Fighting The Last War II

I learned a new word today:"lawfare." Actually , I'm not sure it is a new word, and it is sufficiently opaque in terms of what it refers to that it may never become a word. But I am informed by an Op-Ed piece in today's WSJ that "the advent of modern media coverage--coupled with a growing and valid concern among democracies about humanitarian norms during warfare--has provided [Al Queda and its confederates with] a new tactical innovation, increasingly known as 'lawfare.' "

Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents thus routinely claim that American forces systematically violate the laws of war by targeting civilians and abusing prisoners. These claims are not targeted at the Iraqi people . . . but at public and, especially, elite opinion in the U.S. and other democracies. With Vietnam as its model, the Iraqi insurgency well understands that it can win only by undermining America's political will to win, and the center of gravity in this conflict lies in Washington, not Baghdad or the Sunni Triangle.

Sound familiar? In a post last Friday, I observed that one of the main differences between this war and WWII is that the "center of gravity" in the conflict -- for both sides -- is the will to win. I also acknowledged that the opposition in this war had a significant advantage over the US in this regard, not because the American public is supine or weak or decadent or unwilling to make sacrifices, but because we are (admirably) an essentially peaceful people.

Like the WSJ article that provided part of the impetus for the previous post, today's WSJ piece appears to imply (without ever really saying it) that the way to respond to this "lawfare" is for Western media and elites to reduce the amount of attention paid to such events as Haditha. (The subhead for the article is "The administration's domestic opponents play into the enemy's hands"). After all, we are apprised,

it is worth noting that abuses and violations of the laws of war have occurred in every armed conflict in human history, regardless of how well-led or disciplined were the troops involved. Indeed, by the standards of past conflicts, U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have behaved in exemplary fashion, using force in combat with unprecedented precision, minimizing collateral damage and civilian deaths--often at risk to themselves and to their mission. In Iraq, this has been the case even though American forces are fighting in the toughest possible urban insurgency environment.

Let's ignore the fact that the authors cite no support for these assertions regarding the restraint America's armed forces have exhibited in these wars. Let's also ignore the fact that there is much in the news that leads one to wonder how "precise" our use of force actually is and how rare things like Abu Grahib and Haditha actually are. I, for one, will take it on faith that 99.9% of our service men and women and the people ordering them into action are behaving exactly as the authors claim.

So what? The fact is that even one such incident is one too many. Yet, as all seem to agree, such incidents are an inevitable consequence of war.

It is here that I diverge from the mainstream. I agree that such incidents probably are an inevitable consequence of putting soldiers into the type of situation our soldiers are in today in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I disagree that the answer to that is for the American (or world) media to downplay such events (as if that were possible) or to shrug it off as just another inevitable consequence of war.

The difficulty is that the armed services are the wrong tool for the job, yet they keep getting used for such jobs because they are the only tool we have. And, when the few f@#* up, as we all agree they inevitably will when they are used for such jobs, it undermines our "will" to continue the fight.

The authors of the WSJ article see this as an issue of tactics:

Ultimately, the Haditha incident must remind American policy makers--and the American people--of the challenges of modern warfare. Although the individual actions of U.S. forces on that day may have been exceptional, the surrounding circumstances are not--and our enemies will look more and more to such irregular tactics.

I, on the other had, see this as an issue of strategy -- perhaps even grand strategy. We are, unquestionably, faced with a new kind of war and we can expect this new kind of war to predominate for the foreseeable future. To rely on an armed force that is built, organized, armed, equipped and trained for fighting a war that differs from WWII only in scale is to doom ourselves to failure in what, in the end, is a war not of materiel, but of will. We need -- must -- begin to think seriously about how to fight this new kind of war; about how to go after the enemy's will to fight while buttressing, or at least not undermining, or own.