The information and ideas expressed here do not always reflect the collective opinions of the VSF Board of Directors. Some information is posted because it has merit and/or is relevant.

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Go to the article:  An Alternative Approach for Afghanistan
Go to the article:  "A Strategy For Success In Afghanistan, One Tribe At A Time"
Go to the article:  WISHFUL THINKING AND INDECISIVE WARS
Go to the article:  Determining the Roles for General Purpose Forces (GPF) and Special Operations Forces

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A Certain Trumpet

General Maxwell Taylor was certainly one of this country’s most courageous combat leaders in WW II and Korea, and our most brilliant military visionary and intellectual of the 20th Century. After his tour as Army Chief of Staff (1955-1959), he wrote “The Uncertain Trumpet”, in which he presented some exceedingly well justified recommendations for bold changes in our national military strategy, and our military leadership organization and decision making at the highest levels.

His WW II combat experience with the then recently organized 82d Airborne Division, and later as Commander, 101st Airborne Division, proved to him that new and different types of combat capability could present additional and effective dimensions to modern warfare. His experience as Eighth Army Commander in Korea in 1953 probably confirmed for him the limitations and shortfalls of the national strategy of Massive Retaliation.

As the Army Chief of Staff, he attempted in every manner possible, to cause a change of the national military strategy of massive retaliation to one of flexible response, with a redistribution of resources within the services and major changes in roles and missions for the different services. In the senior military and political community in Washington, it would seem that General Taylor was the only one at that time who heard this “certain trumpet”.

After his tour as the Army Chief of Staff and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Taylor was totally convinced of the clarity of another “certain trumpet”. It is obvious in his book that he felt that the organization and operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was both ineffective and unworkable in its present form, particularly during periods of conflict. In its present form, he wrote that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had the characteristics of a committee. His recommendations to improve the military decision making and advice to the national civilian leadership included a single Defense Chief of Staff, with Deputy Defense Chiefs of Staff from each of the other services, and a joint supporting staff. This Defense Chief of Staff would be the senior military officer of these United States, and report directly to the Secretary of Defense and the President. The Chiefs of Staff for each service would be left to focus in one direction; to recruit, train, equip, and do what is best for the Troops of their respective service. The Defense Chief of Staff and his Deputies should concentrate on planning, preparation and war fighting at the strategic level. Any differences between the Defense Chief of Staff and the Service Chiefs of Staff would be worked out through the Secretary of Defense.

General Taylor also recommended the organization of an independent Military Council consisting of one four star officer from each service on their last active duty assignment or retired, and not carried on the active roll of any service. This council would not have a permanent chairman, and would provide appropriate advice to the President, the Secretary of Defense and the Congress. The members of this Council should be the most experienced in the operations and capabilities of their particular service, and not just popular in the cocktail circuit in D.C. The Council members should be fiercely independent in their assessments and advice, and should never be “required” to formulate a consensus on issues.

If anyone or any organization/agency conducts an objective critique of this nation’s military strategy, advice, influence and actions/inactions over the past five decades, this recommendation by General Taylor reference the Joint Chiefs of Staff might assume significant relevance. Let there be no confusion; in this paper I am discussing actions and organizational structure at the highest levels and not the actions of those in the field. Our troops, unit leaders, and our military families have responded, and continue to respond, to our nation’s requirements with such courage, stamina, and professional abilities that have exceeded all historical standards of selfless service to this nation. Their assigned mission(s) have been accomplished beyond any measure that could reasonably be expected during this past decade of fighting a somewhat different type of warfare with difficult limitations, and against forces without nation state affiliation. Readers are advised also that the points raised and the questions poised are not done so to attack personally those in position of authority at the time but to bring to the surface issues that could possibly provide better and safer operations for the future, for the benefit of those in the field.

The operational relationships between the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and our growing organization of combatant commands, deemed necessary to carry out the operational aspects of our national strategy, needs serious study. In the implementation of our national strategy this past decade, one must ask what was the advice of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the responsible combatant commander when it was decided to only use Special Forces and CIA teams with the warlords and tribal leaders in Afghanistan to defeat the Al Qaeda and Taliban, without the support of conventional forces to at least block the egress routes, to kill or capture the enemy irregular forces, and prevent their escape to Pakistan. The Special Forces, CIA and Afghanistan forces accomplished their missions extremely well, but one of the first principles taught irregular forces is, “when victory is not possible – live to fight another day”. They did and they are!

At the start of the Iraq war, what was the advice of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, when the responsible combatant commander reached Baghdad, pulled down the statue of Saddam, declared victory, and left Iraq with his command headquarters. We as a nation had just begun a major war and the theater commander departs the battlefield? Not even the land component commander was left to accomplish the tasks but an ad hoc headquarters with, as yet, an unexplained mission? What did our coalition forces think? Was our assessment of the population dynamics of this country so wrong, or did we disregard our intelligence and regional experience, and rely entirely on the advice of some of the self-serving Iraqi here in U.S.?

With the staff of the combatant command, the staffs of each component command, the Ambassador’s staff, the Joint Staff, the DOD staff, and the State Department all involved, who was directly responsible for determining the mission in Iraq during the initial years? The situation in country was certainly made worse when a Department of State representative was place in charge in Iraq of what was clearly still a military operation.

When the Coalition Forces initially occupied Iraq, the Iraqi people began immediately to rebuild their lives, their homes, shops, schools, normal routines, etc. While not overjoyed with the foreign forces in Iraq, the people felt that since the greatest, most respected military in the world, was in charge that they were secure and that it was safe to resume their activities and new freedoms. Many families returned home from Jordan and other countries. Trucks were bumper to bumper on the four lane highways to and from Jordan and Syria, carrying desired and necessary supplies. The number of private autos, cell phones, etc., grew daily. The people soon learned that the Coalition Forces were not going to secure the country and even seemed disinterested in securing their own 10 kilometer route to Baghdad Airport. There was an exception. The 101st Airborne Division had its Area of Responsibility (AOR) well secured and its commander knew exactly what needed to be done.

What were the actions and advice of our senior military leadership when it required over three years of contract debacles to begin receiving the equipment necessary to organize, equip and train the Iraqi security forces. If Iraqi security forces had been equipped, trained and placed on the streets and in the neighborhoods during the first three months of the “occupation”, and if Army Special Forces teams had been placed with the major tribes and factions with the resources to train and equip them, it would have helped greatly to fill the security vacuum, and prevent the sectarian violence and infiltration of Al Qaeda/other operatives. When General David Petraeus was assigned the responsibility to train and equip the Iraqi security forces, he clearly was behind a power curve due to three years of bureaucratic nonsense, international politics, and inaction(s) of the State and Defense Departments. General Petraeus quickly began to produce the much needed numbers of trained and equipped Iraqi forces which provided the indigenous security foundation for the success of the U.S. force surge later. During that later force surge, General Petraeus more effectively utilized the unconventional indirect and direct action forces to greater advantage to improve the security within Iraq. While there can never be absolute long-term guarantees on the results of any conflict, the U.S. military has certainly given the Iraqi people their best opportunity and foundation for a democratic republic. With reasonably honest and representative government, Iraq has the natural resources and industrious, intelligent people necessary to become the richest and most powerful country in the Middle East. Only time will tell!

One would hope that our institutions are studying the events of this past decade and the actions of our senior military leadership to determine if our organizational structures and processes for selection of our senior “war fighters” are appropriate for the present and future. In the Army (and I suspect the other services as well), we seem to spend a lot of effort determining the right structure of brigades (and below) units, and the selection of the right leaders to fight those units. Perhaps, after this past decade, it is time to give more study to higher levels of structure and leadership. A good start would be to have selection boards for our three and four star positions to better insure the most qualified are chosen for operational commands and to eliminate the impression/possibility of favoritism. The military and civilian leadership seem too comfortable with our bloated staff structure of combatant commands together with each of their collection of service component commands. Just how many of these commands do we need? How much of our war fighting strength is tied up in the supporting staffs of these commands. Can anyone imagine how many levels of staff bureaucracy that the commander of the ad hoc command left in Iraq, after the combatant command with the assigned component commands left country, had to deal with? Does anyone really believe that this commander had any idea what the intent of the Commander in Chief was for Iraq? The on-site commander of any conflict of the size discussed here needs to speak and listen to the Commander in Chief as often as possible to completely understand what is expected of him and his command. The current national military and civilian leadership appear to be too concerned with the creation of “celebrity generals” to allow this direct interface. This concern was not a problem to the Commander in Chief during WW II but then it was a much larger conflict and his primary concern was total victory, as quickly as possible. The position of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been filled, most of this past decade of two land wars, by Admirals and Marines which seems contrary to logic also. As a nation, and as the only substantial western military force remaining, we need to seriously reflect on the last decade of conflict and make the necessary changes/improvements (even bold ones) across the board to insure that we are prepared for future conflicts, wherever/whatever they are. If we could not construct a strategy to win quickly in Iraq and Afghanistan, what can the nation expect if there are problems with China, Iran or North Korea?

The most definitive “certain trumpet” which has been proven over the past half century is in regards to the organization, command and control, preparation, and conduct of unconventional warfare by our nation’s defense structure. With few exceptions, such as General Petraeus, the conventional military leadership has had little knowledge, respect, or regard for the unconventional forces or their mission(s). This is surprising since it has been the most prevalent form of warfare occurring around the world since WW II. The obvious fact that an insurgency was occurring in Iraq could not even be mentioned in the Pentagon since the civilian leadership had dismissed the possibility.

President John F. Kennedy and his advisors were obviously impressed with the opinions and recommendations of General Taylor. In June 1961, President Kennedy asked General Taylor to head the Cuba Study Group, charged with studying the Bay of Pigs debacle and make recommendations on policy matters relative to guerrilla warfare. In July 1961, General Taylor was recalled to active duty as the Military Advisor to President Kennedy and led a mission to South Vietnam to recommend courses of action that the U.S. might pursue there. His report recommended that a U.S. military presence in Vietnam should function primarily as a logistical task force and as an emergency reserve in a crisis.

In October 1961, President Kennedy was briefed on the capabilities of Army Special Forces in unconventional warfare by General Yarborough at Fort Bragg. During this visit, President Kennedy authorized the Green Beret for wear by the members of the Army Special Forces in spite of the Army’s opposition. By this unprecedented action, President Kennedy made it profoundly clear that he recognized that the Army Special Forces were distinctly different warriors with a distinctly different mission which would become far more relevant in this nation’s foreign policy actions in the future.

In October 1962, General Taylor was sworn in as Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and held that position until July 1964. After President Kennedy was assassinated in late 1963, General Taylor remained as Chairman for approximately six months, and took the lead in forming the JCS recommendation that American efforts in Vietnam be “an intensified counterinsurgency campaign in the south and selective air and naval attacks against targets in North Vietnam”. It is the belief of this writer that the war in Vietnam would have been fought somewhat differently and the organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would have been changed had President Kennedy remained as President through two terms with General Taylor as his primary military advisor. I believe also that General Taylor fully appreciated the mission and utility of the Army Special Forces, particularly, their counterinsurgency efforts in Vietnam and their worldwide application against this prevalent choice of warfare.

One Army Special Forces Group with Special Forces teams training, equipping, leading advising, and fighting alongside indigenous forces across South Vietnam, the Special Forces Command in Vietnam was able to maintain 50,000 local soldiers along the borders and in key areas, accomplishing the full range of counterinsurgency missions and providing strategic/tactical intelligence to the U.S. and South Vietnamese units. The Special Forces Command provided many of their own ground reinforcement units with American led indigenous fighters. As the U.S. deployed more conventional units to Vietnam, so did the North Vietnamese until North Vietnam has all its regular divisions except one in South Vietnam. When the Army Special Forces Group was redeployed to U.S. in 1970, and their former indigenous forces became part of the conventional South Vietnamese forces, most of their local capabilities for area security and strategic/tactical reconnaissance were lost. South Vietnam was unable also to support, tactically and logistically, the isolated camps established by Special Forces along the borders.

The very public debacle of Desert One, under the Carter Administration, brought the serious neglect of the unconventional forces by the national military leadership to the attention of Congress. This neglect was predictable as had been the case since the military type missions accomplished so well by OSS during WW II were transferred from the CIA to the military. Unfortunately, the reaction to this neglect highlighted by Desert One was a return to our military comfort zone with the establishment of another major joint command, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), together with all its component service commands and with operational control of all U.S. “Special Operations Forces”. At the time of this decision, the U.S. Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School and the U.S. Army Special Forces Groups represented the expertise, doctrine and experienced ground personnel in unconventional warfare (UW), counterinsurgency (COIN), foreign internal defense (FID), psychological operations, and civil affairs, since being organized in 1952. They still represent the expertise in these areas of irregular warfare today! There were also highly trained direct action teams/individuals within the Special Forces Command which, together with elements of the Air Commandos, had accomplished the Son Tay Raid, and some had participated in the ill-fated Desert One operation. The Army Special Forces Groups at this time represented at least 75-85% of the “boots on the ground” special operations troops. Instead of maximizing the use of this established center of expertise and experience, SOCOM and the component commands all began or continued to expand their own special operations schools and activities. Our military structure now has a long list of component command redundant operations, schools, training courses, agencies, contractor organizations, weapons and equipment requirements, etc., etc., competing for the special operations funding. Similar to most major joint commands, SOCOM has become a large, expensive, bureaucratic headquarters with the requirement to keep all components happy. Billions have been spent on building and maintaining a few midget submarines, together with other special operations capable submarines, for SEAL Teams. Some already lack the capability to be maintained in a readiness for use if such a situation presented itself. Billions are presently being spent on training and equipping a couple of thousand of Marines for routine three year tours in special operations under SOCOM. After over two decades of claiming that “all Marines are special operations capable”, the USMC pushed to become a part of SOCOM. With all the worldwide missions the USMC has, one has to wonder why they would want to add another one? SOCOM funding is helping with the equipment and infrastructure to support this redundancy and duplication in UW/FID capability. After two somewhat questionable deployments to Afghanistan, a USMC battalion size unit will now be deployed and will require the loan of mission critical communications equipment from the Army Special Forces. It would seem that if SOCOM needed the additional personnel for UW/FID missions, it would have been more cost effective to recruit and train more Army Special Forces personnel who normally remain in this specialty for an entire career. All these types of costly expenditures are occurring when the Air Force special operations C-130 aircraft are old and difficult to maintain in the numbers needed. The Army Special Forces Groups still, after many decades of stated requirements and actions, do not have any organic aircraft, fixed wing or rotary wing. We seem to be welded to the Carter Doctrine used during Desert One that to be joint, all services must be involved, regardless of need, training, capability or duplication.

Since the establishment of SOCOM there have certainly been many successful operations conducted by special operation forces. Unfortunately, most of these cannot be shared with the public. The Army Special Forces and CIA teams, with superb Air Force support, did an incredible job of advising, assisting, and leading the indigenous forces in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda at the start of the war. This was a classic Army Special Forces UW operation and reminiscence of the OSS operations in WW II. As stated, the victory was short-lived since the Special Forces teams were not left with the tribes to complete a FID/COIN mission. The direct action teams in Iraq and Afghanistan have done an outstanding job of killing and capturing terrorist leaders (and Saddam Hussein), and destroying terrorist cells. However, some of the known disasters that have gotten public attention could have been addressed in more detail with the American public without disclosing operational techniques. In Somalia, the casualty count was over twice that of Desert One. Even though the on-ground, immediate commander took full responsibility for the results of the operation and the Secretary of Defense was replaced, it would have been helpful to hear from the SOCOM and CENTCOM commanders as to why the operation was allowed to proceed when such basic support as the C-130 gunships were not provided. After three decades of joint special operations, a four man SEAL recon team was employed in the difficult mountains of Afghanistan. After the team’s presence was compromised by locals, the team was not extracted but remained to be overwhelmed by a large enemy force, killing three of the four. The CH-47 load of reinforcements sent to assist the team apparently was without armed escort (C-130, A-10, AH-64, etc.?) and was destroyed by enemy fire while attempting to land, with all aboard killed. This action also produced a casualty list over twice that of Desert One. Terrible events happen in war but it would have been reassuring also to hear from the major commanders (SOCOM and CENTCOM) as to what action would be taken to insure the availability of such basic support and better contingency planning in similar operations. One can only suppose that the investigations of such high casualty events due to the lack of basic support caused the necessary changes in operational procedures.

The recent changes by SOCOM in the command and control of special operations units in a combat theater are worth mentioning. It is not the structure of these joint task force headquarters that gives one pause but the policies that permit anyone of the necessary rank in SOCOM and it component commands to head these controlling commands. They are not selected necessarily based on the majority of the service or the mission(s) of the personnel they will command. A Ranger, a Marine, a pilot, a SEAL, a Special Forces, or any other SOCOM officer can be selected to command these task force headquarters in the combat zones, regardless of skill set. The only prerequisite seems to be that they would be a member of SOCOM. This solution certainly doesn’t give a lot of confidence to those they are commanding that their immediate commander knows and understands the capabilities/limitations of the troops accomplishing the mission. This type of “jointness” would seem to be a military version of “political correctness”? Some examples in the recent past would seem to rule against such extreme “jointness”. The disastrous employment of the four man SEAL team as mentioned previously; or when a Special Forces captain and NCO were officially considered for court martial because they killed a wanted Al Qaeda leader on the battlefield; or the tragic incident of Ranger Tillman who was killed by friendly fire while serving in Afghanistan while under his chain of command, which submitted the erroneous reports and award recommendations of enemy action, but it was the Special Forces general located in U.S. who received the reprimand as a result of this incident; are some incidents which come to mind. After Desert One, many asked “how could our elite forces do the Son Tay Raid so well, and then Desert One so badly”? Simple-there were expert night capable aviators flying the aircraft as one service team and the expert ground combat troops as another service team, all commanded by an experienced officer who had worked extensively with both teams, and knew their capabilities? When the Navy needed snipers to take down the pirates, they did not ask SOCOM to draw straws for this selection. They gave the mission to those SEALs trained to do that specific job. Testing likely models for failure is not very wise during combat operations.

It has been thirty years since a serious look was given to the organization, command and control, and conduct of operations of our nation’s elite special operations forces. There have been and continue to be ample examples of the many types of operations accomplished by these forces across the spectrum of warfare, to be able to determine the most effective organization for their readiness and employment. It is time to re-examine this critical national capability and how we can improve its many parts.

From the beginning of the global war on terror (GWOT), direct action operations have been the priority for the special operations forces for many reasons. Not the least of which has been the demand at all levels for rapid results. While many of these direct actions were necessary, such a priority and limited strategy ignores many of the other causes of insurgencies. The direct action missions should continue to be the priority of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), formed to accomplish those missions, and this commander should have permanent operational control of all the supporting units he requires for his worldwide mission(s). This command should be under the direct control of the National Command Authority, and placed under the operational control of the combatant commanders only when required. This command certainly does not need SOCOM as an additional higher headquarters to supervise or control/monitor its operations. I certainly do not think the highest levels of competence can be reached by an elite unit with the personnel, equipment, training, etc., being somewhat affected by each of four services. Nor do I believe that the musical chairs assignment of the commanders, in the spirit of jointness, contributes to the continuity, readiness or effectiveness of the organization. In a combat theater, the direct action warriors should be separate from those who accomplish the UW, COIN and FID missions. It is difficult to kick down the door of a tribal chief one night and come back later saying “I am here to help you”. The worldwide planning responsibility for counterterrorism operations given to SOCOM by the former SECDEF should be returned to JCS. JCS, through the combatant commanders, has the worldwide planning responsibility for all regional operations or conflicts, and can order assistance, advice and/or deployment of special operations forces, when required.

History has shown over the past half century that the United States Special Forces Command should be organized and manned as a separate department or agency outside of DOD, much like the U.S. Coast Guard, and with its own civilian leadership. This command would have the exclusive missions of unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, psychological operations, civil affairs and irregular warfare. While a bold move, this is the best solution for this country to have and maintain an effective capability in these increasing important areas. All personnel of this command would be members of this same special service, wear the same uniforms, have the same chain of command, and the career fields for it members would be the responsibility of the command. All internal training and schooling for the command would be accomplished by the command’s own JFK Special Warfare Center and School. This command should have the necessary aircraft, weapons, vehicles and equipment needed to accomplish its worldwide missions, such as the missions being accomplished now in the Philippines, Columbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. There would remain a close working relationship and liaison with all major military commands, particularly, in the combat zones. The National Command Authority would assign the missions to this command, as required. The command would also work closely with the U.S. Embassies and other special U.S. representatives where necessary. The command should be required to maintain the necessary experts in the jobs pertaining to FID and COIN operations that we have not been able to get the civilians from DOS, AID, and other departments to do in a combat zone. The Congress should pass the necessary laws to permit this service, like the National Guard and Coast Guard, to work with all national, state and local government agencies, particularly, those involved in security and law enforcement(CIA, FBI, ATF, DEA, etc.,). This command should have the ability to assist, advice, train, and support American communities much like they do in foreign countries, as part of its own training. It could be supporting the city of Salinas, Ca. now in its ongoing gang related insurgency, for example. It could also be of great benefit to border security operations and humanitarian missions in the isolated areas of this country. The command would, of course, maintain a close relationship for training or for the exchange of personnel with JSOC for direct action missions, since the Special Forces personnel must be expert in the teaching of direct action operations. Difficult ? Not really, if we are serious as a nation to exploit this capability to the maximum, and not have this capability overshadowed by those who are most interested in large tank and artillery battles, the fastest jets, the biggest bombs, or carrier battle groups. Considering what our nation has experienced since WW II and, particularly, this past decade, we should plot a new and different direction to greatly improve our ability to successfully conduct or prevent limited/irregular warfare. By taking a new, bold direction and separating this critical capability from the present overgrown civilian and military defense structure, it could gain the emphasis and priority needed to greatly expand its usefulness to this nation’s foreign policy.

Perhaps as a nation, we could even escape from our post WW II mindset and organizational models, and consider these bold changes in the operational structures of our special operations forces and our top military leadership organization. If the past decade of indecision and confused actions does not motivate innovative thought, then we are totally captured by the past. As General Taylor quoted: “For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”—Corinthians 14:8.

Ed Scholes
Veterans of Special Forces

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An Alternative Approach for Afghanistan

"Don’t Try to Arrest the Sea
An Alternative Approach for Afghanistan"
by Major Mehar Omar Khan

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/an-alternative-approach-for-af/

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"A Strategy For Success In Afghanistan, One Tribe At A Time"

Attached is an excellent report from a former Special Forces Team Leader explaining how to win the war in Afghanistan and why we aren't.
http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/wp-content/themes/stevenpressfield/one_tribe_at_a_time.pdf

To view interviews and discussion on the report go here -
http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/category/one-tribe-at-a-time/

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Quotes:
~ The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters.
If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.

~ Of all the enemies we face today and may face tomorrow, the most dangerous is our own wishful thinking.

Journal of International Security Affairs

WISHFUL THINKING AND INDECISIVE WARS

by Ralph Peters

The most troubling aspect of international security for the United States is not the killing power of our immediate enemies, which remains modest in historical terms, but our increasingly effete view of warfare. The greatest advantage our opponents enjoy is an uncompromising strength of will, their readiness to “pay any price and bear any burden” to hurt and humble us. As our enemies’ view of what is permissible in war expands apocalyptically, our self-limiting definitions of allowable targets and acceptable casualties hostile, civilian and our own continue to narrow fatefully. Our enemies cannot defeat us in direct confrontations, but we appear determined to defeat ourselves.

Much has been made over the past two decades of the emergence of “asymmetric warfare,” in which the ill-equipped confront the superbly armed by changing the rules of the battlefield. Yet, such irregular warfare is not new; it is warfare’s oldest form, the stone against the bronze-tipped spear and the crucial asymmetry does not lie in weaponry, but in moral courage. While our most resolute current enemies, Islamist extremists, may violate our conceptions of morality and ethics, they also are willing to sacrifice more, suffer more and kill more (even among their own kind) than we are. We become mired in the details of minor missteps, while fanatical holy warriors consecrate their lives to their ultimate vision. They live their cause, but we do not live ours. We have forgotten what warfare means and what it takes to win.

There are multiple reasons for this American amnesia about the cost of victory. First, we, the people, have lived in unprecedented safety for so long (despite the now-faded shock of September 11, 2001) that we simply do not feel endangered; rather, we sense that what nastiness there may be in the world will always occur elsewhere and need not disturb our lifestyles. We like the frisson (Latin/French: a sudden, passing sensation of excitement; a shudder of emotion; thrill ) of feeling a little guilt, but resent all calls to action that require sacrifice.

Second, collective memory has effectively erased the European-sponsored horrors of the last century; yesteryear’s “unthinkable” events have become, well, unthinkable. As someone born only seven years after the ovens of Auschwitz stopped smoking, I am stunned by the common notion, which prevails despite ample evidence to the contrary, that such horrors are impossible today.

Third, ending the draft resulted in a superb military, but an unknowing, detached population. The higher you go in our social caste system, the less grasp you find of the military’s complexity and the greater the expectation that, when employed, our armed forces should be able to fix things promptly and politely.

Fourth, an unholy alliance between the defense industry and academic theorists seduced decision makers with a false-messiah catechism of bloodless war. In pursuit of billions in profits, defense contractors made promises impossible to fulfill, while think tank scholars sought acclaim by designing warfare models that excited political leaders anxious to get off cheaply, but which left out factors such as the enemy, human psychology, and 5,000 years of precedents.

Fifth, we have become largely a white-collar, suburban society in which a child’s bloody nose is no longer a routine part of growing up, but grounds for a lawsuit; the privileged among us have lost the sense of grit in daily life. We grow up believing that safety from harm is a right that others are bound to respect as we do. Our rising generation of political leaders assumes that, if anyone wishes to do us harm, it must be the result of a misunderstanding that can be resolved by that lethal narcotic of the chattering classes, dialogue.

Last, but not least, history is no longer taught as a serious subject in America ’s schools. As a result, politicians lack perspective; journalists lack meaningful touchstones; and the average person’s sense of warfare has been redefined by media entertainments in which misery, if introduced, is brief.

By 1965, we had already forgotten what it took to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and the degeneration of our historical sense has continued to accelerate since then. More Americans died in one afternoon at Cold Harbor during our Civil War than died in six years in Iraq . Three times as many American troops fell during the morning of June 6, 1944, as have been lost in combat in over seven years in Afghanistan . Nonetheless, prize-hunting reporters insist that our losses in Iraq have been catastrophic, while those in Afghanistan are unreasonably high.

We have cheapened the idea of war. We have had wars on poverty, wars on drugs, wars on crime, economic warfare, ratings wars, campaign war chests, bride wars, and price wars in the retail sector. The problem, of course, is that none of these “wars” has anything to do with warfare as soldiers know it. Careless of language and anxious to dramatize our lives and careers, we have elevated policy initiatives, commercial spats and social rivalries to the level of humanity’s most complex, decisive and vital endeavor.

One of the many disheartening results of our willful ignorance has been well-intentioned, inane claims to the effect that “war doesn’t change anything” and that “war isn’t the answer,” that we all need to “give peace a chance.” Who among us would not love to live in such a splendid world? Unfortunately, the world in which we do live remains one in which war is the primary means of resolving humanity’s grandest disagreements, as well as supplying the answer to plenty of questions. As for giving peace a chance, the sentiment is nice, but it does not work when your self-appointed enemy wants to kill you. Gandhi’s campaign of non-violence (often quite violent in its reality) only worked because his opponent was willing to play along. Gandhi would not have survived very long in Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia , Mao’s (or today’s) China , Pol Pot’s Cambodia , or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq . Effective non-violence is contractual. Where the contract does not exist, Gandhi dies.

Furthermore, our expectations of war’s results have become absurd. Even the best wars do not yield perfect aftermaths. World War II changed the planet for the better, yet left the eastern half of Europe under Stalin’s yoke and opened the door for the Maoist takeover in China . Should we then declare it a failure and not worth fighting? Our Civil War preserved the Union and abolished slavery - worthy results, surely. Still, it took over a century for equality of opportunity for minorities to gain a firm footing. Should Lincoln have let the Confederacy go with slavery untouched, rather than choosing to fight? Expecting Iraq , Afghanistan or the conflict of tomorrow to end quickly, cleanly and neatly belongs to the realm of childhood fantasy, not human reality. Even the most successful war yields imperfect results. An insistence on prompt, ideal outcomes as the measure of victory guarantees the perception of defeat.

Consider the current bemoaning of a perceived “lack of progress” and “setbacks” in Afghanistan . A largely pre-medieval, ferociously xenophobic country that never enjoyed good government or a central power able to control all of its territory had become the hostage of a monstrous regime and a haven for terrorists. Today, Afghanistan has an elected government, feeble though it may be; for the first time in the region’s history, some of the local people welcome, and most tolerate, the presence of foreign troops; women are no longer stoned to death in sports stadiums for the edification of the masses; and the most inventive terrorists of our time have been driven into remote compounds and caves. We agonize (at least in the media) over the persistence of the Taliban, unwilling to recognize that the Taliban or a similar organization will always find a constituency in remote tribal valleys and among fanatics. If we set ourselves the goal of wiping out the Taliban, we will fail. Given a realistic mission of thrusting the Islamists to the extreme margins of society over decades, however, we can effect meaningful change (much as the Ku Klux Klan, whose following once numbered in the millions across our nation, has been reduced to a tiny club of grumps). Even now, we have already won in terms of the crucial question: Is Afghanistan a better place today for most Afghans, for the world and for us than it was on September 10, 2001? Why must we talk ourselves into defeat?

We have the power to win any war. Victory remains possible in every conflict we face today or that looms on the horizon. But, for now, we are unwilling to accept that war not only is, but must be, hell. Sadly, our enemies do not share our scruples.

The Present Foe

The willful ignorance within the American intelligentsia and in Washington , D.C. , does not stop with the mechanics and costs of warfare, but extends to a denial of the essential qualities of our most-determined enemies. While narco-guerrillas, tribal rebels or pirates may vex us, Islamist terrorists are opponents of a far more frightening quality. These fanatics do not yet pose an existential threat to the United States , but we must recognize the profound difference between secular groups fighting for power or wealth and men whose galvanizing dream is to destroy the West. When forced to assess the latter, we take the easy way out and focus on their current capabilities, although the key to understanding them is to study their ultimate goals no matter how absurd and unrealistic their ambitions may seem to us.

The problem is religion. Our Islamist enemies are inspired by it, while we are terrified even to talk about it. We are in the unique position of denying that our enemies know what they themselves are up to. They insist, publicly, that their goal is our destruction (or, in their mildest moods, our conversion) in their god’s name. We contort ourselves to insist that their religious rhetoric is all a sham, that they are merely cynics exploiting the superstitions of the masses. Setting aside the point that a devout believer can behave cynically in his mundane actions, our phony, one-dimensional analysis of al-Qaeda and its ilk has precious little to do with the nature of our enemies which we are desperate to deny and everything to do with us.

We have so oversold ourselves on the notion of respect for all religions (except, of course, Christianity and Judaism) that we insist that faith cannot be a cause of atrocious violence. The notion of killing to please a deity and further his perceived agenda is so unpleasant to us that we simply pretend it away. U.S. intelligence agencies and government departments go to absurd lengths, even in classified analyses, to avoid such basic terms as “Islamist terrorist.” Well, if your enemy is a terrorist and he professes to be an Islamist, it may be wise to take him at his word.

A paralyzing problem “inside the Beltway” is that our ruling class has been educated out of religious fervor. Even officials and bureaucrats who attend a church or synagogue each week no longer comprehend the life-shaking power of revelation, the transformative ecstasy of glimpsing the divine, or the exonerating communalism of living faith. Emotional displays of belief make the functional agnostic or social atheist nervous; he or she reacts with elitist disdain. Thus we insist, for our own comfort, that our enemies do not really mean what they profess, that they are as devoid of a transcendental sense of the universe as we are.

History parades no end of killers-for-god in front of us. The procession has lasted at least five thousand years. At various times, each major faith especially our inherently violent monotheist faiths has engaged in religious warfare and religious terrorism. When a struggling faith finds itself under the assault of a more powerful foreign belief system, it fights: Jews against Romans, Christians against Muslims, Muslims against Christians and Jews. When faiths feel threatened, externally or internally, they fight as long as they retain critical mass. Today the Judeo-Christian/post-belief world occupies the dominant strategic position, as it has, increasingly, for the last five centuries, its rise coinciding with Islam’s long descent into cultural darkness and civilizational impotence. Behind all its entertaining bravado, Islam is fighting for its life, for validation.

Islam, in other words, is on the ropes, despite no end of nonsense heralding “Eurabia” or other Muslim demographic conquests. If demography were all there was to it, China and India long since would have divided the world between them. Islam today is composed of over a billion essentially powerless human beings, many of them humiliated and furiously jealous. So Islam fights and will fight, within its meager-but-pesky capabilities. Operationally, it matters little that the failures of the Middle Eastern Islamic world are self-wrought, the disastrous results of the deterioration of a once-triumphant faith into a web of static cultures obsessed with behavior at the expense of achievement. The core world of Islam, stretching from Casablanca to the Hindu Kush , is not competitive in a single significant sphere of human endeavor (not even terrorism since, at present, we are terrorizing the terrorists). We are confronted with a historical anomaly, the public collapse of a once-great, still -proud civilization that, in the age of super-computers, cannot build a reliable automobile: enormous wealth has been squandered; human capital goes wasted; economies are dysfunctional; and the quality of life is barbaric. Those who once cowered at Islam’s greatness now rule the world. The roughly one-fifth of humanity that makes up the Muslim world lacks a single world-class university of its own. The resultant rage is immeasurable; jealousy may be the greatest unacknowledged strategic factor in the world today.

Embattled cultures dependably experience religious revivals: What does not work in this life will work in the next. All the deity in question asks is submission, sacrifice and action to validate faith. Unlike the terrorists of yesteryear, who sought to change the world and hoped to live to see it changed, today’s terrorists focus on god’s kingdom and regard death as a promotion. We struggle to explain suicide bombers in sociological terms, deciding that they are malleable and unhappy young people, psychologically vulnerable. But plenty of individuals in our own society are malleable, unhappy and unstable. Where are the Western atheist suicide bombers?

To make enduring progress against Islamist terrorists, we must begin by accepting that the terrorists are Islamists. And the use of the term “Islamist,” rather than “Islamic,” is vital not for reasons of political correctness, but because it connotes a severe deviation from what remains, for now, mainstream Islam. We face enemies who celebrate death and who revel in bloodshed. Islamist terrorists have a closer kinship with the blood cults of the pre-Islamic Middle East or even with the Aztecs than they do with the ghazis who exploded out of the Arabian desert , ablaze with a new faith. At a time when we should be asking painful questions about why the belief persists that gods want human blood, we insist on downplaying religion’s power and insisting that our new enemies are much the same as the old ones. It is as if we sought to analyze Hitler’s Germany without mentioning Nazis.

We will not even accept that the struggle between Islam and the West never ceased. Even after Islam’s superpower status collapsed, the European imperial era was bloodied by countless Muslim insurrections, and even the Cold War was punctuated with Islamist revivals and calls for jihad. The difference down the centuries was that, until recently, the West understood that this was a survival struggle and did what had to be done (the myth that insurgents of any kind usually win has no historical basis). Unfortunately for our delicate sensibilities, the age-old lesson of religion-fueled rebellions is that they must be put down with unsparing bloodshed, as the fanatic’s god is not interested in compromise solutions. The leading rebels or terrorists must be killed. We, on the contrary, want to make them our friends.

The paradox is that our humane approach to warfare results in unnecessary bloodshed. Had we been ruthless in the use of our overwhelming power in the early days of conflict in both Afghanistan and Iraq , the ultimate human toll on all sides would have been far lower. In warfare of every kind, there is an immutable law: If you are unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill up front, you will pay it with compound interest in the end. Iraq was not hard; we made it so. Likewise, had we not tried to do Afghanistan on the cheap, Osama bin Laden would be dead and al-Qaeda even weaker than it is today.

When the United States is forced to go to war-or decides to go to war-it must intend to win. That means that rather than setting civilian apparatchiks to calculate minimum force levels, we need to bring every possible resource to bear from the outset-an approach that saves blood and treasure in the long run. And we must stop obsessing about our minor sins. Warfare will never be clean, soldiers will always make mistakes, and rounds will always go astray, despite our conscientious safeguards and best intentions. Instead of agonizing over a fatal mistake made by a young Marine at a roadblock, we must return to the fundamental recognition that the greatest “war crime” the United States can commit is to lose.

Other Threats, New Dimensions

Within the defense community, another danger looms: the risk of preparing to re-fight the last war, or, in other words, assuming that our present struggles are the prototypes of our future ones. As someone who spent much of the 1990’s arguing that the U.S. armed forces needed to prepare for irregular warfare and urban combat, I now find myself required to remind my former peers in the military that we must remain reasonably prepared for traditional threats from states.

Yet another counter-historical assumption is that states have matured beyond fighting wars with each other, and that everyone would have too much to lose, that the inter-connected nature of trade makes full-scale conventional wars impossible. That is precisely the view that educated Europeans held in the first decade of the twentieth century. Even the youngish Winston Churchill, a veteran of multiple colonial conflicts, believed that general war between civilized states had become unthinkable. It had not.

Bearing in mind that, while neither party desires war, we could find ourselves tumbling, à la 1914, into a conflict with China , we need to remember that the apparent threat of the moment is not necessarily the deadly menace of tomorrow. It may not be China that challenges us, after all, but the unexpected rise of a dormant power. The precedent is there: in 1929, Germany had a playground military limited to 100,000 men. Ten years later, a re-armed Germany had embarked on the most destructive campaign of aggression in history, its killing power and savagery exceeding that of the Mongols. Without militarizing our economy (or indulging our unscrupulous defense industry), we must carry out rational modernization efforts within our conventional forces even as we march through a series of special-operations-intensive fights for which there is no end in sight. We do not need to bankrupt ourselves to do so, but must accept an era of hard choices, asking ourselves not which weapons we would like to have, but which are truly necessary.

Still, even should we make perfect acquisition decisions (an unlikely prospect, given the power of lobbyists and public relations firms serving the defense industry), that would not guarantee us victory or even a solid initial performance in a future conventional war. As with the struggle to drive terrorists into remote corners, we are limited less by our military capabilities than by our determination to pretend that war can be made innocently.

Whether faced with conventional or unconventional threats, the same deadly impulse is at work in our government and among the think tank astrologers who serve as its courtiers: An insistence on constantly narrowing the parameters of what is permissible in warfare. We are attempting to impose ever sterner restrictions on the conduct of war even as our enemies, immediate and potential, are exploring every possible means of expanding their conduct of conflicts into new realms of total war.

What is stunning about the United States is the fragility of our system. To strategically immobilize our military, you have only to successfully attack one link in the chain, our satellites. Our homeland’s complex infrastructure offers ever- increasing opportunities for disruption to enemies well aware that they cannot defeat our military head-on, but who hope to wage total war asymmetrically, leapfrogging over our ships and armored divisions to make daily life so miserable for Americans that we would quit the fight. No matter that even the gravest attacks upon our homeland might, instead, re-arouse the killer spirit among Americans-our enemies view the home front as our weak flank.

From what we know of emerging Chinese and Russian war fighting doctrine, both from their writings and their actions against third parties, their concept of the future battlefield is all-inclusive, even as we, for our part, long to isolate combatants in a post-modern version of a medieval joust. As just a few minor examples, consider Russia ’s and China‽ s use of cyber-attacks to punish and even paralyze other states. We are afraid to post dummy websites for information-warfare purposes, since we have talked ourselves into warfare-by-lawyers. Meanwhile, the Chinese routinely seek to infiltrate or attack Pentagon computer networks, while Russia paralyzed Estonia through a massive cyber-blitzkrieg just a couple of years ago. Our potential enemies believe that anything that might lead to victory is permissible. We are afraid that we might get sued.

Yet, even the Chinese and Russians do not have an apocalyptic vision of warfare. They want to survive and they would be willing to let us survive, if only on their terms. But religion-driven terrorists care not for this world and its glories. If the right Islamist terrorists acquired a usable nuclear weapon, they would not hesitate to employ it (the most bewildering security analysts are those who minimize the danger should Iran acquire nuclear weapons). The most impassioned extremists among our enemies not only have no qualms about the mass extermination of unbelievers, but would be delighted to offer their god rivers of the blood of less-devout Muslims. Our fiercest enemies are in love with death.

For our part, we truly think that our enemies are kidding, that we can negotiate with them, after all, if only we could figure out which toys they really want. They pray to their god for help in cutting our throats, and we want to chat.

The Killers Without Guns

While the essence of warfare never changes-it will always be about killing the enemy until he acquiesces in our desires or is exterminated-its topical manifestations evolve and its dimensions expand. Today, the United States and its allies will never face a lone enemy on the battlefield. There will always be a hostile third party in the fight, but one which we not only refrain from attacking but are hesitant to annoy: the media.

While this brief essay cannot undertake to analyze the psychological dysfunctions that lead many among the most privileged Westerners to attack their own civilization and those who defend it, we can acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that, to most media practitioners, our troops are always guilty (even if proven innocent), while our barbaric enemies are innocent (even if proven guilty). The phenomenon of Western and world journalists championing the “rights” and causes of blood-drenched butchers who, given the opportunity, would torture and slaughter them, disproves the notion were any additional proof required that human beings are rational creatures. Indeed, the passionate belief of so much of the intelligentsia that our civilization is evil and only the savage is noble looks rather like an anemic version of the self-delusions of the terrorists themselves. And, of course, there is a penalty for the intellectual’s dismissal of religion: humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, even if they have a degree from Harvard. Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar.

Of course, the media have shaped the outcome of conflicts for centuries, from the European wars of religion through Vietnam . More recently, though, the media have determined the outcomes of conflicts. While journalists and editors ultimately failed to defeat the U.S. government in Iraq , video cameras and biased reporting guaranteed that Hezbollah would survive the 2006 war with Israel and, as of this writing, they appear to have saved Hamas from destruction in Gaza .

Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.

The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.

In closing, we must dispose of one last mantra that has been too broadly and uncritically accepted: the nonsense that, if we win by fighting as fiercely as our enemies, we will “become just like them.” To convince Imperial Japan of its defeat, we not only had to fire-bomb Japanese cities, but drop two atomic bombs. Did we then become like the Japanese of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Did we subsequently invade other lands with the goal of permanent conquest, enslaving their populations? Did our destruction of German cities also necessary for victory turn us into Nazis? Of course, you can find a few campus leftists who think so, but they have yet to reveal the location of our death camps.

We may wish reality to be otherwise, but we must deal with it as we find it. And the reality of warfare is that it is the organized endeavor at which human beings excel. Only our ability to develop and maintain cities approaches warfare in its complexity. There is simply nothing that human collectives do better (or with more enthusiasm) than fight each other. Whether we seek explanations for human bloodlust in Darwin , in our religious texts (do start with the Book of Joshua), or among the sociologists who have done irreparable damage to the poor, we finally must accept empirical reality: at least a small minority of humanity longs to harm others. The violent, like the poor, will always be with us, and we must be willing to kill those who would kill others. At present, the American view of warfare has degenerated from science to a superstition in which we try to propitiate the gods with chants and dances. We need to regain a sense of the world’s reality.

Of all the enemies we face today and may face tomorrow, the most dangerous is our own wishful thinking.

[Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer, a strategist, an author, a journalist who has reported from various war zones, and a lifelong traveler. He is the author of 24 books, including Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World and the forthcoming The War after Armageddon, a novel set in the Levant after the nuclear destruction of Israel .]

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Determining the Roles for General Purpose Forces (GPF) and Special Operations Forces

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