About war: As we were saying

Every once in awhile some mainstream media puts forth a thesis the Progressive Review has suggested for years, if not decades. A case in point is this article in the Atlantic about America’s failure since WWII in its subsequent wars. This is one of the most unreported stories of our time.And the fact that even one mainstream media has noticed is significant.

Dominic Tierney, Atlantic -  Since 1945, in terms of victory in a major war, the United States is one for five. The Gulf War in 1991 is the only success story. [See below for our alternative take on this – TPR] The dark age is a time of protracted fighting, featuring the three longest wars in American history (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam). It’s a time when the ultimate price of conflict is usually far higher than Americans would have accepted at the start. It’s a time when military heroes are thin on the ground. It’s a time when movies and novels about war describe political conspiracy and futile campaigns. It’s a time when the signature illness for veterans is post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a time when the most resonant images of conflict are children napalmed, helicopters rescuing Americans and Vietnamese from rooftops, and naked bodies intertwined at Abu Ghraib.

Why is the United States unable to win on the battlefield? It’s certainly not for lack of power. From 1846 to 1945, the United States had a minuscule peacetime army but won almost every major campaign. After World War II, Washington constructed the most expensive military machine that ever existed and endured seven decades of martial frustration.

… Indeed, power is part of the reason the United States loses. After 1945, America’s newfound strength created a constant temptation to use force, and projected U.S. forces into distant conflicts. But Washington chose an unfortunate moment to discover its inner interventionist. The nature of global warfare changed in ways that made military campaigns ugly at best and unwinnable at worst.

The good news is that, since 1945, countries have almost stopped fighting each other. Conventional interstate wars are now very rare. World War II was the thunderous crescendo that presaged what historian John Lewis Gaddis called “the long peace.” Great powers haven’t engaged in direct hostilities for over 60 years.

Nuclear deterrence stabilized relations between major states. The spread of democracy cultivated a zone of peace among elected regimes. Globalization and international trade deepened the linkages between countries and made interstate conflict seem costly or irrational.

But now the bad news: Conflict still exists in the form of civil wars or organized violence within the boundaries of a state. Nuclear weapons, democracy, and trade may stop countries from invading each other, but they don’t prevent guerrillas from seizing an AK-47. Today, about 90 percent of conflicts are civil wars. Global warfare is mainly relegated to a few dozen failed or failing states that are breeding grounds for warlords, insurgents, and criminals.

The shift from conflicts between countries to conflicts within countries triggered an era of American military failure. The United States waded into far-flung quarrels featuring culturally alien enemies, including North Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese communists, Afghan insurgents, and Iraqi guerrillas—handing the opponent home-field advantage. Americans often don’t comprehend local geography, religions, traditions, ethnic politics, or languages. In 2006, there were 1,000 American officials in the Baghdad embassy, but just 33 spoke Arabic and only six were fluent.

…It’s a paradox of war: The United States loses because the world is peaceful. The decline of interstate conflict and the relative harmony among great powers is a cause for celebration. But the interstate wars that have disappeared are the kind of wars that the United States wins. And the civil wars that remain are the kind of wars that the U.S. loses. As the tide of conflict recedes, it leaves behind the toughest and most unyielding internal struggles.

It’s also hard to win great victories in an era of peace. During the golden age, the United States faced trials of national survival like the Civil War and World War II. The potential benefits were so momentous that Washington could overthrow the enemy at almost any cost in American blood and treasure and still claim the win. But in wars since 1945, the threats are diminished. Since the prize on offer is less valuable, the acceptable price to pay in lives and money is also dramatically reduced. To achieve victory, the campaign must be quick and decisive—with little margin for error. Without grave peril, it’s tough to enter the pantheon of martial valor.

Did the Kuwait invasion win that war?

The article above argues that the Kuwait invasion was the one war America has won since WWII. Below are some of the reasons we don't agree that were published in the Review at the time. In fact, the Kuwait invasion, while successful in narrow military terms, was only the beginning - and major instigation - for America's subsequent military failures in the Mid East.

Our nomination for the one successful war of modern times is the now thoroughly forgotten invasion of Granada.

Progressive Review, 1990s  - Unnoticed in all the rhetoric and analysis of the Gulf war is the fact that economic sanctions against Iraq are still in place. We will never know whether sanctions alone would have worked not because we tried war instead, but because we tried war in addition.

The war, in fact, would be immensely more difficult were Iraq able to be resupplied as the Chinese resupplied the North Koreans. Iraq is surrounded by countries at least partially involved in the embargo and --unlike many earlier attempts at sanctions --virtually all of Iraq's trade and financial relations are subject to sanctions.

Even if Iraq leaves Kuwait, we will unlikely be able to determine whether it left for military or economic reasons, although the credit will inevitably be given to the military.

To see that this is more than a talking point; consider this summary from Time magazine of the effects of sanctions as of Jan. 15:

- Iraq will run out of foreign-currency reserves by spring.

- The embargo has cost Iraq 50% of its GNP . .Bread, sugar and soap are rationed

-.Imports have been reduced by more than 90%.

- Per capita food consumption down from 3100 calories a day to 1800 per day.

- The country's military effectiveness will begin to decline in six to 12 months.

Progressive Review, 1990 - Although planned on much the same simplistic premises as Granada and Panama, the implications of America's action in the Middle East are anything but simple. In one swift military move, for example, America has vastly increased Arab hatred of this country and greatly complicated the Palestinian issue. These problems will remain whether the administration's show-and-tell act succeeds or not. While there appears to still be time for both sides to back away from their bravado and belligerence, Bush's hyper-reaction to the Kuwait annexation makes the prospect at best problematical ....

A year before we landed on the dunes of Saudi Arabia, few would have guessed the coming eruption. By way of example, the Washington Post mentioned Iraq twice in August 1989 and Kuwait not all. As late at July 1 of this year, The Post was assuring us in a headline: "New Middle East War Seen Unlikely; Threats, Saber-Rattling Abound, but Deterrents Curb Both Sides." And on July 26 The Post paraphrased a Bush official as saying that "the prevailing administration view was that Saddam Hussein was bullying Kuwait and had no intention of invasion."

In any case, there was no hint from media or the White House that Iraq, as later alleged by the president, was on the cusp of posing a threat to our whole way of life.

As occurred with Libya, Grenada and Panama, critical national interest was redefined almost overnight. Once again, the hate bites poured out of the White House, the troops were called up, and the media faithfully flacked the new found cause with the fervor of a recent convert to the Church of Scientology.

Progressive Review - When Saddam Hussein offered to withdraw from Kuwait in February, George Bush called the proposal "a cruel hoax." William Beeman, an anthropologist and PNS columnist, notes that Bush's claim that Hussein had put conditions on the withdrawal was simply not true. The post-war agenda that Hussein attached to his offer used terms drawing from the Arabic root rbt. Says Beeman: "This literally means tie but its more common use is relationship. In one form it can mean kinship tie. But in everyday parlance it is used to say things like `with regard to,' `relevant to,' and `pertaining to.' In no sense does the word ever mean condition.

"In short, Saddam's offer was genuinely different from earlier proposals. He was not establishing conditions for withdrawal from Kuwait, only listing issues which were `related' to settling the Gulf issue."

Hussein's February offer was only the last in a long string of peace feelers put out by Baghdad. As Beeman reported here last fall: "By late August, Iraq had sent three clear signals to the United States that they wanted to bargain. The first two signals were offers to withdraw from Kuwait, first if Israel would withdraw from the West Bank and second if the United States would withdraw entirely from the region. The third signal was given by Tariq Aziz... calling directly for negotiations. These were unmistakable opening gambits in the bargaining process."

But it goes back even further. On July 26, as Iraqi troops were moving towards Kuwait, Patrick Tyler wrote in the Washington Post:

"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein yesterday sent an urgent message to President Bush... expressing Iraq's desire to end the crisis in the Persian Gulf peacefully and avoid a confrontation with the United States, according to administration officials...

"The Iraqi message was conveyed yesterday morning when Saddam Hussein summoned US Ambassador April Glaspie for a rare audience. During it, Saddam Hussein said he felt `betrayed' that US warships in the Persian Gulf had been deployed for short-notice maneuvers intended, US officials said, to head off Iraq aggression toward its much smaller neighbor.

"Saddam Hussein told Glaspie that there was no need for a US military response and that he did not understand it..."

It was subsequently reported that Glaspie had dismissed the Kuwaiti dispute as a border matter in which the US had no interest. Glaspie herself was returned to the US and has been held incommunicado by the administration ever since.

Riverbend, 2006 - January 17, 2006 marks the 15th commemoration of the Gulf War in 1991 after Iraq occupied Kuwait (briefly) in 1990. (Or according to American terminology, after Iraq 'liberated' Kuwait in 1990.) For 42 days, Baghdad and other cities and towns were bombarded with nearly 140,000 tons of explosives, by international estimates. The bombing was relentless: schools, housing complexes, factories, bridges, electric power stations, ministries, sewage facilities, oil refineries, operators, and even bomb shelters (including the only baby formula factory in Iraq and the infamous Amirya Shelter bombing where almost 400 civilians were killed).

According to reports and statistics made by the "Iraqi Reconstruction Bureau" and the ministries involved in reconstruction, prior to the 2003 war-occupation, the following damage was done through 42 days of continuous bombing, and various acts of vandalism:

Schools and scholastic facilities - 3960
Universities, labs, dormitories - 40
Health facilities - 421
Telephone operators, communication towers, etc. - 475
Bridges, buildings, housing complexes - 260
Warehouses, shopping centers, grain silos - 251
Churches and mosques - 159
Dams, water pumping stations, agricultural facilities - 200
Petroleum facilities (including refineries) - 145
General services (shelters, sewage treatment plants, municipalities) - 830 Factories, mines, industrial facilities - 120