It certainly looks like a parody…
I really don’t want to send in 200,000-500,000 American troops to deal with this. I feel that, if regional powers are unwilling to confront ISIL, it is because they are more sympathetic with ISIL than the public diplomats let on, and so why defend them with the blood of our boys?
I want a policy that makes it clear to the regional powers that they REALLY do not want us sending our troops in. If they won’t re-conquer the territory that ISIL has taken in their back yards and we have to do it, we ought to do it as a conquest.
I want a policy that demands deep commitment on the US side before we send our troops in. Lack of commitment undermined our efforts in both Vietnam and Iraq. If we are sending our ground troops in to roll back ISIL, we should be clear that we are conquering and claiming the territory we clear, for OUR lasting benefit.
But yes, I really don’t think that level of commitment is possible, and so the answer is: do not send in the Army and Marines. If we are simply Forced to do it, the reality is that we will have to govern the place like a cross between Saddam Hussein and Assad- that’s what works in the ME; that is the key to ISIL’s success so far. If we are to rise to that challenge, it is really going to require a Roman-style conquest, just about anything less is not going to be a lasting solution.
Does anybody want that? Or, does anybody want another failed half-measure that sends thousands of our boys home in body bags while destroying the economy and tearing our society apart, in return for nothing whatsoever? If not, don’t send in ground troops until it is the kind of crisis that will generate the kind of commitment required to really follow through.
I don’t think it will ever become that kind of crisis though.
I do wonder if ISIS has been infiltrated by Assads security forces like the Jihadists were infiltrated by Algerian security forces in their civil war against the GIA, they were instructed to support the increase in the barbarity and violence perpetrated by the Jihadis on the population to make sure they were on side.
Personally no Western combat troops should be sent in whatsoever, this will just legitimise them, let the Arabs states sort them out, because it will serve as a lasting reminder to them all the price they will have to pay in supporting the very Frankenstein monster they created.
Try2B Comprehensive:
I’ll make some predictions. Middle Eastern states will continue to look after their own parochial interests. Turkey will not join forces with Saudi Arabia and send in 20,000 troops to defeat ISIS.
The US may send in special ops folk so that they can direct air power to the proper locations. But under Obama, the US will not direct 15,000 US troops to take on ISIS like we did in Fallujah.
Power vacuum then? No. ISIS makes diverting videos, but they are not overwhelmingly powerful. In fact they’ve been stymied over the past 6 months, now that we’ve figured out their strategy. So: prediction 3: ISIS will not take over the Middle East. They won’t take over Iraq.
If they join forces with Al Qaeda they could pose a problem in Syria. But so far, DAESH has been too jerkmanlike to do that. Praise Allah.
C’mon gang. DAESH has beheaded a handful of Americans. They are not Hitler; they are not even Saddam Hussein. Maybe Idi Amin.
I agree with you on every point (ok, I don’t know enough about Turkish politics to have an opinion either way, but otherwise…)
Obama himself says that Daesh will still be around by the end of his administration. The next administration may opt for deeper involvement though, you never know what a new President will do. My concern is that the public is getting whipped up into a frenzy over Daesh and very well may support stronger intervention.
My all-or-nothing stance comes from my belief that another quagmire like Vietnam or Iraq is as profitable to certain corporate interests as a successful and beneficial military action. It is all the same to them, and I suspect they have a lot of sway over our major media outlets and are using it to attempt to foment a war with Daesh, not because it is necessary or helpful or the best course of action at all, but simply for profit. I am worn out with disgust over this aspect of American culture.
So, I don’t want to send in ground troops anywhere unless we clearly Must. And in that case, it should be an overwhelming action. Threatening to conquer Daesh lands and claim them as our own makes Daesh America’s slave, setting up a power vacuum for us to fill later for our own benefit. But as you point out, Daesh is vicious, but not the threat they are portrayed to be. If the situation doesn’t demand a full-scale invasion, it certainly doesn’t require some middling, quagmire-inducing action.
So yes, they need to be destroyed, but not by our ground troops. America shares some of the blame for creating this monster, but c’mon, America did Not create the seething cultural conditions under which Shiites will slaughter Sunnis the moment the oppressive overlords preventing it are removed. It is a Middle Eastern problem primarily, and we need to not be jerked around by warmongers into another wasteful intervention.
The distinction I would draw is that half-measures short of US infantry in the context of international participation is something that the US should do almost routinely, IMHO, as it is the necessary hegemon.* The problem with this stance is that I’m not sure the media/public/elite can handle it. Such a policy implies that the US will be on the losing side every now and then. Also pilots will be captured and killed, as will rescuers of those pilots. One signal to me that the speaker is on the wrong side of this stance is if they emphasize US prestige, credibility or heaven help us national will. For that leads us to pointless pissing contests.
There is no reason why the US has to be on the winning side of every military confrontation. Or rather there are lots of reasons, all of them bad.
One background fact we have to consider is that we don’t understand anti-insurgency operations, though some think that we do. According to the latter view, we were less than successful in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan due to insufficient resources. I am highly dubious. I’m not saying that the military challenge is insolvable, just poorly understood. Commentators and policy analysts need to bear that in mind.
- My only qualm is that I’m not sure what the US military’s officers, grunts and special ops folk would think of this position.
Well, speaking of anti-insurgency, I said this:
and now I question how correct that is. Saddam fell, Maliki took power and drove the Sunnis out of the government. Then they struck back- that’s basically ISIS, the jilted Sunnis. Are the Sunnis and Shia always this violently opposed, or was the aftermath of the Iraq war just too much, and how much is that America’s fault? We intended an inclusive post-war government, but we didn’t get it, so… In any case, while I don’t really fault Obama for pulling out of Iraq, it did set the stage for Maliki to do what he did unhindered, so in this case, yes in a way it was lack of resources and national will that set the stage for this mess. But I was part of that lack of will! It was stupid to get involved in the first place!
Anyway, ‘poorly understood’ is right. In all the discussion of Daesh, I don’t see a lot of acknowledgement of what happened and what their grievance is, only a focus on their barbaric acts. We are basically siding with the Shia by fighting them. It will look that way even more if we send in the Army. Is our policy then that America chooses to support the Shia? That will surely upset a lot of people, so what are we going to do about that perception?
Re half-measures- I don’t oppose the airstrikes. They are a good way to support the regional powers IMHO. But my understanding of Vietnam is that we had the NVA just about licked, but simply couldn’t keep the fight going. Kind of the same thing in Iraq- too much pressure to pull out, and we couldn’t really impose order. So, both half-measures there, but also both examples where our efforts were undermined by being bad ideas in the first place.
Um, no. Maliki was pursuing a Shiite only policy before Obama took over. Indeed, US pressure led to his ouster last year.
There were reports of lights at the end of the tunnel during our entire 8 year engagement. Now you might be right: I haven’t studied the matter in any sort of detail. But I’d say that proponents of such a view have a heavy evidential burden. And furthermore, what’s their time frame? Apparently 8 years isn’t enough. Would 16 do it? Can that be shown?
My working hypothesis is that there are 2 models for counter-insurgency. One involves Roman style conquest. The other acknowledges that if we set aside empire, there is no military solution, only a political one. And option number 2 isn’t well understood by specialists nor widely acknowledged by media generalists.
Yes, you’re right. It didn’t help that the Sunnis boycotted the election, but democracy doesn’t work the same way in this part of the world. Democracy means the majority tries to crush the minority, and starts a civil war. Well, we worked with this guy for a long time, and look what we got.
How long have we been in Korea? Isn’t that a success story, its duration notwithstanding?
I like it. Roman style conquest must know no bounds, so you have got to have a goddamned good reason to go that route. The US had such a reason in WWII and achieved the military goal, but before it happened you could’ve got a solid consensus that the people would rather there not be a war at all. Nowadays there seems to be nostalgia for the Roman style conquest days. We should turn away from that if we want to get at who this generation really was, and more importantly who we ought to be today.
A mixed success if you consider subsequent dictatorships. AFAIK though, that conflict didn’t involve guerrilla war or occupation by the US. Still, the example is worth adding to the mix.
Yah, I’ll say. The US was hoping to replicate the results in Vietnam. It would have been a different world had they succeeded, no?
I’d argue for around 6 years to marginalize the insurgents. 
You really need to dive in. The insurgency likely was entirely manageable without US troop involvement by 1972. The problem is that South Vietnam faced a hybrid threat that combined a domestic insurgency with a conventional war of conquest by a neighboring power. Try2B referenced the NVA which was the conventional threat. Whether the South could have handled the 1975 invasion with more support is argued by from both sides. That fight has more similarity to France’s fight against Germany in 1940 than an insurgency.
The Viet Cong ceased to be an existential threat sometime after the Tet Offensive. The VC bled themselves dry by moving to mobile operations before conditions supported it. They also lost huge chunks of political support due to mistreatment of the populace during the offensive. Decent follow-up to exploit the VC missteps rolled them back further. The last years of the war were largely a conventional fight between North and South Vietnam with an insurgency/COIN side show. The South was conquered by a large, well supplied, relatively modern and mechanized conventional force that invaded from a neighboring nation state.
Have you tested your hypothesis against the successful British counter-insurgency in Malaya or the US experience in the Philippines? There were aspects of imperialism in both, although the British experience was in the era when they were dismantling empire. Neither example was really in the Roman model though. To some extent even the Romans were less pure an example than you seem to acknowledge. The Romans brought good governance for other reasons but those techniques also fit in a more modern, overt "hearts and minds,"civil-military combined approach.
I’d also submit that the COIN professionals really do understand that there’s no** military only** way out of an insurgency. It’s clearly and repeatedly laid out in doctrine and professional journals. Security is only one aspect of the total civil-military effort. If things have gotten to the point that the insurgents are using force effectively, a purely political solution you propose may be impossible. Professionals well versed in COIN understand that it’s not as simple as one or the other. They don’t refer to counter-insurgency as the graduate level of warfare because it’s simple.
Of course we could talk about whether IS counts as an insurgency. They both share similarities with and have differences from a classic Maoist phase 3 mobile force. Some hail from Iraq originaly. Some of them have had on and off again relationship with Iraqi Sunni tribes over the years. Some of them hadn’t been to Iraq before the invasion. It’s an interesting case. This post is long enough though…
If you really want to dig in on COIN some good reading:
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Galula’s “Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice” is a seminal work in the field and a relatively short read.
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JP 3-24 Counterinsurgency (.pdf file linked directly 1.1MB)- Current US doctrine.
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Mao Zedong “On Guerrilla Warfare” Insurgency from the insurgents perspective. Know your enemy.
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John Nagl’s book “Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife” is a good look at the Brit success in Malaya and the US bumbling in Vietnam. LTC (retired) Nagl was also one of the key figures in reestablishing US COIN doctrine.
Smallwarsjournal.com is also a great website.
Well, allowing that it is a lousy situation to start with, I am surprised things are going the way I would choose. I approve! 
Was going to start a thread on this, but figured I’d just post it here (might already have been discussed up thread, if so apologies for redundancy):
So, along with all of the other things these guys are doing, they are tossing gays off of buildings or otherwise murdering them in their same brutal fashion they seem to do everything with these days. I don’t see that there is really a debate about whether ISIS needs to be destroyed…pretty much every day there is something else to add to their tally.
So you’ll be booking your tickets to Syria today?
Destroying a small military isn’t exactly trivial. That ISIS is evil (and yes it is) doesn’t demonstrate the OP title. You have to consider the possibility of unintended consequences and quagmires. (Legit post and link though.)
You want to help the world? Donate to these guys.
PS: DinoR: Nice post. I especially agree with, “You really need to dive in.” I’ll add that it helps to read something that draws upon our 21st century experiences when commenting on Vietnam. To say that COIN isn’t fully understood is not to say that we have no insights on the subject. We do. (Disclosure: I’ve read, say, in depth articles in popular publications like the Atlantic and the NYT, but never a military book on that subject or any other for that matter.)
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So you’ll be booking your tickets to Syria today?
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Huh? Why would me stating that ISIS/ISIL needs to be destroyed equate to me flying out to Syria today?? I don’t need to be directly involved in the destroying to state that they need to be destroyed.
Have you considered the unintended consequences of us doing nothing, or not doing enough? It kind of works both ways.
I donate to these guys (every pay check in fact) instead…I think they will have a more profound impact and be far more help against ISIS. YMMV of course.