No More Easy Wars

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No More Easy Wars - By Scott Gerber | Foreign Policy

America is resurrecting the same strategy that failed in Iraq -- and ground troops will pay the price.
Conclusion:

So what's the alternative to Air-Sea Battle? A good strategy needs to make aggression more expensive to adversaries than deterring aggression is to us. We should start by freshening up the strike paradigm. Rather than sinking billions of dollars into carriers and aircraft that have diminishing utility, we need to leap ahead to the next generation of warfare: We need to go unmanned. The technical services should invest in unmanned ships, aircraft, and submarines (except the ballistic-missile subs). If we possessed scores of aircraft-carrying ships with thousands of strike aircraft, rather than a few massive carrier groups, the Navy would be able to protect the global commons much more efficiently. The associated reduction in aviation training and shipbuilding costs would also relieve budget pressure. We could then discard the utopian assumption that land operations are optional.

We should leverage military-to-military contacts more than ever. Look at the example of Saudi Arabia. For decades, the United States maintained military and diplomatic relations. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, mutual interests converged, and Saudi Arabia became an unsinkable aircraft carrier and staging base. Certainly similar strategies could be employed in Southeast Asia or against Iran. Those relationships that turn to strategic alliance are almost always built on value, and as we've seen, most countries in U.S. areas of interest want help building ground forces.

What we should not do is delude ourselves. Strike-based theories are attractive because they offer deceptively easy solutions. They assume away intractable problems and focus on challenges for which we can engineer clean solutions. They make us feel good. They prey on our desire for the cheap miracle cure. Unfortunately, they are really only good for starting wars, not winning or deterring them. If the bankrupt Shock and Awe theory is dressed up as strategy again, someone will call our bluff. Having assumed away hard choices, U.S. leaders will find themselves stuck with two bad choices: accept an intolerable situation or engage in a struggle for which we are unprepared. That is exactly what happened in Iraq. And if we continue to adhere to the same fallacies, we can be sure it will happen again. There are no easy wars.