The Red State Ranger

"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." - GK Chesterton

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

A Land War in Asia

You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia; and only slightly less well-known is this: Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line.

If you have seen The Princess Bride (having never read the book, I can't speak for the same exchange being included), you know what happens next: the gloating Sicilian Vizzini falls over dead. The same is true of the other of his so-called "classic blunders;" at first, the truism seems formidable, but upon consideration, it falls over, as well.

Very little on this Earth exists without having a reason for its existence, and this blunder is no exception. History is littered with armies who met their eventual defeat in Asia, whether you consider Alexander stalling in the Indian heat, Napoleon's defeat in the Russian winter, or the Soviet Union failing in the mountains of Afghanistan. Of course, one cannot forget past American difficulties in Vietnam, as well. Each of these defeats has its own causes for failure, not the least of which for each is the vast breadth and depth of Asian geography.

Asia's big. Very big. In fact, it's the world's largest continent. Its size is its first trap - after Athens and Sparta fought for decades over a tiny peninsula, Alexander's Hellenistic armies found no such barriers to conquest. The indistinct border between Napoleon's conquest of Europe and the continent beyond Moscow also lead in part to his overextension and failure. Frankly, there's just nowhere to stop.

The continent also contains some of the most extreme terrain in the world. This can be an extremity of wealth, like the fertile valleys of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus Rivers, or the soil, climate, and accessibility of the Crimean Peninsula. It also can mean the heights of the Hindu Kush, depth of the Dead Sea, or the breadth of Siberia, the Gobi Desert, and the Rub al Khali. These vast differences also played a major part in the defeats of armies in Asia.

But the simplest, and therefore most-overlooked reason behind Asia's storied difficulties is simply that there are more peoples to fight over more land. Therefore, just like in the lottery, the more players there are, the more losers there are. However, the important corollary to that point is that in war, there is a winner for each loser; thereby there have also been more winners, historically speaking. If Asia makes such a difficult battlefield, those victors must have done some things very right. Let's look at three examples of this victory through adversity - Alexander the Great's Greek phalanx, Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes, and T. E. Lawrence's Arab revolt.

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First, Alexander. While it's difficult not to notice the eventual defeat of his armies, it's important not to take for granted their great successes before that fall. The tactical key to those victories was the use of the Greek phalanx, which was essentially a large block formation with each rank of its soldiers holding long spears toward its oncoming enemy, so that they constituted a large, very pointy wall. This was the very embodiment of the strategic concept we call Mass.

Prior to the introduction of European fighters, much of the war in what is now the Middle East consisted of either raiding parties out to loot and plunder, various mercenaries or nobility out to attain greatness, or armies of slaves thrown thoughtlessly at an opposing foe. Independently of all of this, the Greeks developed a method of warfare that was entirely different. Instead of numerous individuals hurling themselves at the enemy, relying only on initiative and their skill, Greek armies consisted of many men arrayed all but on top of each other, moving as one unit. In order to defeat them, an enemy had to attack their center, which essentially meant attacking all of the Greeks at the same time. This removed the chief strength of raiding-type warfare - the attacker's initiative - because when all grouped together, a phalanx was always in the ultimate defensive posture.

In addition, Alexander, a horseman from Macedon rather than a Greek himself, added cavalry to hem in an enemy's attack, suck that they had no choice but to assault the center of his army, and thus the heart of his strength. By perfecting the concept of mass, Alexander was able to conquer much of Western Asia, as well as Northern Africa. While it was infighting and illness that lead to his eventual defeat, Alexander's greatness was in perfecting a method of warfare we still consider and apply today - Mass.

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The Mongols, on the other hand, worked from a completely different playbook. Rather than being armored and organized farmers, the Mongols were horse-riding hunter-gatherers. Nonetheless, they conquered nearly all of Asia during their expansionist period, and made significant attempts as far as Central Europe. They didn't have large armies, nor did they have thick armor and strong spears. Instead, they mastered another key concept called Mobility.

The Mongols were primarily a hunter and herder society. As a result, their entire existence was built around moving from hunting ground to grazing ground to gathering ground. This in itself encouraged a very flexible group of people, able to thrive in any location, and adapted to move many people and their supplies with ease. The mastery of horsemanship only added to their range and success with this adaptation for mobility. Of course, in such a lifestyle, luxuries were few, and sometimes even the necessities of life came up short. As a result, they began seeking tribute from neighboring societies. They did this by applying their hunting skills to destroying opposing armies, and their herding talents to corral the remaining survivors. They would do this essentially by encircling a town, then by riding through it. By doing this, they would herd the civilians into smaller and smaller areas, while simultaneously drawing out a scattered opposition to hunt and ride down. In this manner, they conquered nearly all of Asia, and much of Eastern Europe.

While their cavalry mastered the arts of mobility and flexibility, their leader, Genghis Khan, mastered the art of combining vast and disparate peoples into controllable conquered subjects. He did this of course first through owning the battlefield and utterly destroying any military threats. But Khan didn't just hurt and destroy the wolves; he also kept the "herds" of conquered populations fat and happy. You see, the Mongols weren't the only people who enjoyed luxuries like salt, spice, silk, and steel. While some conquered populations had access to one of those, none had access to all, and all had an appreciation for the value of such imports. To this end, Khan developed and protected the largest and most extensive trade network the world had ever known. To build what Western Europe came to call the Silk Road, Genghis Khan developed a currency system that was accepted among all tributary peoples, ensured protection fro merchants and diplomatic envoys by law and by force, killed bandit gangs and tribal leaders alike who did not honor that protection, and encouraged a mutual respect among all people and religions, also by law and by example, taking into his personal court representatives of all peoples and clergy from all religions composing his empire. Therefore, not only have the might of mass and mobility conquered in Asia, but also the so-called "soft power" of the rule of law, free trade, and equality under the laws. While the sword conquers and controls, the pen and tongue maintain stability.

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Now, this is all well and good, but the keys to strategy take a little more than a few spears, some horses, and an order to "Be Excellent to Each Other." What does war in Asia mean in a modern, industrial age? In World War I, T.E. Lawrence, and by his proxy, British and Allied forces lead an Arab "revolt" against their Ottoman and German rulers. Originally intended to be no more than a stunt to make Germany pull forces from the all-important Western Front at minimal cost to the British, Lawrence nonetheless pulled off victory by defeating Turkish and German forces in Arab lands.

Lawrence had great disdain for "by the book" European warfare. In his memoirs, he writes with moving bitterness of routing his enemies by applying the lessons of Clausewitz and Jomini during a battle in which he lost important Arab leaders and the aid of a tribe he'd sought help from for quite a time, all to win an area he gave back up freely only days later. Yet his lessons still apply to Western warfare, both in what he can teach us as "the other," i.e. the insurgents fighting a stronger, modern enemy, and as one of our own, as a Western leader developing a broad coalition of natives in a foreign land, to achieve both their objectives and his own.

First, Lawrence saw both the strengths and the weaknesses of early 20th-century military technology. He adopted the strengths - machine guns, explosives, naval artillery - while attacking its weaknesses - the long and fixed supply lines of a railway system, a logistics-intensive enemy using lots of food, water, and supplies to remain in fixed garrisons, and an enemy who likely also got last selection in weapons, troops, and support, due to a more important front open in a wider war.

His enemy could have learned important elements of their own advantage and disadvantage by viewing Lawrence's decisions in this matter. First, he was using British versions of their own weapons in engagements, from machine guns to artillery. While evenly-matched technologically, they surely had more weapons and ammunition, and better training at both, than he. Second, he was attacking trains while on bridges along their important supply railways, both to disrupt their line of supply and communication, and to loot their trains for ammunition and supplies, and even plundering European luxuries as trophies to maintain good relationships with his Arab tribal allies. These were surely the weakest points in their defensive scheme, and ought to have been either avoided through an application of the new technology of flight, defended more rigorously by putting more troops on better-defended trains, or counter-disrupted by removing potential "plunder" and other luxury items that mattered only in another country thousands of miles away.

Finally, one must also recognize one's strengths, where the enemy is not attacking, such as well-defended cities and garrisons. The catch here, however, is that even if what is defended appears to be a politically important city or strategically important bridge, the enemy won't give up and say "Oh, well, I can't take the bridge, so you win." Instead, he'll develop a strategy where he can either make what's important-but-defended unimportant to his plan, or he can delay assault until you can't defend it anymore due to his other actions elsewhere. The lesson here is simple: Know Thyself, and Know Thy Enemy. Know what you need to defend and keep, be it land, assets, or objectives, what he needs to take destroy and achieve, respectively, and, if those lists clash, figure out how he'll adapt to his weakness.

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Major Lawrence is on our side now, leading a native population of allies to achieve a common goal. If you think out-thinking and out-maneuvering your enemy's plan of attack was difficult, this task looks well-nigh impossible. Guiding and maintaining an army from an entirely different culture, with different customs, and millennia-old prideful divisions among themselves is indeed a delicate task. But it was not impossible for Lawrence; therefore it is not impossible now. This is by far the most complex of any of the lessons one can learn from our study. Therefore, while it's important to know and understand the basic rules, much like playing a card game, your own hand and an opponents hand both dictate how those rules ought to be applied in a specific game. We can glean the important rules for any such basic strategy from Lawrence.

Rule One: Know your Allies. Know what makes them tick, from their greatest leader to their smallest citizen. Know under what circumstances, and at what cost, they'll defend your mutual interest, and know what circumstances might beat that. Know their divisions, and their unity. Finally, know how they do the things you'll be doing the most of - deal-brokering, settling disputes, and creating strategies. The values of pride, honor, respect, and glory can vary wildly among all cultures, whether contrasting Alabama and California or the British and the Arabs, and these values play most heavily into the diplomacy required.

Rule Two: Find a Leader. In beginning his work, this was the first, and to him the most important, step in Lawrence's plan. You can't pick someone who always just agrees with you, but you have to find someone who can work with you. Further, you can't pick them, you can only find them. They have to be strong, likeable, understanding of your goals and their own, and nearly universally respected among their own people. Some great leaders are just born. The one you find has to be one of them.

Rule Three: Have a plan, but be flexible. By this, I don't mean have just a strategy, but also a plan to integrate that strategy into your coalition. Expect disappointment. Sometimes an ally or group of allies simply won't pan out, and sometimes a group you weren't counting on will come through. In either case, if you can't successfully integrate this surprise into your strategy, the consequences will be disastrous. To successfully meld a diplomatic plan into a strategy, you have to know your main objective, have intermediate objectives, and know how they relate; which intermediate objective is necessary, and which is conditional? The plan you start with, you won't follow, but in dealing with both a disappointing and a pleasant surprise, one can remain flexible enough to achieve the end result desired.

These are just three of any number of key points one can clean from what T.E. Lawrence learned about coalition warfare with a different culture, but most of them fall under these three in some way.

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We began this discussion attempting to prove or debunk the truism that it is a blunder to fight a land war in Asia. After a discussion of just three of the leaders and armies who fought and won such land campaigns, there should be no doubt that the silly question "Can we win?" ought to be replaced with the more important question of "How do we win?" While the full answer to that question, as applied to our current war, is for another day and hundreds of books worth of thought, we can gain a good start by asking and understanding how "they" won.

First, one must seek to master both Mass and Mobility because, just like Alexander's cavalry funneling the enemy toward the phalanx, the weakness of one is complemented by the strength of the other, and vice versa. Second, one must hunt the wolves and herd the sheep. Like Genghis Khan knew, even after the land is conquered, both still need to be done to maintain the stability of a victory. Third, post-industrial warfare doesn't negate these rules, it simply raises the stakes. To achieve his goal, T.E. Lawrence had to work with a tricky coalition while enjoying the advantage of understanding both his enemy's (and his own) Clausewitzian background and European traditions, as well as understanding and having by his side his allies' backgrounds, advantages and disadvantages.

Finally, and most importantly, we've learned that winning a land war in Asia is quite possible, and, in light of historical understanding of those who have won just such a war, suggesting otherwise is silly. In fact, it becomes exceedingly so when winning a land war in Asia becomes not a question of possibility, but of necessity, as it did with our own country's awareness and concern of this problem on 11 September, 2001. Consider the lessons of history. Read about those who have won, and who have lost. Consider the lessons they learned, and how they might apply in today's world, with modern technology and post-modern sensitivities. Because a land war in Asia is precisely what we need to win, and failure is not an option.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Incoming

It's been a while. I don't mean since I last wrote here; much more significantly, it's been over four years since 11 September, 2001. It's been four years, not since we had war declared on us, but since we finally declared it back. In one sense, four years can sometimes still feel like yesterday, but in another, it's all too far away. With a journey so bold and difficult as this one, it's easy to take for granted the path we've been down as a whole: where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.

Because of that, what will follow will be a series of four essays, each concerned with a different aspect of this arduous quest, from single issues to grand scale, big picture ideas. Though they are separate pieces, each is part of the past four years, and of the larger puzzle of where our country stands today.

A Land War in Asia will consider the very real worries many had in accepting so great an undertaking as fighting a war in Afghanistan, and take a look at the wisdom and/or folly of the concept of fighting a land war in Asia from a strategic and historical perspective.

The Sandwich Doctrine explains the fallacies many have fallen prey to in criticizing (and continuing to criticize) the war in Iraq, from the WMD issue to the Bush Doctrine.

Sacrifice and Victory will take a hard philosophical and moral look at what defines the price of victory and the cost of defeat in a Post-Modern America.

Finally, Exsurgency will be a look at the trends shaping Iraq today, how the war is changing before our eyes, and how the world is changing as a result.

To Note: I'm posting this by email, so link tags will probably not work. As a result, when I refer to current news and historical documents, rather than linking directly, I'll do the incredbly non-web-savvy thing and use a form of endnote to document sources(1). Further, I'm going to attempt to get a solid schedule down for when updates will be posted, to hopefully deliver a better quality of work over a longer time frame. Expect weekly updates each Wednesday.

Last, but not least, I'll be playing historian, philosopher, strategist, and political scientist, none of which I get paid for. So, if you, dear reader, have any notes, points, or corrections, lay them out there. It's been an interesting and complex four years, and no one as all the knowledge and insight from the duration.

Next Week: A Land War in Asia...

1. Like this, I hope it's not too annoying