The questions raised are good ones, and though this professional NCO has not a made a career of agreeing with officers, Mike Spight (sir!) has it about straight.
First of all, modern technology puts us far ahead of the other players in conventional warfare. So what do you do when you can not deal with the opposition in a straight on fight?
Well you can outlast the US national (Ho Chi Min) will, or engage in irritating activities that keep you in power while your people suffer horribly (Saddam).
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Washington Post
March 7, 1999
Pg. B1
Soldier Vs. Warrior: The Modern Mismatch
By Ralph Peters
The U.S. military is magnificently prepared to defeat soldiers.
America's forces have the technology, training and raw power to shatter
conventional enemies. The threats we face today, though, and are likely
to face in the coming decades do not arise from other soldiers, with the
disciplined professionalism that term conveys, but from warriors-
individuals of volatile allegiance, who are habituated to violence and
have no stake in civil order.
From Algeria to Northern Ireland, from Chechnya to Colombia, organized
militaries have proven inadequate against the terrorist and warlord, the
holy warrior and mercenary. We in the West are conditioned to protect
the weak. The warrior butchers them. We fight to preserve the rule of
law.
The warrior thrives on lawlessness and havoc. He does not respect
treaties, no matter the flourish with which they are signed, and he
doesn't obey orders when he's not in the mood.
The warrior has been around since Cain killed Abel. It is the soldier,
with his codes of conduct, who is new-developed in Europe and America
over the past three centuries and imitated elsewhere. It seemed the
warrior was in retreat. But now, as empires have disintegrated, and
multiple revolutions-from a deluge of information to the emancipation of
women-threaten the prejudices of traditional societies and failing
states, the warrior is back. He is as brutal as ever, and far better
armed. In news clips and photos, these warriors appear as a mass of
shouting faces or a gang of identical thugs behind sunglasses and ragtag
uniforms.
Governments and militaries tend to view them with the same lack of
differentiation. Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
was embarrassed because the Albanian Kosovar rebels were regarded by
American diplomats as a unified group that would respond according to
Western logic.
In Bosnia, we have treated hardened butchers and Balkan Beetle Baileys
as if they were identical, failing to root out the men who will shatter
any peace the day we leave.
By reaching to understand the men behind the guns, we can take an
initial step toward defeating them. Warriors fall into distinct types,
or social pools, as they have throughout history. Although these pools
are fluid, and warriors may move among them at different stages-or even
exhibit traits from many-there are five basic sorts of warriors. Some
are much more dangerous than others. Some can be redeemed for productive
lives.
A hard core must be killed or imprisoned, if any peace is to endure. The
first pool of warriors is drawn from the underclass of society. These
are the followers, not the leaders. But they do the leader's bidding in
the early, crucible days of a conflict. These are males who have no
stake in peace, losers with little education, no legal earning power, a
history of dysfunctional or nonexistent relationships with women- and no
future. They are Hitler's Brownshirts and Serb gang rapists, the teens
at the African roadblock and the men who killed the tourists in Uganda
last week. They are also the Timothy McVeighs of the world. With gun in
hand and the spittle of an ideology on his lips, the first-pool warrior
murders those who once slighted him, seizes the women who avoided him
and plunders that which he never otherwise would have possessed. The
half-understood rhetoric of a cause lends him a notion of personal
dignity he may never have sensed before, but his dedication to his cause
is rarely as enduring as his taste for spoils. He will, however, cling
to his empowering military garb and his cherished identity. With no
marketable skills, he sees peace as the end of the good times. He
thrives on tumult-a fact our diplomats refuse to accept.
As conflicts lengthen-closing schools, disrupting worship, breaking
communities and ravaging families-young men who would otherwise have
pursued productive lives are drawn, or pushed, into violence. These
reluctant warriors form a second pool and expand the ranks of clan feuds
or national rebellions. They swelled the rioting of the intifada, and
found they had no choice but to chose a side in Liberia or Sierra Leone.
They are the cannon fodder of revolution. Yet their commitment to
violence is weak. If the conflict does not drag on too long, they may
be redeemed-or at least persuaded that the continuation of the struggle
is not worth the risk. If the first pool provides the born killers, this
second, much larger pool is composed of those who would rather live in
peace, given the chance. But long and savage conflicts ruin them, too.
The warrior who takes up a Kalashnikov at 13 is unlikely to go back to
secondary school 10 years later-if the school reopens.
The third pool of warriors is made up of the monsters who smile and
toast you with vodka. These are the opportunists, the entrepreneurs of
conflict, whose great strength is their cynicism. When it is
advantageous, they may speak eloquently of "the cause," but their real
cause is themselves. These are the Saddams and Milosevics, the drug
lords and the Russian gangsters in or out of government, the warlords
who change sides with ease-and who agree to anything the president's
special envoy demands until his back is turned. These chameleons of
conflict are not constrained by faction or morality, or even, in the
end, by the ties of family, tribe or clan that limit the flexibility or
broader appeal of other warrior chieftains. They are masters of timing
and surprise, and usually have superb intelligence networks-because they
will deal with anyone. Often touched with a dark genius, these
third-pool warriors are underestimated as mere criminals, until the ax
comes down.
The fourth pool of warriors is made up of the true believers, those who
will die for a cause, whether a religion, an ideology, a nationalist
vision, or a conviction of ethnic superiority and a desire to avenge
wrongs suffered-whether real or imagined. Even when they are our
enemies, they are heroes to their own people-another thing we fail to
understand. They wore down the great empires, and now see us as the last
empire of evil. They do not deal rationally by our standards, and we
falter when we rely on them to do so. Repeatedly, we have failed to see
the appeal of the upright man-perceived as such by his own people-who
hates us and who is willing to propagate endless slaughter to drive us
away, and to use weapons of mass destruction when acquired. This pool
includes the Osama bin Ladens, the Che Guevaras, the Ho Chi Minhs.
Dispossessed, cashiered or otherwise failed military men form the fifth
and final pool of warriors. Officers, NCOs or privates who emerged from
a dissolving military establishment, or who broke from one in which
they failed, bring rudimentary combat skills to the other warriors. The
fittest of these men become warlords or even military dictators. These
warriors heighten the level of bloodshed and the more accomplished
provide a nucleus of internationally available mercenaries. They are the
amphetamines of conflict, increasing the velocity of death and
destruction. Given that most civil strife is begun by less than 1
percent of the population, a few mercenaries or military veterans can
make a decisive difference in the demolition of an entire
state-especially in the early phases of a conflict. These are the
Russian and Ukrainian mercenaries haunting the world's bloody
backwaters, and the Aideeds or Mobutus, but they are also cashiered or
retired Western soldiers who whore their skills to kill their one-time
comrades. The imposition of peace just drives them elsewhere. Until
fierce international laws are formulated and enforced against them, they
will continue to plague the world.
The "peace deals" so beloved of American negotiators and presidents come
apart because they do not address the warrior. Peacekeeping forces
content to let him bide his time or even rearm will build no peace worth
keeping. The warriors who wish to reconstruct their lives-the majority,
in most conflicts-must be given the opportunity to do so. Those who go
underground, shifting from warfare to crime, must be pursued. And those
who will not lay down their arms for good must be imprisoned or killed.
Without a program to disarm, engage and rehabilitate the mass of
warriors, a peace is nothing but a truce. The difficulty, of course, is
that the more broken the state, the less its ability to absorb
demobilized warriors, whether Balkan thugs in uniform or Khmer Rouge who
have known no lives apart from war. What's more, we must recognize the
complexity of today's conflicts, which do not have the clarity of
Private Ryan's war. One of the most memorable characters I met in the
Transcaucasus, during the worst days of the Karabakh war, was an ethnic
Armenian dental student, a Lebanese citizen trained by the PLO in the
Bekaa Valley to fight Turkic Azeris. He combined heroic commitment with
reflexive hatred.
Even the warrior's chosen symbols confuse us, and tempt us to dismiss
the killer as a clown. The least attractive figure I encountered abroad
was a bearded thug in a black uniform who wore a homemade metal swastika
on his breast pocket. He just thought it was cool. During the early
years of the fighting in Yugoslavia, Rambo lookalikes were everywhere.
In Somalia, warlords infected with Hollywood-itis took Anglo names such
as "Jess" or "Morgan." In the past, the typical mercenary wanted money,
loot, women and drink. His modern counterpart also wants to be a star.
There are steps we can and must take to prepare our forces and ourselves
to face these warriors in the future. The first thing we require is
clarity of purpose,
and the next is strength of will. Both of these are utterly lacking in
the present administration-but future administrations may prove no more
decisive. We have grown soft, and like our killing done at a distance.
Our enemies will shove their knives in our faces. Beyond acts of
terror, they will not threaten our nation. But they will be deadly
enemies for the soldiers we send abroad.
Next, we must stop imagining that human problems inevitably have
technological solutions and that increasing the defense budget is the
answer to everything. At a time when the bloody hand of man ravages
continents, we spend our treasure on multibillion-dollar aircraft to
dogfight enemies that don't exist. We already have the weapons to deal
with warriors, but lack the leadership and commitment.
Our leaders must learn that you cannot bargain or compromise with mass
murderers. With warriors, you either win or lose. They are impressed
only by strength and the resolve to use it. Until we face up to the evil
in the world, our forces will be no more than modern redcoats, marching
into a hostile wilderness they do not understand.
Ralph Peters is a retired army officer and a novelist. This article is
adapted from his forthcoming book, "Fighting for the Future"
(Stackpole).
[/quote]
These are
my observations, they do not reflect the views of my chain of command nor any one officially. They do reflect the sum of 27 years of military experience, a BA in International Relations, and a somewhat rigorous analysis of the current world situation and the military.
Ralph Peters makes some very good points here. Not the least of which is that the real problems in the Kosovos of the world are the disincentives for the "warriors" for peace.
The thugs who have looted, raped and pillaged their way through the last half dozen to dozen years (or decades) are predisposed to continue. Their lack of governing skills and political inexperience causes them to seek strife, for it is what they are comfortable with.
In the unrest of a disfunctional society mass murderers and rapists go unpunished. Peace brings with it, (because the pacifying external forces insist) the return of law. Those who have behaved lawlessly, taking what ever they wished at the gunpoint, raping, and killing any who they merely dislike have absolutely no incentive to allow peace to break out.
If you were Milosevic would you really want any peace that might bring with it accountability for the atrocities that you had ordered or allowed or overlooked?
In these fragmented societies, the rule of force is absolute, the threat of the US military is meaningless if that we can not purge these actors from their societies.
In the Balkans if we were to send a large enough force to impose martial law, arrest and try and execute all the miscreants, we might have a chance of allowing the meek to inherit that earth. If we were to do so would we be any less ruthless and violative of human rights than these criminals?
We as a nation have not the collective will to engage in the the destruction in detail of the plunderers of these regions. If we fail to kill or imprison them we are fooling ourselves in believing that there can be peace.
Had we accepted the long term risks with an occupation of Iraq, and had been willing to meet the threats from other Islamic nations, could we have succeeded in establishing a democratic (in the true sense of the term) regime in Irag?
Saddam has proven conclusively to me that the proper response to a sovereign who does not abide by his commitments is to kill him. If we were to be successful in Kosovo we would have to arrest Milosevic, and try him. This would require a lot more than 4,000 soldiers. It would require a force capable of rooting out and destroying in detail all the "warriors".
About the only criticism I have of Peters is that the word warrior has for me a positive implication, a reflection of a dedication to a higher cause. Here he uses it to describe men whose lives revolve around maintaining war for the disfunction of society. The confusion of civil war, while each side is concerned for its political survival, suspends the enforcement of laws against murder, rape, and pillage. Laws are not high priorities. All of these thugs realize that should peace breakout their freedom of action, perhaps their very lives will be at stake.
Those of you who have seen the "Opium Wars" on PBS know that these "warriors" do not/will not bargain away their only protection from the retribution they have coming.
The question is not, do we need a standing army, for we certainly do, which also needs it Reserve Components, because we can not bring our selves as a nation to pay for both the "tooth" and the "tail" to support those teeth.
The technologies of modern warfare are employed with real demonstrated acumen by few nation states, most of them in the west and in NATO. Yet that technology does not give us either the national will nor the forces to go into Chechnya, or Kosovo and do what must be done if we are to effect an end to the bloodshed.
Is that a legitimate end for US policy?
Is it a threat to the US security that there is no peace in the Balkans?
Does the continuation of the hide and seek game for Weapons of Mass Destruction with Iraq and extranationals like Osama bin Laden really net the US additional security?
Can we succeed in the international milieu with a policy that seems more reactionary than planned?
Do we understand that the failure to address these problems now will leave us analyzing the tremendous costs of dealing with them later?
Would we, had we had true visionaries leading the US, avoided the horror of WWII had we moved to quash Hitler much earlier?
Would the resolution of the Cold War have been less painful had we turned on the Soviets after finishing up the Germans and Italians?
Or was the Reagan policy spending the Russians into bankruptcy the best course?
Is it better to ignore the plight of the poor who do not directly figure in our national needs in the immediate picture (Kosovo)?
Do we, as the sole superpower in the world, a free democratic state, have a moral obligation to encourage, nuture, protect the spirit that made our forefathers throw off the shackles of colonialism?
Only the American people can answer these questions collectively.
Are we always right to intervene?
Not if my understanding of Vietnam is anywhere near correct.
Is it OK to ignore the plight of the Kurds in Irag, or the victims of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans?
I think not. But what matters is do we have a national leader on the political lanscape who can articulate a cogent policy? Who can sell his course of action to the American electorate and then stay the course in spite of polls fluctuating wildly?
Ladies and Gentlemen, the nature of global politics has changed in detail, but the threats are more diverse and the risks more imminent than ever before.
Vote, advocate, speak for your preference.
Spight and I and our comrades in arms, train and prepare to prosecute the will of the nation. Be sure that what those elected to represent you undertake is what you collectively want.
Let no one kid you, this is not a safer world now that it is not bipolar. This is not the time to stand down the military. If you do that, history says you will have to stand one up again, and it will be under the same dire threats that we had the last disarmament cycle.
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Ni ellegimit carborundum esse!
Yours In Marksmanship
http://www.1bigred.com/distinguished
michael
[This message has been edited by Michael Carlin (edited March 15, 1999).]
Here’s a