Post Combat Operations: Defining Victory Down to Defeat by Frederic Hof - The Atlantic Council
Imagine if, in 1945, the War Department and senior American commanders in Europe and Asia had been permitted to define victory simply as the fall of Berlin and Tokyo, with no post-combat stabilization and reconstruction program for either Germany or Japan. Imagine if, in 2003, the United States had invaded Iraq without a realistic, implementable plan for governance after the fall of Baghdad and Saddam Hussein. Imagine if the West had fought Qaddafi in 2011 without much thought given to what would replace him. In fact, no imagination at all is required for the cases of Iraq and Libya. Both operations were undertaken with no serious regard to what would follow. Both produced disaster.
In the campaign to defeat ISIS (ISIL, Daesh, Islamic State) in Syria, the US Department of Defense and Central Command (CENTCOM) think they have a formula for addressing the “what’s next” question in a way that evades and transfers responsibility entirely. They have defined their mission and that of the American-led, anti-ISIS international coalition, as one of supporting indigenous “partner forces:” in this case a Syrian-Kurdish-dominated militia (the “Syrian Democratic Forces”) top-heavy with Syrian Arab auxiliaries. “Partner forces”—featuring Kurds with close ties to the terrorist PKK—are the ones who have been handed responsibility for what happens on the ground once predominantly Syrian Arab areas are liberated from ISIS. American military aviation and special forces on the ground are only there to “support,” don’t you know.
The theory behind entrusting post-ISIS stabilization to a Kurdish-led militia, one trained and equipped by the United States, is that indigenous forces are much better suited for the task than foreigners. As former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter noted in a recent Washington Post op-ed, “History has shown this task is difficult for outsiders to accomplish.” Indeed, Douglas MacArthur and Lucius Clay would not have minimized the difficulties. Yet even they upheld the central post-combat principle of military civil affairs by drawing to the maximum on indigenous elements for policing, schooling, utilities, public sanitation, and the like. What, one might ask, does any of this have to do with autonomy-seeking Kurds operating militarily in Arab towns and cities? …