Study Published by Army Criticizes War on Terror's Scope

[zimv20]

link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8435-2004Jan11.html)


A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat.

The report, by visiting professor Jeffrey Record, who is on the faculty of the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point."

It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the "global war on terrorism" and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network.

"[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly . . . its parameters should be readjusted," Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security."

(more)

[Desertrat]

Some good points about our existing problems. Trouble is, where were all these good folks back at the beginning? (Whether WTC I in 1993 or WTC II on 9/11.) Hindsight's the usual 20/20.

I believe there's a notable dearth of experience in dealing with trans-national groups. Yet, these groups do have support from certain nations. So, "Whaddaya do?"

Same sort of thing for our current crop of presidential candidates. In the 1990s some of them were vocal about worries over Saddam's WMD. Now, they're castigating Bush for lying about WMDs; where were they before we got into all this mess?

Our military spread too thin? Seems to me the "Peace Dividend" and the drawdown in force numbers has come back to bite our butts.

Oh, well. Deja vu all over again...

'Rat

[IJ Reilly]

'Rat,

No, our military is spread too thin because of deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and particularly the latter. We could never maintain a sufficiently large military force if the definition of their mission is to cover the world, like Sherwin-Williams.

The "where were these folks" question isn't especially relevant when the criticism being leveled is of the administration's policy in the here-and-now to invade Iraq and call it fighting terrorism. It simply doesn't matter what the people at the War College were saying a couple of years ago, unless they were calling for an invasion of Iraq -- which I somehow doubt.

No hindsight issues are involved here at all. The questions are being raised about current policy.

[mactastic]

Regardless of the 'peace dividend' or any other considerations, you don't put the military in a position of being so thinly spread that we can't deal with a major crisis erupting somewhere unexpectedly. That's just irresponsible, particularly if something like Iraq didn't actually need to be done at the time it was undertaken.

[Desertrat]

Agreed, mac.

IJ, the demands in terms of additional numbers in Afghanistan and Iraq are not all that great. I've commented elsewhere that what I considered to be a flaw in our military is the shift from active duty troops to NG or AR.

It's bad for part-time soldiers to do tours of a year or more. It's no big deal for full-timers. WW II, it was "for the duration". In Korea, it was 16 months.

Where, around the world, do we have notable numbers of troops? (Omitting NATO/Europe and in the Balkans.) SFAIK, don't most of the locations have just company-sized units or suchlike? I ask because apparently there are those who claim some number above 100 countries, but many of those countries have only some embassy guard unit.

Stipulate that we all agree that we should not have gone into Iraq: The report also comments further.

"...pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat."

My question in my first post spoke to those states of which the governments offer no serious threat, but their support of terrorist groups does.

"It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the "global war on terrorism" and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network."

I read in the papers that there are those in Indonesia and the Philippines who claim agreement with al Qaeda. Same for some countries in Africa. Add in that there seems to be some Al Qaeda effort in the moslem areas of the Balkans. Seems to me that it is indeed a global war, just with al Qaeda.

Damfino...

'Rat
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