Peter1469
12-05-2017, 09:31 PM
Can't Kill Enough to Win? Think Again (https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-12/cant-kill-enough-win-think-again)
This is an interesting article about the nature of war. Fight it or get out. I like the part where the Delta Force commander made the JAG go with a team for a couple of weeks into Baghdad.
Those given the awful task of combat must be able to act with the necessary savagery and purposefulness to destroy those acting as, or in direct support of, Islamic terrorists worldwide. In 2008, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral Michael Mullen said, “We can’t kill our way to victory.” Ever since, many have parroted his words. But what if Admiral Mullen was wrong? The United States has been at war with radical Islamists four times longer than it was with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. And those previous enemies were far more competent and aggressive than the terrorists. It is time to kill a lot more of them.
Too many commanders and their “operational law” judge advocates have neutered U.S. military forces with far too restrictive rules of engagement and investigations. 1 One Army infantry battalion commander reported that during a 15-month command tour in Iraq, he had to endure 600 AR 15-6 investigations (equivalent to a Navy JAG manual investigation), most of which examined the use of force by his troops. When asked when he had time to command, he answered, “Exactly.”
Human behavior has not changed much in recorded history. Neither have the basic tenets of war. It takes killing with speed and sustained effect to win wars. The notions that the U.S. military can win with “precision strikes” or “winning hearts and minds” are fantasy. Even the great victory in Operation Desert Storm was a bloody killing field. Just ask the remnants of the Tawakalna Division of the Iraqi Army.
During the American Civil War, the Union literally bled the Confederacy dry of fighting-age men. General Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac killed its fellow Americans by the tens of thousands until General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia could not resist. It was that pressure that led Lee—arguably the greatest tactician on either side—to surrender. Grant killed his way to victory. He had the manpower advantage as well as the economic and industrial power to do so.
This country’s “Greatest Generation” killed enormous numbers of the enemy’s military servicemen and civilians in World War II. General Curtis LeMay knew that if he killed enough Japanese they would quit. While brutal by 2017 standards, his approach yielded lasting results—a productive peace with Japan that has lasted since 1945. The legal justification then—the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor—is the same casus belli as the one in the current war against al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): the 11 September 2001 sneak attack on the United States.
Read the entire article. It was written by two former JAGs. One of them, the one that I mention up top- Command Judge Advocate for 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta.
I will remind everyone that I believe the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan were a waste of blood and treasure. We should have caused maximum pain and death and then let the locals fix their countries with the understanding that we can come back and do this again cheaper than fixing your nation ourselves (with no assurance that our fix will suit you).
This is an interesting article about the nature of war. Fight it or get out. I like the part where the Delta Force commander made the JAG go with a team for a couple of weeks into Baghdad.
Those given the awful task of combat must be able to act with the necessary savagery and purposefulness to destroy those acting as, or in direct support of, Islamic terrorists worldwide. In 2008, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral Michael Mullen said, “We can’t kill our way to victory.” Ever since, many have parroted his words. But what if Admiral Mullen was wrong? The United States has been at war with radical Islamists four times longer than it was with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. And those previous enemies were far more competent and aggressive than the terrorists. It is time to kill a lot more of them.
Too many commanders and their “operational law” judge advocates have neutered U.S. military forces with far too restrictive rules of engagement and investigations. 1 One Army infantry battalion commander reported that during a 15-month command tour in Iraq, he had to endure 600 AR 15-6 investigations (equivalent to a Navy JAG manual investigation), most of which examined the use of force by his troops. When asked when he had time to command, he answered, “Exactly.”
Human behavior has not changed much in recorded history. Neither have the basic tenets of war. It takes killing with speed and sustained effect to win wars. The notions that the U.S. military can win with “precision strikes” or “winning hearts and minds” are fantasy. Even the great victory in Operation Desert Storm was a bloody killing field. Just ask the remnants of the Tawakalna Division of the Iraqi Army.
During the American Civil War, the Union literally bled the Confederacy dry of fighting-age men. General Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac killed its fellow Americans by the tens of thousands until General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia could not resist. It was that pressure that led Lee—arguably the greatest tactician on either side—to surrender. Grant killed his way to victory. He had the manpower advantage as well as the economic and industrial power to do so.
This country’s “Greatest Generation” killed enormous numbers of the enemy’s military servicemen and civilians in World War II. General Curtis LeMay knew that if he killed enough Japanese they would quit. While brutal by 2017 standards, his approach yielded lasting results—a productive peace with Japan that has lasted since 1945. The legal justification then—the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor—is the same casus belli as the one in the current war against al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): the 11 September 2001 sneak attack on the United States.
Read the entire article. It was written by two former JAGs. One of them, the one that I mention up top- Command Judge Advocate for 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta.
I will remind everyone that I believe the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan were a waste of blood and treasure. We should have caused maximum pain and death and then let the locals fix their countries with the understanding that we can come back and do this again cheaper than fixing your nation ourselves (with no assurance that our fix will suit you).