The Battle That Wasn't

Free Congress Foundation ^ | March 29th, 2004 | William S. Lind

[Chapita]

About two weeks ago, the world's attention suddenly turned to a dramatic battle in Pakistan. The Pakistani Army, we were told, had trapped a large force of al Qaeda, including a "high-value target," possibly Ayman Zawahiri. The Pakis brought in artillery and air power. The fate of the al Qaeda fighters was sealed.

Then the whole thing evaporated into thin air. First, Zawahiri wasn't there. Then no other "high-value target" was there either. The Pakistani Army invited local tribal elders to mediate, declaring a cease-fire while they did so - not the sort of thing you do when you are winning. Pakistani Army units elsewhere in the tribal territories came under attack. Finally the whole business just dropped out of sight, ending not with a bang but a whimper.

What really happened? At this point, if anyone knows they are not telling. But that is not the important question. The important question is, what didn't happen?

What did not happen is that a force of irregulars - maybe al Qaeda, maybe Taliban, certainly local tribal fighters - was trapped by a state military and beaten. That is a very significant non-event. Normally, non-state irregulars cannot stand against state armed forces. Once they are located and pinned down, the state armed forces can use their vastly superior firepower to win an easy and guaranteed victory. They just keep up the bombardment until those left alive have little if any fight left in them (remember, these irregulars are not exactly the German Army at the Somme).

Here, the firepower was employed. The Paki Army used both artillery and attack helicopters. But it did not win. If it had won, you can be certain Islamabad would be trumpeting the victory. The fact that the battle became a non-event says that the forces of the state of Pakistan did not win.

What does this failure mean? The Washington Post quoted a retired Pakistani Army general as saying, "The state has to win this battle or its credibility will be destroyed." I suspect the general is correct. In fact, I will go further: I think the failure of the Pakistani Army to win this battle marks the beginning of the end for Pakistan's current President, General Musharraf. The defensive victory of the tribal fighters will turn into an offensive victory, giving courage and a sense of inevitable victory to Musharraf's enemies while causing near-revolt in Musharraf's base, the army itself. Before the year is out, I suspect we will see General Musharraf's head impaled on a pike and surging Pashtun crowds proclaiming Osama as their leader.

At that point the American strategic failures that are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have transformed themselves into an American strategic disaster. As I have said before in On War, Iraq and Afghanistan themselves mean little. The centers of gravity in this war are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. What is important about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is how they affect these other countries and their pro-American governments.

Our friends in the Middle East have warned us that the spillover effects are not likely to be positive. That has now proven to be the case. The Pakistani Army went into the Tribal Territories - something it has long known is not a good idea - under American pressure, as part of the current American "big push" in Afghanistan. In effect, the American generals in command in Afghanistan made the typical German mistake: they sacrificed the strategic situation to benefit their operational plan. As did the Germans, we will find that blunder tends to win the campaign at the price of losing the war.

Meanwhile, adding insult to injury, the putative first target in this failed operation, al Qaeda's Mr. Zawahiri, issued an audiotape in which he cocked a snook at General Musharraf, damned him for sending his "miserable" army against the tribesmen and called on the humiliated Pakistani Army to revolt. I suspect the bad fairy of militant Islam will grant him that wish. Al Qaeda's strategic victory in Spain will be followed by a vastly more significant strategic victory in Pakistan, while the U.S. contents itself with bombing an occasional Afghan orphanage from 20,000 feet.

Am I the only one who can see where this is all going? But perhaps it helps to be a German military historian...

William S. Lind is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation

[Chapita]

Have at it!

[sitkaspruce]

The sky is falling. The sky is falling. As are the domino's. The Paki's can't fight. The American Forces are really the German's. He only missed that we and the Paki army are causing global warming in the Tribal Territories.
Disruption of sancturies was a major lesson of the Vietnam Conflict. Read Churchill's book on the army expedtion, he was in the same area at the turn of the century to get a better perspective than this academic posurers scrawling.

[Ashamed Canadian]

Oh brother. The author claims that no one knows what happens, then chooses to enlighten us with his insight....

[Ashamed Canadian]

Happens = happened

[Ashamed Canadian]

while the U.S. contents itself with bombing an occasional Afghan orphanage from 20,000 feet.

Arsehole.

[caisson71]

I suspect being a German Military Historian has some disadvantages. Some try to analyze the war on terrorism in terms of other wars, specifically wars in Europe. I don't think anyone who followed this story, as most of us have done via the lamestream media, understand that statements made by the press, attributed to Pakistan or US reps. is the press preparing us for a future reported failure - no matter what the outcome. Everyone knows that nobody, nobody said that Zawahiri was at the battlesite. What was said was that he MIGHT be there judging on the concentration of rebel fighters and the desire of the rebels to slug it out with the Pakastini military.
What most former, present military or students of the mid-east understand is that battles are conducted quite differently, that tribes and family relationships often conflict with our perspective of a military engagement. As we have seen in the past, often cornered and apparently surrounded enemy tend to "disappear" at night.
We cannot analyze the war against terrorists as merely a "body Count" as we learned in VietNam. As long as the US military was kept out of the action, all we could hope for was the elimination of a substantial number of terrorists.

[John O]

At that point the American strategic failures that are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have transformed themselves into an American strategic disaster.

This guy's delusional. In Afghanistan and Iraq we have two huge unsinkable aircraft carriers. Both countries are making huge strides towards stable democracies. Democracies that we will protect untill they can stand on their own.

The two countries bracket Iran very nicely, and when Iran falls from it's own internal pressures,with perhaps a slight push from us, then we'll have a democratic wedge in the heart of islam.

Pakistan will be caught between the russians, the chinese, the indians and us. All of these players have reason to hate the islamics and desire a more secular or Christian culture there. And we will defend that culture until it can stand on it's own. This will free Russia, China, and India to eradicate the islamic plague in their outlying provinces.

This basically wipes out the eastern end of the islamic crescent.

Syria then finds itself trapped between Iraq, Turkey and Israel. It won't last long and Lebanon will fall shortly thereafter. We've now wiped out the northern islamic problem countries. (While turkey is mostly islamic by faith it is not islamic by culture.)

So Saudi Arabia and the northen African countries now find they have no allies to the east. I think that they, like Libya, will fold rather quickly.

Islam is the enemy and must be destroyed. But it must be dismantled from the fringes in. Arabs make lots of noise but don't defend each other. Like any crowd of thugs they just run away when one of them is brought down.

[Chapita]

*********************"Democracies that we will protect untill they can stand on their own."*****************************************************************************

That is assuming that the American leftists won't erode the will to stay the course!

I see the "Vietnamese-zation" of the War On Terror!

[js1138]

I give your scenario no less than 10 years and more like 30. And after the military victories are won it will take two or three generations for Islamism to die out.

[Wombat101]

Okay, one thing at a time and not necessarily in the correct order:

1. Germany lost the war because of strategic overreach. There were simply not enough troops,planes, etc, to defend all of Western Europe, North Africa, The Med, and engage the Soviet Army on an ever-expanding Eastern front. The Russians expolited the gaps, and in the end, pushed a depleted and undersupplied German army back into Germany. That was not "sacrificing the strategic objective to the operational plan" that was a manic desire to possess and hold every square inch of conquered territory. Two diffent things. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor for the sake of acquiring the former European colonies of the South Seas WAS sacrificing the strategic to the operational. Get your wars straight.

2. Irregular forces have routinely stood up to state forces throughout history. I submit the American Revolution as a prime example, and the Afghan rsistance to the Soviets in the 1980's as another. The telling point has been the ability of the state to sustain the will and momentum required to eliminate these irregular forces, ala Vietnam.

3. Pakistan is a military dictatorship and the ability of the state to survive is incumbant on the military's ability to enforce it's will, not the outcome of one battle. If Pakistan were actually serious about rounding up Al-Qaida and the Taliban, it would have pushed the offensive. Instead, Pakistan managed to snag defeat from the jaws of victory by allowing outside mediation and, quite frankly, I smell elements of the government opposed to Mussharif involved (perhaps the ISI, which had good relations with the Taliban?).

4. The author is speaking from his rectal area.

[skinkinthegrass]

1. Germany lost the war...

4. The author is speaking from his rectal area.

Thanks.. :)

[Broadside Joe]

"At that point the American strategic failures that are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have transformed themselves into an American strategic disaster"


That is as much as I could handle.

[Chapita]

He wasn't telling what you wanted to hear, huh?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

At that point the American strategic failures that are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have transformed themselves into an American strategic disaster.

Richard Clarke II?? Looks like everybody wants a book deal.

[Broadside Joe]

"He wasn't telling what you wanted to hear, huh?"

No I stopped reading fairy tails in kindergarten

[Bart Mann]

I agree with sitkaspruce. You have to go at them where they hide, and in this case, it is the tribal region. Just like in Iraq where we couldn't find Saddam until we started arresting bigshots in Tikrit, the only way to flush them out is to make their buddies uncomfortable.

I don't see the big benefit to having Musharref around anyway. It just makes it harder to target our enemies. The Libya connection should have allowed us to use the Bush Doctrine on the Paki government, and quit pussyfooting around with these people.

[John O]

I give your scenario no less than 10 years and more like 30. And after the military victories are won it will take two or three generations for Islamism to die out.

Very likely true. But also essential to the continued existence of western civilization. We are in a battle to the death of eaither islam or western civilization. They cannot co-exist