Washington Rules_ America's Path to Permanent War - Andrew J. Bacevich [83]
Trafficking in the standard array of postmodernist tropes—irony, paradox, bricolage, and sly self-referential jokes—Petraeus’s manual was all about subverting conventions. Yet where it pretended to speak most authoritatively, it managed to say next to nothing. There was lots of foam, but not much beer.
Consider the “Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency” that formed the centerpiece of FM 3-24’s first chapter.15
“Sometimes,” the manual counseled, “the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be.” At other times, by implication, the reverse could well be true. Similarly, “Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is,” a precept suggesting that on occasion, more force might do the trick. Further, “[s]ometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.” So less could be more, more could be less, and nothing could be most of all—sometimes.
“Tactical success,” the manual opines, “guarantees nothing”—as if discovering a genuine pearl of wisdom. Yet it never has: Consider what German tactical prowess achieved in two world wars. Or consider the performance of Israeli forces in any number of conflicts with the Arabs.
“If a tactic works this week, it might not work next week; if it works in this province, it might not work in the next”—a truism applicable to any war, small or large, conventional or unconventional.
“Some of the best weapons for counterinsurgents do not shoot”—a contention that applies equally to weapons generally. It was, after all, precisely this argument that Curtis LeMay employed in the 1950s: Give me more bombs and more bombers for SAC and I’ll keep the peace.
Finally, there was this: “Many important decisions are not made by generals.” When was this ever not obviously the case, except perhaps in the eyes of generals and their groupies?
Yet implicit in the “Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency” and in FM 3-24 generally was this subversive proposition: As an autonomous instrument of statecraft, armed force had lost its viability. Bluntly, war as such—war as traditionally defined by the officer corps itself—no longer worked.
Since time immemorial, the purpose of armies has been to fight battles, thereby enabling nations to win wars. Through battle an army imposes its will on the enemy, thereby restoring peace. Inherent in this assertion are two further claims: that war (if undertaken to restore peace) can be morally justifiable, and that warriors (uniquely charged with responsibility for waging war) occupy a special niche in society. These two claims also provide the essential rationale for creating a distinctive military profession. Society accords physicians an exalted status in deference to their presumably unique ability to diagnose and heal. Political leaders and society in general accord members of the officer corps respect and singular responsibilities based on the assumption that only within its ranks is found the expertise needed to win battles.
Petraeus’s manual tacitly rendered each of these propositions null and void. FM 3-24 expanded and blurred the definition of warfare, describing it not as a contest between opposing armed forces, but as a “violent clash of interests between organized groups.” In modern war, the army’s primary purpose was no longer to fight. The manual’s detailed and lengthy index contained not a single entry for “battle” or “battlefield” and made only passing reference to “combat.”
In 1997, Petraeus had written an article subtitled “Never Send a Man When You Can Send a Bullet.”16 He now took precisely the opposite view. Indeed, his manual warned pointedly against the mistake of “overemphasizing killing and capturing the enemy.” Rather than vainly attempting to destroy an adversary, counterinsurgent forces should concentrate instead on “securing and engaging