"There Is A Military Solution To Terror"
Posted by: Jubal | 06/02/2008 8:54 PM
That's the title of this excellent column from today's Wall Street Journal. Author Bret Stephen's provides a nourishing antidote to the ahistorical obtuseness afflicting the Left and too much of the Right when it comes to defeating insurgencies:
Sadr City in Baghdad, the northeastern districts of Sri Lanka and the Guaviare province of Colombia have little in common culturally, historically or politically. But they are crucial reference points on a global map in which long-running insurgencies suddenly find themselves on the verge of defeat.
For the week of May 16-23, there were 300 "violent incidents" in Iraq. That's down from 1,600 last June and the lowest recorded since March 2004. Al Qaeda has been crushed by a combination of U.S. arms and Sunni tribal resistance. On the Shiite side, Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army was routed by Iraqi troops in Basra and later crumbled in its Sadr City stronghold.
In Colombia, the 44-year-old FARC guerrilla movement is now at its lowest ebb. Three of its top commanders died in March, and the number of FARC attacks is down by more than two-thirds since 2002. In the face of a stepped-up campaign by the Colombian military (funded, equipped and trained by the U.S.), the group is now experiencing mass desertions. Former FARC leaders describe a movement that is losing any semblance of ideological coherence and operational effectiveness.I've little hope this will seep through the cracks of our local citadel of isolationism: the OC Register editorial page, which barely and grudgingly acknowledges the success of the surge.
In Sri Lanka, a military offensive by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has wrested control of seven of the nine districts previously held by the rebel group LTTE, better known as the Tamil Tigers. Mr. Rajapaksa now promises victory by the end of the year, even as the Tigers continue to launch high-profile terrorist attacks.
All this is good news in its own right. Better yet, it explodes the mindless shibboleth that there is "no military solution" when it comes to dealing with insurgencies. On the contrary, it turns out that the best way to end an insurgency is, quite simply, to beat it.
You can read the rest here.
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When the "solution to terror" involves buying friends with cash and guns, I dispute the claim that this is a "solution" at all — more like a band-aid on a hemorrhaging chest wound.
We have, of course, tried this sort of thing before. Just one example: Back in the 1980s we sold weapons — including chemical weapons — to a fellow by the name of Hussein who was the leader of a country called Iraq (perhaps you've heard of it) so that he could prosecute a proxy war against our enemy, Iran. That turned out well, didn't it?
As long as we try to solve the problem of violence by pumping more arms into a conflict, we are doomed to fail. We may see short-term successes — like what's happening now in certain parts of Iraq — but, long-term, we are only setting the stage for the next regional conflict we will have to fix.
Our credit is still good. So, we have plenty of money to borrow to keep paying for this war. And there is an endless supply of young men willing to die or be maimed.
So, let's continue the fight! Everyone chant with me now - 100 MORE YEARS! 100 MORE YEARS! 100 MORE YEARS!
Speaking of being ahistorical: Jubal conveniently forgot to mention what happened before both of these "military" success:
The central government made an honest, sincere attempt to negotiate a peace.
In the case of Columbia, Bogota conceded political control of an entire province to the FARC, while Sri Lanka did observe its cease fire and negotiate seriously.
Unlike the ANC in South Africa, Sin Fein in Ireland, and sub-Comandante Marcos in Chiapas, the FARC and the Tamil Tigers showed they were not sincere about their political claims but were just power-hungry thugs. That revelation: that the "revolutionaries" were not legitimate, gave Sri Lanka and especially Columbia the popular support essential to the successful prosecution of a military solution.
A central government CAN NOT win a guerrilla war by military means alone. That is the heart of the Petraeus strategy in Iraq, it was at the heart of Britain's successful Malaysian counter-insurgency.
One MUST win the support, the "hearts and minds," of the population where the fighting will be taking place. Without that support the military campaign will not succeed, as Columbia itself showed for the three decades before the current victories.
I didn't "conveniently" leave out anything. What Stephens wrote is not inconsistent with your points. He's responding to that class of thought that thinks all military efforts against insurgencies are doomed to failure-- when the reality is it is insurgencies that usually lose.
A key part of the hearts and minds strategy in Iraq has been getting our forces out of base camps and deploying them amidst the population. That is a military strategy.
I'm just not sure that the article's main idea ("there is a military solution to terror") necessarily translates to Iraq.
Let's face it - we are fighting a proxy war against Iran. I'm not convinced that we can lump Iraqi "insurgents" in with these other movements.