‘Time to come home’ – acting Pentagon chief wants to end wars in Middle East
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
I had a deployment to Afghanistan in 2004 and three to Iraq(2005, 2006 x 2).
I’m 35 now and the wars are finally near an end. Had I had kids younger, they could have been deployed in the same war.
Roughly 7,000 Americans were killed, 50k+ wounded, not to mention then hundreds of thousands of men, women and children killed.
I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way.
RLTW
> I’m glad the GWOT era is coming to an end and hope we can learn from all the mistakes we made along the way.
Agreed.
Absolutely incredible how we are still dealing with this nonsense.
But I have a pretty dark view on our global societys future as well with the negative synergies between the climate crisis, the ongoing automation effort for less skilled work and the refugees that will be out of a home with the rising sea levels... Let's just say I'm glad Ill likely be dead before it becomes too much of an issue.
Non of it is unsustainable we have not run out of anything, ironically outside of few renewable resources those can actually run out. Things that used to be worthless rocks are now valuable things. Other things that are now rocks will be valuable in the future. The difference between a resource and dirt is technology, more humans in our system leads to more technology.
In fact, the total amount of resources we have and no about now is probably 1000x more then 100 years ago.
Rising of sea level happens slowly, not in one big wave and can be mitigated in many ways as well. The same goes for climate in general.
Technology has been replacing workers from their job with the same speed for 100s of years, the tractor replaced far more jobs then anything we are inventing now.
But I guess this inherent pessimism counter to all evidence we have about similar predictions over the last 250 years, is somewhat systemic.
I just hope to convince people to not take it as far as the 'population growth is bad' people in the 60s when they said the US shouldn't help India so fewer of them can starve now, rather then more later as mass starvation in India was of course inevitable in their minds. Just one of their many brilliant plans for population control.
If we don't behave in a way that's sustainable for an indefinite time, we're living on borrowed time. Sooner or later this debt will catch up. IMO the belief that technological progress will save us is naive. The problem is not technological, it never was, but a matter of priorities.
> The problem is not technological, it never was, but a matter of priorities.
The growth of humanity from 100M to 10B was 100% based on technology improvement.
Again, the same argument and question has been made 100s of years and every prediction based on what population growth implies for the future has not just been wrong, but 180 degrees in the wrong direction. At some point you have to ask yourself what you are missing, when repeating the exact same arguments, with literally nothing added.
10x more humans at 10x more the consumption would be a better world then the one we live in now.
The difference between a resource and dirt depends on technology. The amount of energy potential is almost unlimited, considering solar and nuclear power.
Technology is nice but it has yet to lead to a net reduction of our ecological footprint.
The fact that we are unsustainably destroying our biosphere is supported by scientific research and data. If you don't concede that, I don't see a point in even discussing it.
The war there will of course not end the country has been consistently at war for 50+ years pretty much. But the US portion of it will end, as the Soviet one did before.
P.S:
Where did you serve in Iraq?
How good was your understanding of Iraq politics back then? How aware were you of the different fraction in Iraqi politics and who was fighting who and why?
That was before all the COIN ideas, so I assume there was little education. Considering you were a Ranger you might have had more insight.
There were two distinct moments from my first deployment. One was our team hitting 3 IEDs on one of our first operations and thinking we still had 10 months left. The other was being on a clearing operation, seeing an IED go off and learning of our Iraqi soldiers was killed. I remember feeling my heart break and wondering why we do these things to each other. I'm also glad the wars are coming to an end.
S/F
I'm curious about your thoughts on the subject - what do you consider mistakes? What do you think the lessons are? Are there books or other resources that you'd recommend?
The US doesn't really need the Middle East any more. North America is now self-sufficient in energy, and that situation improves as more solar and wind go in.
What a waste.
That oil was important for Europe and most of all Japan and China. And that is still the case in many ways. Of course now the US maybe doesn't want China to have cheap oil anymore.
If it was about securing US oil, war in Venezuela and Canada would be far more sensible.
And even then the US didn't need to do anything, everybody would have happily sold the US oil without the need for any kind of war or US troupes of any kind.
The US increase intervention was required because of policy growth, where the US wanted an ever increasing control over these places for things other then oil. Once the Soviet Union was gone, the US started to dream of reshaping the the region and integrating it fully in the the US system.
The US has been vehemently against projects that deliver fossil fuels to Europe by countries that are not its allies, like the Nordstream 2 pipeline or the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. On the other side, Syria has blocked the US-backed Qatar-Turkey pipeline (interestingly drawing gas from the same South Pars/North Dome gas field), sparking US-Syria tensions around 2010.
Is there not a cold war between US and Venezuela right now (over nationalization of formerly American-owned oil production facilities there), somewhat of a proxy for China to attack us, raging since the second Bush administration? I mean, their nationals factually developed many of the US voting systems (because we're stupid, not because they are stealth) and all we have is political rhetoric that those systems are "the most secure in history" and there is "no evidence of hacking". I think most people here, at least, know that the first order of business for modern computer viruses once they penetrate a system is to get rid of the penetration evidence, neutralize system monitoring capacity and start unwrapping preloaded or downloaded payloads. This all feeds back into what America's government is going to do with respect to domestic oil production over the next four years and how that will affect the world's dependency upon the Middle East and Russia. https://gnews.org/556010/ http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/26/c_139467853.htm
As far as Canada, it was far from a cold war, more like two gentlemen getting into an argument at the local country club, but a primary focus was oil (pipelines), no? https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/fs/USMCA/US...
It's somewhat clear the "establishment" is dying to get rid of Trump for being unpredictable, free-wheeling and unwilling to repeat the usual pieties about the war industry.
It was galling to see the bureaucrats confess this week to lying about troop numbers in order to bypass Trump.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-en...
"Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on stopping “ridiculous endless wars” in the Middle East, took to Twitter last month to announce that American forces currently serving in Afghanistan will be home by Christmas."
Imagine all that money, used instead on our infrastructure instead of propping up wars and enemy of west news broadcasts for the past 19 years.
"The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.57 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Defense Department report."
No that was widely credited to the power vacuum created by the United States of America when they publicly hanged the President of Iraq for all the Muslim world to see. [1][2][3]
Serious error of judgement by White House royalty trying to make their ancestors proud. The US gave the Taliban a decade of training, funding and weapons.[4][5][6][7] They gave ISIS the perfect environment for them to grow big and everyone knows it.
It doesn't matter what business you are in, everyone is always trying to create more work for themselves, the military and intelligence services are no exception.
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/americas-failed-strategy-middl...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/23/...
[3] https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraqs-power-vacuum-cou...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
> described as the "biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency."
[5] https://theintercept.com/2019/08/21/taliban-peace-talks-afgh...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controver...
[7] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who...
Still, that alternate universe where we didn’t waste money on two wars of occupation on the other side of the world, didn’t bail out loads of banks and large corporations during the financial crisis and weren’t actively looking to spend more money on unnecessary crap, with the top notch infrastructure minus the enormous cost overruns and CEQA and CEQA-like review processes of the past 20 years, must be pretty nice. Maybe they even kept their Nuclear Arsenal up to date, didn’t kill the F-22 and kept their medical stockpiles in stock and in good condition.
I'm not seeing how that is relevant. There are boots on the ground & bombs in the air. Someone is fronting real resources. There is no possible return on these resources. In fact, the return is negative since the US is taking fairly normal Middle Easterners and presumably making enemies for life.
A situation has been set up that is even worse than borrowing resources to support an unproductive and unsustainable lifestyle. This is borrowing resources to ruin random strangers lives. Those resources could have been used for any inane project and literally everyone is better off.
I think we are basically in agreement otherwise, unless you want to argue the details.
It would be interesting to understand the intricacies of why Trump was unable to do anything about this before now. Maybe it's just because he's an idiot but I doubt it. Obama also started out wanting to do this. Remember "I'm against dumb wars"?
Obama’s Syria strategy mostly failed because when it came down to it Assad read him correctly: the “bright line” was crossed and Obama didn’t really want to intervene beyond air power.
With Trump, I think Iran genuinely thought he was looking for an excuse to nuke them (especially when he had Bolton as an adviser). I think that moderated their responses and led to the stalemate we saw.
The world is a balance of power, every move changes that dynamic.
Complete American withdrawal in Europe may have seen Putin do what he did in Crimea also in the Baltic states or possibly further, which creates the conditions for the possibility of 'real war' which would draw the US back in anyhow.
The US is the 'lynch pin' of peace between Israel and Egypt, and keeps most the Arab peninsula more or less under wraps. The #1 recipient of foreign aid from the US is Egypt, of course a Muslim country, this surprises a lot of people - it's to keep Isreal/Egypt tensions under wraps. Because they have not had 'hot fighting' in a generation, most of us don't think about that as the 'problem spot' but really it is - if that broke down it would suck the entire region into a bad black hole of fighting.
Without the US to protect House of Saud (and it doesn't need to even fire a bullet for that, just the credible threat of retaliation is enough) and their Sunni neighbours, Iran and Saudi Arabia would be going at each other, and though they don't have plans to 'invade' each other, it would break out into something ugly probably very quickly.
The populists in Egypt (i.e. Muslim Brotherhood) could easily gain power, and their more radical factions would turn 88M people against Israel and that's a real problem, imagine the pro-Trump vs. anti-Trump rallies we see this weekend, but 100x as big, right on the Egypt/Isreal border - maybe neither government wants it, but as soon as 'someone dies' then they are forced to react and it gets swiftly out of hand. If 88M people 'want blood' then war is innevitable.
And Iran's intransigence, though obviously fuelled by the US somewhat - is real.
(Aside from 'total breakdown' of power i.e. E. Syria in which case some radical group like ISIS will take power)
The 'piece on the board' that would 'make the system peaceful' if it were to be removed is point blank Iran, that's obvious.
Yemen, the Gulf, Syria, Shia Iraq, Kurdish lands, and Lebanese instability via Syria ... it's Iran.
The US forces in the M/E right now are not fighting for the most part, this is no longer Gulf War, so the 5th fleet + support is well placed.
There is so much 'inherent instability' there it would fall apart very quickly. The availability of Oil money, concentrated into a few hands of people with personal and ideological vendettas is just too much. (Of course the real 'piece on the board were it to be removed would mean peace' is Oil).
My comment is not either, it's just realpolitik.
Remember the entire region was under Ottoman power for 500 years, and then WW1/2 and the inability of European powers to wield real influence ... and so you have raging ideologies, clans, Oil, vendettas filling the vacuum.
Frankly it's normal.
We had some very scary moments between Israel and neighbours, but that has subsided.
Now we have 'Iran vs. Everyone' but even that will stay under wraps as long as there are 'real powers' to contain them and there are.
It will take another 100 years but it will settle down.
Much like the Israel/Egypt tensions have faded from the memory of many people, those tensions will fade.
A commenter hinted that it's 'bizarre' that Israel+Saudi have come to terms, it's not bizarre whatsoever it definitely mostly in their mutual self interest.
The 'bizarre' issue is that the benefit of stability in the ME is not nearly so apparent anymore: the world doesn't quite depend on Saudi Arabia so much, and most of the Oil from there goes to China!
The US is 'paying' for Chinese resource protection. That's bizarre.
Hopefully, oil dependence will wane (it's not going away though), and tensions will subside.
And FYI there's a lot of social and civil progress throughout that part of the world, we don't talk about it but the amount of access to education, information, awareness is shocking. The inter-generational divide in the ME is interesting.
Consider MBS murdering a journalist. 25 years ago - no problem. Today? It made the news, which means US politicians 'have to care', and because his hold on power is tenuous, it means repercussions. He probably won't do it again.
Look at Jordan. They are quiet and 'play nice' not for 40 years. Oman is not even on the radar.
The 'odd ingredient' is Iran, because it's hard to see where their endgame is, the regime they have there is inherently unstable.
Give it a few generations, it will settle down.
Unfortunately time has been unkind to US governance and the tail wags the dog. The US is in a bizarre situation where Saudi Arabia and Israel are the key allies, and both states play out their own forms of internal political conflict within the US. Meanwhile the usual mess of sectarian and external stakeholders all vie for position.
The US can’t “pull out”. But we need to figure out what we want post-Trump.
Perhaps Europe should pay for their own defense? Crimea and Ukraine aren’t particularly economically successful, but France could certainly stand to save some money on African adventurism and use that budget to shore up their capabilities. Germany, the UK, even Italy — they can and should shoulder more of the burden of protecting themselves against threats. Not sure why the US has to have our troops and money effectively subsidizing European security.
The EU is a very, very rich place, they have serious military concerns right on their borders, but are both unwiling to make the investment necessary - and - unwilling to 'get along' in a manner such as they can act responsibly and consistently against the threat.
The very fact the US needs to be there - and - underpins/leads NATO is evidence that Europe is not 'doing their own work'.
If Europe was properly paying for their own security, then:
1) There would be 0 question as to the need for the US in Europe. It would be like the need for massive US presence in Canada - nobody thinks that, it's obviously unecessary.
2) There would be 0 concern over border integrity, especially in Baltic states. Again, it would be like concern over 'New Zealand' being invaded - there's no concern there.
That's what 'good security' looks like - it makes one position look secure to the point of any real aggression being unfathomable or crazy.
The Europe should pay more for it's security so we can spend the next ~100 years or so cooling down - eventually the Russians won't want to invade their neighbours.
Unfortunately, Western leaders treat Russia just like Germany in 1936-38, hoping that "this last occupation would finally make dictatorship happy". We all remember how this practice ended in 1939.
I'm more curious as to how you can reason that Trump and/or the GOP would not be so vindictive? If Trump had any interest in what's best for the country and its citizens his administration would not be hindering the transition to the new administration. Something similar can be said for the GOP.
Bush had received a four-hour CIA briefing in September before the election at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, but he had never seen the President's Daily Brief, which Gore saw daily as vice president.
As their lengthy ballot recount dragged into December, President Bill Clinton authorized intelligence officials to share the so-called PDB with Bush, too."
Get ready for The Draft boys.
I do agree though, Asia will be the next boogeyman. In my lifetime it's been: Russia->iraq->other middle eastern countries->now china
Last time we got rockets to the moon, and the internet, which was transformational for the whole world. who knows what will be discovered in the next couple of decades in the name of 'defense'.