Small Wars vs Big Wars
Erin Simpson, at Abu Muqawama, has more on Tom Ricks’s WaPo piece.
… I think we’ve systematically underestimated the impact of our flat-footedness in confronting a variety of irregular threats. This goes back at least to the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and runs through Mogadishu, Nairobi, the USS Cole, to the Trade Towers. MajGen Taylor is concerned that we might not be able to deter nations states in the future. I think we should be concerned that we have already demonstrated inability to deter non-state actors. In fact, we have provided the opposite: a clear and compelling invitation to attack us in an irregular manner. And perhaps when these efforts focused on mere embassies and barracks, you could say that these were tragic, but isolated attacks that could be dealt with locally or tactically (ie, force protection, local counter-terrorism, etc.).
But we now know that’s utter folly. These aren’t Lilliuputian pin-pricks. We now know that our stumbling in Lebanon and clumsiness in Somalia provided very clear lessons learned to al Qaeda and their fellow travelers… Our ham-fistedness not only failed to deter our enemies, but provided them with a clear strategy for confronting us. Today we are experiencing the long-term, strategic effects of our myopia.
Like the general, I am unsure of the nature of all our future threats. And like the general, I worry that focusing on COIN could leave us somewhat more vulnerable to conventional attack. I just wish the general would worry more about the impact of our already demonstrated vulnerability to irregular assaults.
