[Marxism] Army War College publishes critique of Iraq war, 'war on terrorism'

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Army War College has published a document by Dr. Jeffrey Record, a
former aide to conservative Democratic Senators Lloyd Bentsen and Sam
Nunn, which extensively criticizes the war on Iraq and the overall
"war on terrorism."

The document was submitted to the Seattle peace network Snow-news list
by Professor Mark Jensen.  He wrote the introductory comments in
brackets below.
Fred Feldman

[A remakable new study has been published by the Army War College, the
Army's premier academic institution.  The 56-page monograph says that
the conflation of al Qaeda and Iraq into a "monolithic threat" is a
"strategic error of the first order," violating "the fundamental
strategic principles of discrimination and concentration."

[The study calls the Iraq war "an unnecessary war of choice" that was
"not integral to the global war on terror, but rather a detour from
it."  It asserts that "most of the global war on terror's declared
objectives" are "unrealistic and condemn the United States to a
hopeless quest for absolute security" -- in fact, it says that "it may
be misleading to cast the global war on terror as a war"; the war on
terror is said to be "mired in a semantic swamp."  Terrorism is "not a
proper noun," it is a "method of violence"; thus terrorism cannot be a
wartime "enemy."

[In any case, the war on terror's goals are said to be "politically,
fiscally, and militarily unsustainable."  The essay quotes the
president extensively on the nature of the so-called "war on terror,"
refutes his arguments in some detail, and accuses him of a misguided
"insistence on moral clarity," also noting that he has used the 9/11
attacks as a "political opportunity."

[Entitled "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism," it calls for a
thorough recasting of US national security objectives and aims in the
international arena."

[The study was written by Dr. Jeffrey Record, a visiting research
fellow at the Air War College in Alabama who has worked in the past as
legislative assistant to Senators Lloyd Bentsen and Sam Nunn.  He is
the author of six books on military history and national security
policy.  The essay, which is available online, is the subject of
articles in both the Washington Post (reproduced below, together with
a comment by Steven Aftergood) and the Los Angeles Times.  It
certainly deserves to be read in full.
 --Mark]

1.

STUDY PUBLISHED BY ARMY CRITICIZES WAR ON TERROR'S SCOPE By Thomas E.
Ricks

Washington Post January 12, 2004

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8435-2004Jan11.html

A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly
criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism,
accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and
pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to
U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat.

The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War
College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result
of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point."

It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the
"global war on terrorism" and instead focusing on the narrower threat
posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network.

"[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is
dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly . . . its
parameters should be readjusted," Record writes.  Currently, he adds,
the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more
than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military
resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security."

Record, a veteran defense specialist and author of six books on
military strategy and related issues, was an aide to then-Sen. Sam
Nunn when the Georgia Democrat was chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee.

In discussing his political background, Record also noted that in 1999
while on the staff of the Air War College, he published work critical
of the Clinton administration.

His essay, published by the Army War College's Strategic Studies
Institute, carries the standard disclaimer that its views are those of
the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Army, the
Pentagon or the U.S. government.

But retired Army Col. Douglas C. Lovelace Jr., director of the
Strategic Studies Institute, whose Web site carries Record's 56-page
monograph, hardly distanced himself from it.  "I think that the
substance that Jeff brings out in the article really, really needs to
be considered," he said.

Publication of the essay was approved by the Army War College's
commandant, Maj. Gen. David H. Huntoon Jr., Lovelace said.  He said he
and Huntoon expected the study to be controversial, but added, "He
considers it to be under the umbrella of academic freedom."

Larry DiRita, the top Pentagon spokesman, said he had not read the
Record study.  He added:  "If the conclusion is that we need to be
scaling back in the global war on terrorism, it's not likely to be on
my reading list anytime soon."

Many of Record's arguments, such as the contention that Saddam
Hussein's Iraq was deterred and did not present a threat, have been
made by critics of the administration. Iraq, he concludes, "was a
war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against al Qaeda."
But it is unusual to have such views published by the War College, the
Army's premier academic institution.

In addition, the essay goes further than many critics in examining the
Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism.

Record's core criticism is that the administration is biting off more
than it can chew.  He likens the scale of U.S. ambitions in the war on
terrorism to Adolf Hitler's overreach in World War II.  "A cardinal
rule of strategy is to keep your enemies to a manageable number," he
writes. "The Germans were defeated in two world wars . . . because
their strategic ends outran their available means."

He also scoffs at the administration's policy, laid out by Bush in a
November speech, of seeking to transform and democratize the Middle
East.  "The potential policy payoff of a democratic and prosperous
Middle East, if there is one, almost certainly lies in the very
distant future," he writes.  "The basis on which this democratic
domino theory rests has never been explicated."

He also casts doubt on whether the U.S. government will maintain its
commitment to the war.  "The political, fiscal, and military
sustainability of the GWOT [global war on terrorism] remains to be
seen," he states.

The essay concludes with several recommendations.  Some are fairly
noncontroversial, such as increasing the size of the Army and Marine
Corps, a position that appears to be gathering support in Congress.
But he also says the United States should scale back its ambitions in
Iraq, and be prepared to settle for a "friendly autocracy" there
rather than a genuine democracy.

--To read the full report, go to washingtonpost.com/nation

2.

ARMY STUDY CRITIQUES WAR ON TERRORISM By Steven Aftergood

Secrecy News January 12, 2004

http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.html

In its "global war on terrorism," the Bush Administration has
mistakenly conflated several distinct types of national security
threats into a single monolithic threat, according to a new study
published by the U.S. Army, and "in so doing ... may have set the
United States on a course of open-ended and gratuitous conflict with
states and nonstate entities that pose no serious threat to the United
States."

"Of particular concern has been the conflation of al-Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein's Iraq as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat.  This
was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical
differences between the two in character, threat level, and
susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action."

"The war against Iraq was not integral to the [war on terrorism], but
rather a detour from it," the Army study concludes.

The study was reported today in the Washington Post and the Los
Angeles Times.

See "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism" by Jeffrey Record,
originally published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S.
Army War College, December 2003:

http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/record.pdf




--
Mark K. Jensen Associate Professor of French Chair, Department of
Languages and Literatures Pacific Lutheran University Tacoma, WA
98447-0003 Phone: 253-535-7219 Webpage: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/
E-mail: jensenmk@xxxxxxx

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