 | abichara (60)
01/16/2007 |  And that's what makes fighting these people so difficult. What makes it even more difficult is that we continue to fight these people like they had tanks and ships. Were not fighting Nazi Germany circa. 1942, a nation with plenty of economic and military capabilities. The conflicts we're dealing with in Afghanistan and Iraq is far more multidimensional than others we've fought in, this is partially a result of the tribal politics that infuse both countries. These are more guerilla insurgencies that require special operations, intelligence capabilities, and political wheeling-and-dealing to resolve.
What frustrates me even more is when policymakers and pundits parse over whether the solution in both of these conflicts is "political" or "military". War IS a political matter!! You can't afford to ignore the politics of the situation. Drawing these unnecessary distinctions closes the door to potential solutions that can be attainable.
The best solution in this case I believe most likely lies with the localities, not the central governments. The local sheik or chieftain in both Iraq and Afghanistan is most likely to have much more influence than the national governments, which are weak, corrupt, and lacking in military, political and moral authority. We have to work with what we got. Let's face it, we are not good at dealing with tribal politics, weve never been, but dealing with the locals directly is the only way to get out of these countries with some credibility left. When we've worked with the localities in Iraq and Afghanistan, we've gotten better results than through the national governments, whose influence might be limited due to sectarian concerns. This is a good starting point, but we're going to have to develop tactical capabilities to deal with situations like this. Our involvement in the Balkans during the late-1990s might be a departure point strategically. We were somewhat successful in a situation there that was similar to the ones in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Ordinance alone won't win these conflicts; what we really need is a more multi-dimensional approach, which is something that our military and political strategy is lacking. Perhaps this is because we continue to debate whether a political or military solution is needed to resolve these conflicts: the answer to this question is both! The goal shouldn't be "victory" per se, rather it should be a decent resolution of both these countries political situations; meaning that each country should have stable political and economic situations and reasonably moderate governments that reject fundamentalism. We wont be marching into Berlin anytime soon in either situation, but the above stated goal would mean that we were reasonably successful.
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 | DEADFORWEEKS (0)
08/15/2005 | And they are currently winning over somebody who spends billions of budget on an annual basis on state of art military. Insulted, no?
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