Iraq: The American Army Prepares Itself for the Conflict that Follows

One rarely ends a battle with the same certainties that on had in the beginning. [What has happened] in Mesopotamia does not escape from this rule. Even if the Navy, like the Air Force, which have an overwhelming superiority [at sea and in the air], adapt their approaches [to warfare in Iraq] without a major existential crisis, there is still the case of the US Army. The Pentagon chief has recognized that the army is not “broken” by the Iraqi nightmare as some have suggested. It is rather “under great tension,” in a “state of unbalance.” For Robert Gates, the great challenge for the American army will be to “find how [to continue to] to advance and to lead a conventional war while learning (or relearning) to fight a unconventional war that it will find itself face to face with in the coming years.” In other word, continuing to “stand tall” against the “axis of evil” all while preparing for even more violent battles [such as] against the growing power of China. The debate is about the [current] doctrine as well as the means.

Dig a little deeper, the reflection is about the American way of war. One must listen to Robert Gates declare that the conflicts of the future “will be of a fundamentally political nature and will necessitate the work of all the facets of a nation’s power.” This is a serious break with the traditional American vision that saw a separation of political activities and those of warfare. An iconoclast article that one can judge by the title “The failure of the Generals,” [where] a second in command of a cavalry regiment doing its second tour in Iraq has managed to make a lot of noise in Washington. “It’s not the armies that make war, but the States” wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Yingling. “War is not a military activity driven by the soldiers, but a social activity that implicates entire nations.”

At the Pentagon, one seems to evolve towards a more European vision of the use of force. One remembers the [verbal] jousts over Iraq and Afghanistan. The French, in a very abrupt manner, the British, in a much muffled fashion rebuked Washington over the absence of a real strategic and political vision.

The military braces itself for the eventual division of the army into “combat forces” and “forces of stabilization.” Some lobbied for the creation of special advisors corps to help form the infant armies of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the voice of one of the thinkers of the day, co-auther of a new doctrine of American counter-insurgency, Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl. [He] estimates that the [problems] assume a competence of the [current] proper techniques, but also, “a particular way of seeing the world.” The needs are estimated at between 20,000 and 40,000 men. A part of the 65,000 men that have to reinforce the Army in the years to come could be affected by such a force.

Gates presents himself as sensible on this subject. It must be said that the principle of withdrawing form Iraq is on the back burner. The handover to local forces as well as their formation goes along with this principle. General Peter Chiarelli, advisor to Robert Gates and former head of operations in Iraq, considers, however, that the army “does not have the means to divide itself into combat and stabilization forces” and must instead develop “all purpose [capacity]” forces.

For Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CBSA), “the army is at a crossroads. It must keep conventional soldiers but contenting itself to a general soldier is not sufficient. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, we spend too much time adapting ourselves and thereby lose the confidence of the local population.” [This is] an opinion shared by James Carafano, for whom, “the question is knowing if one will succeed in keeping after Iraq with the know-how of counter-insurgency [methods]. If we had arrived in 2003 with the capacity we had in 1973 at the end of the Vietnam War, things would have gone much smoother. But we embarked with the [ideas] we had in 1963, this means, [basically] no ideas. This Heritage Foundation expert doubts however that “[we are headed] for an army specializing in counter-insurgency.”

Another analyst at the Brookings Institute, Jeremy Shapiro, a relativist, waits also for full changes. “The dominant idea in the army stays very grounded in conventional forces prepared for combat of higher intensity,” he explains. “The anti-insurrectional camp, of which General Petraeus (the head of American forces in Iraq) is a part, continues to have a marginal voice.” One has just gotten past the Rumsfeld years, when the head of the Pentagon estimated that the only technology [available] was to replace the number of soldiers. Today, it’s the technology and the numbers [available]. “The sign of a real priority change would be changes to the budget, the annulment of programs of armament, or several similar adjustments,” commented Jeremy Shapiro. “One does not have to be [affected a second time] by expenditures. One expends more only for what [is possible to accomplish]. This is a luxury that European armies can only permit themselves with difficulty.