U.S. Military: Too Much Tactics, Too Little Strategy
U.S. Military: Too Much Tactics, Too Little Strategy by Robert Cassidy - The Globalist
The United States and its allies have been fighting terrorists and insurgents for almost 16 years. It has some of the best-equipped, most-seasoned, and best-led forces in its history of fighting wars.
Those forces have won a number of battles, conducted a host of strikes, and captured or killed many terrorists, including Osama bin Laden.
Yet, there are more murderous Islamist groups around the globe today than there were on 11 September 2001, and there is a strategic stalemate in Afghanistan. Efforts to defeat Islamist terrorists around the globe remain incomplete and fleeting.
The ends of these wars against Islamist militant groups are not in view. Worse, it is not certain that these wars will end well at all.
A key aspect of this lies in the axiom that the purpose of war is to serve a political end, but the nature of war is to serve itself. War serves itself when it is unguided or unconstrained by reason and policy, or if the political end is not viable within the means that states are willing to commit based on the perceived value of attaining that end.
Tactical and operational kill-and-capture actions do indeed disrupt insurgent and terrorist networks, but the gains are impermanent, particularly if those networks retain external support and sanctuary.
Beyond the absence of a viable long-term strategy, other factors contribute to what seems to be a state of ground hog war. There are the myriad murderous Islamist zealots who are animated by an apocalyptic and interpretive Salafi-Wahhabi-Jihadist creed…