Small Wars Journal

The “No Boots on the Ground” Mantra is Strategic Foolishness

Wed, 09/17/2014 - 8:13am

The “No Boots on the Ground” Mantra is Strategic Foolishness by Richard L. Russell, War on the Rocks

President Barack Obama is fond of publicly declaring that there will be “no boots on the ground” when commenting on the Syria, Iraq, and Islamic State crises. Key national security lieutenants in his administration have loyally followed suit. Vice President Joe Biden has opined that the Islamic State, “can be routed by local forces without U.S. boots on the ground.” And Secretary of State John Kerry remarked at the NATO summit in Wales in regard to Iraq that “I think that’s a red line for everybody here: no boots on the ground.”

One would have thought that given the administration’s strategic blunder in not enforcing its “red line” over the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons, officials would be gun-shy about publicly using the term. Hold aside too, for the moment, the difficulty in reconciling the incremental dispatch of special operations forces to shore up Iraq’s rump Shia state with the administration’s “no boots on the ground” mantra…

Read on.