Iraq War Strategy

Over the course of history, the strategic environment has changed rapidly and is now more complex than ever before – it is currently characterized by unpredictability and disorder, and may yet manifest itself in the collapse of nuclear armed nations, destabilizing conflict in geo-politically vital regions, and humanitarian crises. A world of disparate actors – not all nation states – now exists. Unpredictable events will continue to cause strategic surprise. The widespread effects of past conflicts such as World War II, Vietnam and the Iraq war are still being felt and have created significant strategic repercussions. The failures of these conflicts are the result of our military and political leaders’ failure to quickly adapt to wartime conditions. This occurs because of a general refusal to commit to a military culture of learning that encourages serious debate, critical assessments of our military operations, and challenges to our doctrine in the face of emerging change. Additionally, leaders have struggled with the critical responsibility of forecasting and providing for a ready force, one that is well-resourced and prepared to conduct future operations. It is the responsibility of our military and political leaders to send our military to war with a ready force, and a strategy that will ultimately result in victory. But understanding war and warriors is critical if societies and governments are to make sound judgments concerning military policy.

Carl von Clausewitz once said: “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in is mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” One hundred and forty years later Dr. Fred Charles Iklé, a noted sociologist and expert defense strategist, authored Every War Must End where he shares his insights on the difficult process which wars have been brought to a “close” and how those lessons learned from the past failures to duly end a war have influenced the strategies of the future war efforts. In Dr. Iklé’s book, he states: “fighting often continues long past the point where a ‘rational’ calculation would indicate that the war should be ended—ended, perhaps, even at the

The American “way of war” can be seen politically through the evolution of military policy as political perspectives changed. Post-World War II reveals primary and consistent policies that lead American military policymakers to avoid major international conflict. Coined the Cold War, Americans began waging war

The invasion and the war in Iraq remains a continuous topic of divisiveness and sensitivity in today’s America. One of the negative evaluation of the war is attributed to the false impression of the length of the war which lasted seven years, not six months as presumed in 2003. As the invasion initiated, the ideologies of American government then failed to perceive the large number of troops required, casualties and the financial toll in the interest of the preventive war doctrine. However, when weighing the failures of this war, there are successes brought home that relate mostly to the lessons the American military and the government learned with the use of counterinsurgency tactics after “winning the hearts and minds” of Iraqis (Young). Nevertheless, with evaluation through levels of analysis, the accomplished agenda of ending Saddam Hussein’s regime justifies success and failure, mutually.

While the development of guerrilla war does not factor into Weigley’s thesis that the United States has moved from a strategy of attrition to a strategy of annihilation, it is important in understanding how and why the United States made that change. For Weigley, this change came during the American Civil War when Grant became Commanding General of the Army. Grant did not believe the war could be won with a single, decisive victory against the Confederate Army, rather, he initiated a strategy to destroy the Confederate Armies through many battles and by attacking their economic resources. The orders to begin destroying the war resources of the Confederacy may have had their roots in the Western and Trans-Mississippian Theaters of the war because of frustrations associated with guerrilla war.

The U.S. military made the same mistakes initially in the 2003 Iraq War. The U.S. failed to allocate the proper number of troop strength, failed to adapt to the terrain, and failed to foresee the used of improvised explosive device (IED). The U.S. also lacked control of the civilian population, and the mistakes in Abu Ghraib became the rally cry for the insurgents, which the Iraqis rose to support the insurgency. (Montanus, 2005) However, the lessons learned from the British 200 years ago, the U.S. adapted and formed a concept to win the hearts of mine of the people into their counterinsurgency operation. The U.S. allocated more troops, adapted to the terrain, and employed new method to defeat IEDs. Furthermore, they opened dialogues with the Tribes, resolved conflicts, and addressed issues in order to win their support for the war. The U.S. assisted the Iraqi’s create a democratic government, provided logistic support, training

In his article, “Why Has American Stopped Winning Wars?” Dominic Tierney discusses some of the topics in his recent book, “The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts.” The book, unlike the article, provides recommendations for how America can adapt to a new era of warfare. Having said that, Tierney’s article published in the The Atlantic, provides no such recommendations nor does it provide adequate reasoning to support his argument, rather he leaves the reader emotionally charged and unable to make an informed judgement concerning the validity of his claims. Specifically, the author commits the fallacies of appealing to emotion, followed by the presentation of glittering generalizations and a false dichotomy. Therefore, the purpose here is to analyze his argument as outlined in the article, “Why Has American Stopped Winning Wars?”

The grand strategy of President of Bush foreign policy was to promote the spread of American democratic principles throughout the rest of the world and liberate those who are oppressed under non democratic regimes. In order to accomplish these foreign policy goals the Bush administration needed to exert a maximum display of force which was often achieved through military intervention. In the first term of President Bush administration one of the most daunting tasks faced with the implementation of the foreign policy strategy was how America could adequately address the growing

This period represented the model of what war “ought to look like.” According to Tierney, following 1945, the United States stopped winning major wars. For him, the United States did not win in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. However, the term win is somewhat elusive. In Korea, the outcome was inconclusive as the goal of liberating North Korea was not met. Yet, the United States did successfully defend South Korea from totalitarianism. Perhaps this should open the debate as to how winning is defined. The current war in Afghanistan suffers the same criticism in that, even after a decade of war, the terms of conflict were not accurately defined. Tierney’s view of winning is rather narrow. The challenge is to provide a more realistic assessment of victory which does not simply consider the defeat of the adversary, but examines the attainment of

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

The arrogance going into the war on Afghanistan was baffling. We learned that from the moment the white house staff discussed going into war to the plans to reconstruct and restore the nations were poorly planned

Many strategies have been devised by empires over centuries, these strategies and decisions have helped shape the world as it is in its present state. The author explains how strategic decisions made in the past were the wrong decisions in his opinion, as John Perkins had seen first hand the devastation that could be caused by the American government in its pursuit for a “global empire”.

Critical approach provides a historical background to Iraq war of 2003 which, according to historical materialists, has its roots in U.S. sponsored Fordist Industrial Capitalism linked with geopolitics of petroleum. According to Andrew Basevich (2005 a, 2008, 2010) the very nature of U.S. State policy is characterized by

As seen through today’s prism of operational art and design, the U.S. military’s campaign planning for Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) was not successful. This failure resulted from flaws in the planning process itself, and the conclusions that flowed from that process. The lack of adequate advance planning for Phase IV stability or transition operations proved especially problematic. This contributed directly to rising levels of violence in Iraq, and indirectly to increased public scrutiny of the war at home. Throughout 2006, the U.S. public, pundits and military planners debated the way forward in Iraq. The plan that emerged from this period, known as the surge, successfully overcame the deficiencies in the initial planning and execution

Previously, I perceived our opponents to be the “bad guys” and the United States to be the heroes that were helping people around the world. While this may be true in some applications, I’m no longer naïve to the fact that the U.S. isn’t handing out millions of dollars in economic interest simply because it’s the right thing to do. Rather, I believe that most military conflicts the U.S. has engaged in over the last century, as well as the current battles in Syria and throughout the Middle East, stem principally from economic motivations. While I’m undecided in the political debate that exists between political parties over the term imperialism itself, I’ve become keenly aware of how much of our country’s foreign policy is driven by the economic needs of its citizens. The profound change I’ve experienced is in remaining mindful as to the influence on foreign policy that receptive markets and favorable political conditions in countries throughout the world has.