Can Counterinsurgency Win?
Can Counterinsurgency Win? – Daniel Pipes, Washington Times opinion
When it comes to a state fighting a nonstate enemy, there is a widespread impression the state is doomed to fail.
In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy concluded that victory in Vietnam was “probably beyond our grasp,” and called for a peaceful settlement. In 1983, the analyst Shahram Chubin wrote that the Soviets in Afghanistan were embroiled in an “unwinnable war.” In 1992, US officials shied away from involvement in Bosnia, fearing entanglement in a centuries-old conflict. In 2002, retired US Gen. Wesley Clark portrayed the American effort in Afghanistan as unwinnable. In 2004, President George W. Bush said of the war on terror, “I don’t think you can win it.” In 2007, the Winograd Commission deemed Israel’s war against Hezbollah unwinnable.
More than any other recent war, the allied forces’ effort in Iraq was seen as a certain defeat, especially in the 2004-06 period. Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, former British minister Tony Benn, and former US special envoy James Dobbins all called it unwinnable. The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report echoed this view. Military analyst David Hackworth, among others, explicitly compared Iraq to Vietnam: “As with Vietnam, the Iraqi tar pit was oh-so-easy to sink into, but appears to be just as tough to exit.”
The list of “unwinnable wars” goes on and includes, for example, the counterinsurgencies in Sri Lanka and Nepal. “Underlying all these analyses,” notes Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli major general, is the assumption “that counterinsurgency campaigns necessarily turn into protracted conflicts that will inevitably lose political support.”
Gen. Amidror, however, disagrees with this assessment. In a recent study published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, “Winning Counterinsurgency War: The Israeli Experience,” he convincingly argues that states can beat nonstate actors.
More at The Washington Times.
