequences are predictable.
I think number 4 was obviously skipped over: the administration was sick of getting jerked around by Saddam. Nonviolent means can very well involve getting jerked around.
7-8 are defensible. 5-6 are bluster.
If you are saying that any checklist can be gamed though, props again and good point.
Even in retrospect, I support the eradication of Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. I suspect the war could have been conducted better, but even if it couldn’t I would still support the initial invasion.
Hans Blix said that he could wrap up nuclear inspections in Iraq in months, not years. But Bush the Gamechanger dismissed his findings while conservatives heaped ridicule on the man. Blix was vindicated. The Iraqi invasion occurred anyway. In Afghanistan, the ruling government showed no signs of expelling Bin Laden. When terrorism occurs at home, it is a matter for law enforcement. When it occurs abroad, it is a diplomatic or military matter. When a state sponsors it, it is a hostile act.
The US should do it for them, mostly. I know I responded to this earlier, but Kevin Drum covered the issue today: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/president-obama-has-different-job-president-hollande [INDENT][INDENT]Hollande was animated and can-do about destroying ISIS, while Obama was…a little more realistic about things…
… let’s face facts: over the past year France has probably conducted a few hundred airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq. It only started strikes against ISIS in Syria last month. When Hollande says “we must act,” he’s basically asking the United States to act.
… Obama isn’t trying to rally a nation. Just the opposite, maybe. He’s been down this road before, and he’s well aware that revving up the public for a splendid little war requires no effort at all—especially during campaign season. When reporters demand to know why we can’t just “take out the bastards,” it’s obvious that he has a different job than Hollande. He’s not trying to rally a nation, he’s trying to keep everyone grounded about exactly what we can do. And for that I say: good for him. It’s harder and less satisfying than preaching fire and brimstone, but in the long run it’s better for the country. [/INDENT][/INDENT] Posturing is cheap. A voice for sobriety is rarer in public life.
Also, regarding Chronos. This is probably grist for another thread, but 1) I’d like to see a plausible Afghan scenario post 911 that doesn’t involve invasion. Also 2) somewhere this discussion is in the SDMB archives. Just saying. Revisiting this might be wise though: I still think invading Afghanistan is a no-brainer, but those are exactly the sorts attitudes that deserve reexamination.