“Military victory” is capture or neutralization of the enemies command and control. The Coalition defeated the Iraqi Army with ease in 2003 by this definition. Failures began with not securing the military assets of the vanquished army. The insurgency in Iraq also has command and control. You may like to speculate where it is located. The current failure is the open boarder points between Iraq and Iran as well as Iraq and Syria. The insurgency can be neutralized by cutting off supplies from Iran and Syria. It is only a matter of time after that goal that the insurgents consume the military assets the coalition failed to secure. How to stop supplies from Iran and Syria? Declaring a “forbidden zone” approximately five miles thick along each boarder and destroying anything that moves in that zone — anything from a truck load of fruit to munitions. This will leave a job of policing the new Iraqi Army and preventing diverting of their supplies to the insurgents. The last step is to arrest and prosecute those advocating violence as a tool of politics. Victory!
““Military victory” is capture or neutralization of the enemies command and control.”
No argument from me. however, you might whisper this into the commander-in-chief’s ear, because he needs to hear it.
from his speech on Iraq:
“Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world — a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people.”
Frankly, I like your definition better.