The Politics of War

“Victory has a 1,000 fathers, and defeat is an orphan,” –  John F. Kennedy

Many of the post-Afghanistan recriminations are grounded in the idea that our military no longer knows how to win the Nation’s wars.  A recurring theme is that the U.S. no longer trains warfighting and that military schools have become so academically focused that they fail to teach our military leaders how to win.  The prescribed solution is to focus more on warfighting at the military service schools.  While I fully support ensuring warfighting is thoroughly ingrained as part of the service school curriculum, I disagree that this will result in the fix these pundits are seeking.

First, warfighting is already taught at military schools.  The School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS), the School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW), the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, and several others exist solely to teach campaign and battle planning.  These schools teach military students how to plan integrated military operations across all warfighting domains.  Graduates of these schools have been given credit for planning the campaigns for military engagement since their founding.  Outside of an academic setting, military planners and leaders hone their craft in realistic, simulated battles at training centers and digitized war games, competing against an extremely well-trained opposing force.

Second, the U.S. military has arguably won every battle since the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War, and even that battle was but a Pyrrhic victory for the Chinese.  The battles in Panama, Grenada, Desert Storm, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq were well-planned and executed campaigns.  This does not mean that mistakes were not made and that the lives lost were insignificant, but it is a testament to the education and training of the U.S. military.  The mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t in the battle planning and execution phase but in the assumptions of what would happen in the aftermath.  Bottom line, the U.S. military has mastered winning battles but needs to examine how it plans for the post-battle to stabilize and enable civilian authority phases.  I would argue these last two phases shouldn't be military-centric.  Department of State and other supporting agencies should take a lead role with the appropriate level of policymakers deciding on courses of action and objectives.

Battle outcomes are the result of military actions, but war outcomes are usually the result of political decisions.  Since Vietnam, we should have learned that you can win every battle and still lose the war.  Even when the military soundly defeats the enemy, it is still the political leaders that decide what the objectives are and how and when to end the war.  If those objectives are unrealistic, then it doesn’t matter how many battles are won, the war will be lost.  Normally, wars end with a treaty, pact, surrender document, or something similar.  In any case, it is the political leadership that agrees that the war is over.  Those authors who question the military’s ability to win wars often quote famous military strategists like Clausewitz and Jomini, but they ignore one of Clausewitz’s most famous ideas, that war is an extension of politics.  Clausewitz would be the first to say that war does not exist in a realm of its own; it is guided by political ideas and objectives.  The two wars with Iraq provide an apt example of the political nature of war termination.

The first war with Iraq, Desert Storm, has been considered an absolute success by the U.S.-led coalition forces.  This multi-national force quickly routed the Iraqi Army and caused its retreat from Kuwait.  This retreat was quickly followed by President George H. W. Bush’s announcement of a cease-fire and the end of the war.  At the end of this victory, however, a large portion of the Iraqi Army was intact, and Saddam Hussein’s government remained in power to continue challenging the United States.  It was a political decision not to continue the advance into Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, much to the chagrin of some military leadership that wanted to complete the annihilation of the Iraqi military and government.

Contrast the 1991 war with the 2003 U.S.-Iraq War.  U.S. forces again quickly defeated the Iraqi military, this time taking over all of Iraq, decimating the entire military, and overthrowing the government.  In May, President George W. Bush landed on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, and under a Mission Accomplished banner, announced victory.  The United States then continued to fight in Iraq for the next decade, only to leave Iraq with many believing it was only a quasi-victory, at best.

Only in a political world could a war that ended with the enemy still intact and able to openly express their hostility be seen as a complete victory and a war where the enemy is decimated, and the government collapsed be seen as a loss/quasi-victory.  If military action alone decided the outcome of wars, the 2003 Iraqi War would be seen as the greater victory of the two.  The United States could have left Iraq with a resounding victory knowing it completely defeated the Iraqi military and government - it is hard to find a more conclusive victory.

In both Iraq wars, political leadership decided when the war was over.  Desert Storm was considered a war won by the United States, even though the Iraqi forces weren’t completely defeated, and the government remained in power.  This is because the political objective wasn't regime change.  The military accomplished the political objective set for it, and that is why it is considered a victory.  The second war in Iraq is considered a caveated victory, even though the Iraqi military was completely destroyed, and the government collapsed.  The difference is the political decision when to end the war.  The political objectives set for the military changed and became unattainable.  The same could be said for Afghanistan.  The U.S. military, with the Northern Alliance and other coalition partners, had routed the Taliban and Al Qaeda by early 2002 in what was a complete victory.  Again, it was a political decision to remain in Afghanistan for the next 20 years, based on politically set objectives.  The argument here is not if those decisions were wrong or right, but that they are correctly made at the political level.  The point is that political leadership decides how wars end, not the military.

At this point, it might be read that I am arguing that it would be better if the politicians stayed out of the military's way and let the generals and admirals make all the decisions.  That is a complete misunderstanding of the argument.  Those who believe in democracy generally want war decisions left up to the elected officials.  When to go to war and when to end wars are the opposite sides of the same coin.  If the military makes those decisions, then they are the ones in charge, not the elected officials.  It is central to a democracy for the elected civilian government to set the political objectives, and it is a vital part of the healthy civil-military relations in the United States for the military to answer to the civilian government.  However, that doesn't mean the military doesn't have a role to play in the decision-making.

The causal chain from a lack of understanding of warfighting and failure to teach warfighting at the military’s Senior Service Schools to failures to win wars is simply not supported by the facts.  How to win battles is taught and should continue to be taught, maybe even expanded to some degree, but not at the expense of other subjects.  What may need to be taught more is how to win wars.  The causal chain for Afghanistan and Iraq is not an inability to win force on force engagements but policy decisions that were possibly based on an overestimation of what the military could accomplish.  The best way to prevent repeating those mistakes is to train our future leaders to understand limitations and what resources are best used to meet political aims.  Many of those resources exist outside of the military.  Broadly educated military leaders will be able to give the best military advice to the elected decision-makers and ensure they understand what objectives are accomplishable by those in uniform and which ones are better suited to other experts.  The military can win all the battles, but sound policy decisions and political objectives are needed to win the wars.

Jason Smith currently serves as Service Chair and as Assistant Professor for Security Studies at the National War College.  He has served in the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Army, as advisor to the Commandant of the Coast Guard, as Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Senate, and on the staff of the National Security Council.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position or policy of the United States Coast Guard, National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.