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Revolution in Military Affairs: the reason we're in Afghanistan
An intellectual’s theory of warfare means the US is using its military supremacy while it lasts to crush its enemies
With British soldiers dying almost every day in Helmand province, and military funeral corteges in rural English towns becoming a familiar sight, the mounting death toll has renewed the debate over Britain's involvement in a chaotic conflict with no clear objectives and no coherent strategy for achieving them.
While the military calls for more helicopters, and pro-war media pundits talk bullishly of staying the course regardless of whether the course leads anywhere, it is worth asking how we found ourselves in this situation.
Those looking for answers would do well to consider an 89-year-old American defence intellectual called Andrew Marshall. The director of a little-known Pentagon thinktank called the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), Marshall is one of the most influential advocates of the doctrine of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), which has done so much to underpin the Anglo-American wars of recent years.
The RMA refers to a recurring historical cycle, in which certain countries or groups of countries achieve a level of military supremacy in terms of technology and organisation that makes them unbeatable - until their rivals catch up or overtake them.
The US must use this window of opportunity to eliminate its rivals
Examples of this tendency include the Greek city states, the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan and the early French armies of the Napoleonic era. In the wake of the Cold War, Marshall argued that the United States was similarly unchallengeable.
Marshall's acolytes, who included Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and the neocon militarists of the Project for the New American Century, argued that the US should use this temporary window of opportunity to eliminate or neutralise its potential rivals.
The fearsome demonstrations of firepower in the first Gulf War and Kosovo reinforced the belief that American-led wars could be won at very little cost. Unlike Vietnam, removing Iraqi troops from Kuwait cost very few coalition casualties, while the Nato bombardment of Serbia was achieved without any loss of life on its own side.
On the one hand these successes make war an increasingly attractive first instrument of foreign policy rather than a last resort. At the same time the RMA made war more palatable to the public, since the technological expertise of these wars made them relatively painless for the other side as well as ours.
Tight control over media coverage of these wars, coupled with propaganda talk of surgical strikes, smart bombs and 'humanitarian' warfare forged the illusion that war could be relatively bloodless and painless.
Last but not least, the RMA was presented as the instrument of a progressive moral agenda, in which Western armies fought not to advance strategic or economic interests, but to defend women's rights, prevent genocide, export democracy, or bring development.
Such rhetoric enabled both the US and British governments to overcome the anti-militarist sentiments of their populations, especially after the September 11 attacks. In this way the RMA became part of the 'imperial hubris' that drove the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
At first, these wars seemed to bear out the RMA thesis, as high-tech Western weaponry swatted the Taliban and crushed Saddam Hussein's broken army. But the bloody occupations that followed have unravelled this sense of omnipotence.
In Iraq, the Anglo-American invasion was brought to the brink of strategic defeat by a brutal guerrilla war that it had not anticipated. A similar process is unfolding in Afghanistan. These 'new' wars of the RMA have given way to the older doctrines of counterinsurgency, even as the body count continues to demonstrate that war is not bloodless or cost-free.
This did not matter, as long as the natives were the ones who were dying, uncounted and offstage. But now British soldiers are being killed and the public wants to know why.
They will not get straight answers from the clueless and dishonest Brown government, which insists that British troops are preventing Afghanistan from becoming a launchpad for terrorist attacks in Britain.
But the truth is we are there because we chose to hitch our fortunes to an arrogant and deluded superpower intoxicated by its unlimited military power. And with every coffin that comes home from Afghanistan, the wisdom of riding shotgun on the RMA becomes more questionable. ·
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The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
Gordon Clown has unveiled his latest version of the "vital mission". Apparently we are now there because those dashed fuzzy-wuzzies insist on *fighting back*. "Three-quarters of the terror plots aimed at the UK are hatched in Afghanistan" reveals our wily leader! But it's funny - no *other* European countries - like Germany, or France, or Portugal - seem plagued with these (alleged) plots? If they exist at all outside yon Gordy's fertile imagination, they exist uniquely AGAINST THE COUNTRY THAT ATTACKED AFGHANISTAN IN THE FIRST PLACE!?
Och aye, Gordy - if ainly thaise Afghanis wud jes lie dain and dee in front of oor troops wi'out ha'ing the feckin' audacity to answer ye back, eh??
So, it's official. We're there until the Afghans stop fighting back. Or for forty years. Or whenver our troops are all dead. Or whenever we manage to get rid of you forever, you idiotic jocko madman.
Prakash Karra: your grasp of history is nebulous. You compare Nazi Germany with the Taleban???? Have the Taleban invaded half a dozen neighbouring countries, occupied them and used them for raw materials? Have they bombed Britain from the air? Anywhere? Barry Larking: I assume you're American since you say the Taleban attacked you first, as usual conflating Taleban with AlQaida, usual for your countrymen. Are you forgetting that it was the US CIA which armed and funded the tribals who became the Taleban when you thought it a good idea to encourage them to fight the Russians who were helping the socialist government which had done many good things including universal scholling, even for girls? You created the monster that is now the Taleban, and now, learning nothing from Russia's defeat, you still think you can 'win'. You will eventually be sent scuttling like you were by the simple, uncivilised and outgunned Vietnamese. The reason is that no guerilla war against fighters defending their own country will ever win. You could nuke the whole area of course, but short of that, you merely have a training ground for your army, much the same reason why the British army is there, having lost Northern Ireland as a practise area to train [battle harden] troops. You regret the deaths of hired killers [US and other soldiers] while failing to even acknowledge the Afghan deaths, including the several wedding parties your gung ho cowards who bomb from the air wiped out as an oversight. You think Afghans welcome you there? Don't be ridiculous. Even those who hated the Taleban when in power now hate you. And in case you think of claiming it's all about stopping the drugs; the Taleban stopped virtually ALL heroin production while in power. Poppy growing resumed as soon as you displaced them. Get some education.
Another of the increasingly common anti-American articles from the British press. Interestingly, you could pretty much take the last paragraph in this article, and have used it some 50+ years ago to try to tell Americans why their boys were over in Europe, fighting and dying in truly great numbers, in support of another arrogant and deluded, but by then a very former, superpower intoxicated by dreams of its imagined military power, which got itself into another war that it could not get itself out of. Oh wait, the U.S. got itself hauled over to Europe almost 30 years prior to that, in support of that same deluded, faded former "superpower" which got itself into a war that it couldn't get itself out of. As an aside, in each of those cases, one can simply recall France as a very puffed-up, albeit pretty much hopeless, yet totally self-imagined superpower. How soon they all forget!
This is perhaps the frankest piece of defeatism I have read so far. The picture of NATO operations could have been written simply by reading the pro-Taleban statements of the StW campaign, without leaving London.
They attacked us and first. Afghanistan features widely on the c.v.'s of convicted terrorists. The former training camps are linked with the key outrages practiced upon western countries, and, ever more widely, Kenya, Tanzania, Indoneasia and India. This not simply about the U.S.A., U.K. or NATO.
A leading part of the doctrine of the Taleban and other affliates in the long war against the west (i.e. modernity) is to use western 'indolence' and apathy as a weapon against it, 'fulfilling' Islamist prophecy along the way. This article demonstrates that faith is not misplaced.
As much as one is humbled by the deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan, the U.K.'s losses (helpfully up-dated by the B.B.C. the better to advance the Corporation's war aims) are equivalent to the deaths caused by the Madrid train bombers in a single morning.
Similar comments to these were made about Iraq, a country now ruled by an elected government established in the teeth of 'Islamist' threats, supported by western sympathisers, who have now turned their attention span such as it is, to Afghanistan. They are either ignorant of or indifferent to the country's long complex religious and cultural story, accepting unchallendged the 'Islamist' narrative.
I am in sympathy with those who argue that talks with "Taleban" leaders should take place; but they will listen better if they see they are beaten. Meanwhile Afghan progressives must sit and watch their fair weather counterparts in the west preparing to ditch them for a quiet life.
Yup! that's about it. The trouble is that we are now involved and the Taliban will take back all the land we have conquered because that bit hasn't been thought through yet.
PS the Graeco/Roman Empire in the East lasted from about 500 b.c. to 1450 a.d. - not a bad effort really.
Why should not the English language Empire last just as long?
It looks like the Indians want to get the whole community of nations involved in this battle, but sir, there are many sensible people around the world who think and use their brains to solve matters ...and they know this war is not fought for the sake to eliminate terror ..it is for energy and oil. Fighting wars on false pretext is not right . And yes , i do agree with the author that british troops must know the real reason as to why they are there fighting and being killed or killing in the first place....then let the british people decide if they want to stay and fight on or let the people of iraq and afganistan live in peace also. We all know that wars and killings cannot acomplish peace. never did never will.
Prakash Karra at 1:35pm on July 27, 2009
I could not agree with you more,the truth of situations is often out of the imagination or reality of simple pundits.
It is rather to difficult to agree with the author, who seems to forget the killings and attacks of Taliban & Alqaida in other countries too,( It is a recent phenomenon in US and Europe,hence the reaction from the western world) We in India have suffered for more than two decades from the proxy war waged by these mindless fanatics in the name of Islam, and still the battle is far from over. You must be rather immune or chose to ignore the carnage perpetrated in places like Indonesia(recent example) and other parts of Europe too.
Any war is brutal and horrible, but by the same token,how can you ever forget the innocent lives and families smashed because of their violence.. We in India cannot forget their bombings, and killings recently in Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad and so on ..
Sorry, Sir, I cannot agree with your arguments,and line of reasoning, but I guess it has to be an international effort,&other countries too have to join the fight,-- like
what Allies in second world war fought against the Nazi genocide, and the UN must have the courage to take a lead in this battle..
I also agree with the author. If USA wants to demonstrate its power and crush the Taliban and its Afghan and Pakistan supporters it should withdraw its troops and cleanse the border hideouts with neutron bombs. UK should also withdraw and fight the Taliban in the streets of UK ( if they can find their way here through stronger militarised border controls) and kill on English streets where their efforts and losses can be counted and not obscured.
Between "Mission Accomplished" and the plastic turkey in the Baghdad Green Zone, the New Amerikan Century was full of testosterone and claiming that they could fight & win multiple wars, prevent other nations using near earth orbit (without permission) even for communication satellites, let alone travelling to the moon.
Nemesis follows Hubris.
Funeral corteges take place not only in England but in all the countries of the UNITED KINGDOM including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
I think this story underlines very well the scope of the original "deal" Phoney Blair struck with Bush after 9/11. Whilst there was no mass protest to stop the invasion of Afghanistan to chase down Bin Laden (as that exercise was originally advertised) millions pleaded with Phoney not to invade Iraq which had no such justification. So the man known as 'the poodle' had to fabricate evidence to continue his master's mission pledged behind our backs earlier. The nation elected a jackall as it's PM and he's still laughing at us now. One hopes he will be brought to trial eventually - probably as a healthy 85 year old - by the Hague.
Considering Rumsfeld is not the president of America his name keeps cropping up. Wonder exactly what his motives are for wanting war after war. Our lads are gun fodder I support them 100% but enough is enough.They should blilz Afghanistan
& have done with it. These people do not care about how many soldiers or civillians die. They are heartless thugs
Agree totally with the author. To his last 2 paragraphs I would add that the justification of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars have been put forward by both U.S. & U.K. governments by spurious facts (WMD in Iraq) and conflicting misinformation (i.e. who are the 'enemy', and who are the 'good ' guys ?) in Afghanistan. As with Vietnam, there will be no winners or losers with only a lot of dead combatants to show for the idiocy of warfare.