Is the current conflict in Iraq win-able?

[selkirk]

Has the nature of the current conflict in Iraq changed? It seems the tradtional army vs army war was over very quickly, and while were calling it terrorism it seems the conflict has morphed into a guerilla war where the local populace is attacking and trying to push out an invading power.

 

So How many guerilla wars, where the local populace (either some or all) iniate an ongoing struggle against an enemy it see's as an invading or occupying oppressor has ever been won by the invading group?

American Revolution.... British Lost

Afghanistan... Russians lost

Veitnam... the French lost, then we lost

Ireland... Stalemate/compromise no clear victory and the conflict still isn't completely over

Israel... Israeli holds the upper hand, but leaning towards stalemate/compromise again....IMHO no clear victory and an ongoing conflict

 

Any other historical guerrilla conflicts against an invading or occupying power?

(Would need to seperate these from guerilla conflicts against a local power (to local groups duking it out) as seems to be more common in Central Africa/South and Central America. These areas seem to have been in continual conflict for years with no clear resolution so this seems more akin a civil war, as opposed to a guerrilla group vs an occupying group.)

 

Ok

Edited September 7, 2004 by selkirk

[markinore]

The definitions of "terrorism" and "guerilla" are a little fuzzy and highly dependent on one's political views. Perhaps another common feature of all the examples you cite (Algeria is another) is that they are/were all nationalist liberation struggles on some level. That is important to recognize because it can help to explain why some Iraqis who are glad to be rid of Saddam and who aren't Islamic fanatics and who don't support Al Qaeda are nevertheless willing to fight U.S. troops. It also helps us to understand why it would be a grave mistake to regard all opponents of U.S. occupation as terrorists or fundamentalists.

 

Ultimately, Iraq will be controlled by Iraqis, and it is in the best interest of the U.S. if those controlling it are least hostile to America. Achieving that will be harder if we tar all those who oppose our presence with the terrorist brush.

[AaronB]

Falkland Islands?

[pzack]

 

other historical examples:

 

US - Panama

China - Tibet

Rome - Gaul

[selkirk]

I'm not very familiar with the Falkand Islands conflict... but it looks like we have some examples as to conflicts where the occupying force managed to win and establish a reasonably peaceful government, or at least quell the violence. Anyone care to weigh in on why the occupying force was successful in some conflicts and unsuccessful in others?

 

Would love to hear your thought GD. You've probably got a better perspective then the rest of us.

[Ratboy]

Lots of examples from ancient/medieval history, not sure if they are relevant since the tech is so different now.

 

* Rome in Britain, ultimately a stalemate

* Saxons in Britain circa 700, stalemate

* England in Scotland & Wales circa 1300, England ultimately won

[pzack]

. Anyone care to weigh in on why the occupying force was successful in some conflicts and unsuccessful in others?

 

There are two paths to victory when you occupy another people:

 

1) You can convince the peoples that there life is improving because of your occupation. This requires good propoganda.

 

 

2) You can completely crush their will. Often this will mean killing them off almost entirely (see the Native Americans), and being overwhelmingly brutal. (The Germans occupied France faily effectively. The French had a strong resistance, but without external help, I doubt they would have ousted the Germans in several lifetimes.

[dryad]

Tibetans have not put up a guerrilla resitance to the Chinese. Some in Tibet have suggested that they should, but the problem is that doing so goes against everything in their religion and culture. Even if they won a guerilla war and managed to get the Chinese out of Tibet, they would have to sacrifice their culture in the process and may as well have lost anyway. The few times a nonviolent protest resistance was attempted (a la Gandhi in India), the Chinese just shot everybody. Really sad situation there in Tibet.

[pzack]

The few times a nonviolent protest resistance was attempted (a la Gandhi in India), the Chinese just shot everybody.

 

2) the occupying force must be extremely brutal (even passive resistance is resistance). The British did not have the stomach to continually shoot down scores of unarmed protestors (much to their credit).

[Cpt.Caveman]

The question isn't is it winable. Because if we pumped in enough troops and gave them authority to kick some ass we would win no doubt about that. (whatever win is).

 

The question is - will the US as a country back the sort of resources necessary to make a military win (defined somehow and accepted with some specific goals).

[dryad]

Example of #1: ancient Persia. The were able to peacefully control a huge empire because they basically left alone all the people they conquered. Everyone could maintain their customs and local self-government as long as they paid some taxes to Persia, and everyone felt safer than they were before with a single power in control of the whole area.

[olyclimber]

Militarily, didn't we already "win" the Iraq war?

 

What is being done there now is a police action against criminals. The number of criminals is probably dependant on the fact that we still there as a "police" force. Problem now is that though we were able to get rid of one bad guy, there are many others waiting in the wings. Everytime we crush one group of criminals, we create a new batch because of collateral damage. Itimidation and might has been right in the the Middle East for ages, and it is easy to predict that this it isn't going to change. Short of killing everyone in the country, we're not going to stop the violence over there. We can't even stop it in our own country.

[selkirk]

Granted Cavey, but that resorts to Pzack's #2. We'd have to effectively kill almost everyone. Is this really the outcome we want? We might as well have dropped and atomic bomb in that case. Would have been faster, cheaper, more effective, and risked fewer American lives.

But I don't think our goal should be total erradication of the Iraqi people. But to somehow install a stable peacefull government that's friendly towards us (hasn't that been the goal all along?) Killing everyone and establishing good will with the Iraqi people and their subsequent government seem like mutually exclusive options.

 

In addition if we follow alternative #2 and become incredibly repressive and brutal... what is that going to to inspire the rest of the islamic world to do? It seems that would lead to increased terrorist (or guerrilla) strikes against the US and US forces abroad on an ever escalating scale. Which begins to sound like a slippery slope. The more people we kill, imprison, or brutalize, the more people are going to be out to get us.....eventually it would cease to be a guerilla or terrorist conflict and devolve into open warfare.

 

So it seems like we need to pursue #1, convince them (almost all of them) that their lives will be better (culturally, religiously, and socio-economically) due to our efforts there.

[JGowans]

Falkland Islands?

 

Was not inhabited by Argentinians. Already belonged to the Brits and they just made sure the Argies didn't forget. Not sure why they cared that much since it's full of sheep. wait a minute...anybody know how much a flight to Port Stanley costs?

[Cpt.Caveman]

I'm all for #2 if you are.

[Off_White]

Yep, we'd have to effectively kill everyone, carpet bomb the place with MOABs and nukes, and as the population dwindled to zero, I guarantee resistance would fade. A combination of primitive "destroy everyone" warfare with modern military capability and an absence of effete humanisim and morality would ensure victory of a sort, but there's no way the population of this country (to it's credit) would accept those tactics and definition of victory. Raze the cities and plow the fields with salt, only the modern defintion of salt has a half life of 50,000 years. Problem is, we want the population of Iraq to see the world though our lens, and the military is a clumsy tool for that effort. We'd be better off securing unimpeded access for the advertising industry to reshape reality.

 

In short, no, I don't think the public would accept what is needed to achieve a purely military victory in Iraq. The people in Iraq who want a modern society will have to step up to the plate and win that battle.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I think there's a generation in that part of the world trying to hold on to power. It's the older muslims in power seeing the youngins or newer thinking dudes wanting or embracing the technology.

 

Time will have to work it's wonders there.

[Bug]

They will go the way of Iran. Radical fundamentalism followed by moderate groundswelling and a uneasy peace somewhere right of center. It will not change until free travel and communications open up.

[Ratboy]

Example of #1: ancient Persia. The were able to peacefully control a huge empire because they basically left alone all the people they conquered.

 

That's exactly what happened during the middle years of the Roman Empire. The newly conquered territories, for the most part, didn't put up much of a resistance because they knew they would be better off as a Roman province. Up until the Christian era, provinces were allowed to worship their own gods and have their own cultures as long as they paid taxes to the Empire and acknowledged the Roman gods. Even some of the barbarian tribes, specifically the Vandals and Visigoths, just wanted to be accepted as Romans.

[mattp]

Much the same was the practice under the Moslim empire in such places as Spain, Ratboy, except I don't think they even had to acknowledge the Moslem religion. As long as they paid their taxes, Christians and Jews in the lands they controlled were able to continue their faith and were even allowed to control a surprising amount of their own local politics.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Example of #1: ancient Persia. The were able to peacefully control a huge empire because they basically left alone all the people they conquered.

 

That's exactly what happened during the middle years of the Roman Empire. The newly conquered territories, for the most part, didn't put up much of a resistance because they knew they would be better off as a Roman province. Up until the Christian era, provinces were allowed to worship their own gods and have their own cultures as long as they paid taxes to the Empire and acknowledged the Roman gods. Even some of the barbarian tribes, specifically the Vandals and Visigoths, just wanted to be accepted as Romans.

 

year 52 roman empire. These guys didn't want to accept shit.

 

The revolt in Gaul, in which tribes for the first time acted in concert, had soon taken hold of half the country. ...

 

Vercingetorix detested the Romans..... He represented the national cause. He was joined by many tribes - the Senones, Parisii, Pictones, Cadurci, Turoni, Aulerci, Lemovices, and Andes...

 

The gallic army invaded the Roman province of Tansalpina.. set fires to towns that could not be defended.

[Dru]

Example of #1: ancient Persia. The were able to peacefully control a huge empire because they basically left alone all the people they conquered.

 

That's exactly what happened during the middle years of the Roman Empire. The newly conquered territories, for the most part, didn't put up much of a resistance because they knew they would be better off as a Roman province. Up until the Christian era, provinces were allowed to worship their own gods and have their own cultures as long as they paid taxes to the Empire and acknowledged the Roman gods. Even some of the barbarian tribes, specifically the Vandals and Visigoths, just wanted to be accepted as Romans.

 

year 52 roman empire. These guys didn't want to accept shit.

 

The revolt in Gaul, in which tribes for the first time acted in concert, had soon taken hold of half the country. ...

 

Vercingetorix detested the Romans..... He represented the national cause. He was joined by many tribes - the Senones, Parisii, Pictones, Cadurci, Turoni, Aulerci, Lemovices, and Andes...

 

The gallic army invaded the Roman province of Tansalpina.. set fires to towns that could not be defended.

 

damn gauls!

 

 

"These Romans are crazy"

[JosephH]

Wars are won or lost - had we declared one, we could consider our having won it. Occupations/conflicts on the otherhand are not won, they are resolved - the question is can this occupation, now fiat accompli, be resolved to our advantage?

 

This isn't Japan, Germany, or even Vietnam. They all had relatively homogenous populations organized into highly structured societies within fairly stable borders and with long cultural heritages. Afganistan and Iraq are pretty much the opposite: recent, artificial amalgams of tribal and more modern societies with clashing cultural, religious, and cultural interests. Throw in fundamentalist vs. secular interests and a lack of women's rights on top of the rest and add a long regional history of brutality and you pretty much get a state you wouldn't want to run if you were of a sound mind.

 

[To put it in perspective (not completely revelant) - after the fall of the Soviet Union, a New York Times reporter, in a fairly harsh interview with the President of Kazakstan, asked if he weren't being a bit heavy handed suspending citzens' rights to free assembly. The President replied as kindly as he could while trying to explain that four thousand Kazaks standing around isn't peaceful assembly - it's not even a riot, which would constitute a group reaction to something - no, four thousand Kazaks standing around for more than a few minutes is mayhem and shouldn't be encouraged at the present time.]

 

The reason Bush Sr. called of the dogs at the walls was precisely because he was smart enough to realize that bringing down Saddam would unleash the same sorts of contained rivalries set loose in the former Yugoslavia. This was definitely a "reap what you sow...", tar-baby deal going in and Dad was right to steer clear of the whole mess. We have now has cut loose the opposing interests of Shiites, Kurds, and Arabs with a good dose of Iran to boot. If it spins out of control they will only be fragging us to get at each other.

 

I still maintain that no one short of a U.N.-commanded military presence will be able to back out with anything resembling gracefulness. And under no other terms/circumstances will we get help from the EU or Russians. There are simply no further military solutions, only political ones. A pure democracy would lead to another Iran with the immediate [bloody] succesion by the Kurds (with the oil) and a revolt by the Arabs. A partition of the country would also make no one happy, particularly in the international community. That leaves the need to make an attempt at, and succeed with, an effort to establish some form of government based on proportional represtentation - and good luck with this crew.

 

There really is no "happy" prognosis now that we've gone and stuck our nose/foot in the door. That sucking sound you hear is the billions per month from your paychecks rushing out that crack in the door for years to come instead of improving and securing your country...

 

P.S. And don't forget Afganistan where we only control Kabul and have ceded the rest of the country back to the warring Warlords whose brutality created the opening for the Taliban in the first place. And Afganistan was easy compared to Iraq...

[Cpt.Caveman]

Although I don't disagree with everything you mention. The first thing I do disagree. A conflict is resolved - by wins and losses. If you want to nitpick it to death see below.

 

 

 

 

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=conflict

 

A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.

A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.

Psychology. A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies.

Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.

[jon]

There is a book I recently read which was really really good and offers some perspective in this conflict. The book is by Tom Clancy and it is called Shadow Warriors, and it mainly deals with the life of the Special Forces, and the military life of one of their commanders. For someone in their late twenties it was interesting to hear about conflicts and missions that I was too young to really understand but remember. They talk about Vietnam, Lebanon, Iran, and Panama among others. I'm not really sure when this book was written, but one thing that was striking is how much praise this guy had for people like Cheney, Rumsfield, and Powell, and how much experience that these three individuals had in dealing with tough conflicts, especially Lebanon.