"Over the long term, the United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory."

[Occam Bandage]

What is dubbed the war on terror is, in grim reality, a prolonged, worldwide irregular campaign -- a struggle between the forces of violent extremism and those of moderation. Direct military force will continue to play a role in the long-term effort against terrorists and other extremists. But over the long term, the United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory. Where possible, what the military calls kinetic operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance, economic programs that spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented, from whom the terrorists recruit. It will take the patient accumulation of quiet successes over a long time to discredit and defeat extremist movements and their ideologies.

The United States is unlikely to repeat another Iraq or Afghanistan -- that is, forced regime change followed by nation building under fire -- anytime soon. But that does not mean it may not face similar challenges in a variety of locales. Where possible, U.S. strategy is to employ indirect approaches -- primarily through building the capacity of partner governments and their security forces -- to prevent festering problems from turning into crises that require costly and controversial direct military intervention. In this kind of effort, the capabilities of the United States' allies and partners may be as important as its own, and building their capacity is arguably as important as, if not more so than, the fighting the United States does itself.

The recent past vividly demonstrated the consequences of failing to address adequately the dangers posed by insurgencies and failing states. Terrorist networks can find sanctuary within the borders of a weak nation and strength within the chaos of social breakdown. A nuclear-armed state could collapse into chaos and criminality. The most likely catastrophic threats to the U.S. homeland -- for example, that of a U.S. city being poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack -- are more likely to emanate from failing states than from aggressor states...

...Yet even with a better-funded State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, future military commanders will not be able to rid themselves of the tasks of maintaining security and stability. To truly achieve victory as Clausewitz defined it -- to attain a political objective -- the United States needs a military whose ability to kick down the door is matched by its ability to clean up the mess and even rebuild the house afterward...


http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20090101faessay88103-p0/robert-m-gates/a-balanced-strategy.html

Who is this, who thinks that we should be "addressing the discontented" instead of bombing them, who thinks that allies are necessary, who thinks that the threat from "aggressors" like Iran is overblown, and who thinks that in order to achieve stability, we need to rebuild the homes we destroyed?

Why, the current and future Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates.

[Idealism]

1. Everybody knows Gates is a Commie

(insert sarcasm emote here)

[cliffordu]

2. Great!! I loves me some commies, I surely do.

[bigtree]

3. talk is cheap

"To fail -- or to be seen to fail -- in either Iraq or Afghanistan would be a disastrous blow to U.S. credibility, both among friends and allies and among potential adversaries," Gates writes.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=41571&dcn=todaysnews


"Afghanistan and Iraq are the most important battlefields in the fight today, Gates said, and his priority has been “getting us to a point where our strategic objectives are within reach in those two countries . . . America’s best opportunity to discredit and deflate the extremist ideology is in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gates said.

“Just as the hollowness of communism was laid bare by the collapse of the Soviet Union, so too would success in those countries strike a decisive blow against the ideological underpinnings of extremist movements,” Gates argued.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49962


Bush Holdover Robert Gates: A Kinder, Gentler Shock and Awe
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Bush-Holdover-Robert-Gates-by-Ron-Fullwood-081207-843.html
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree/1295

[Occam Bandage]

4. True. And think of all the awful things he's done as SecDef.

Demanded investigations and full accountability for Walter Reed and the Pat Tillman coverup, pushed for a Guantanamo close, prevented Dick Cheney from launching his war with Iran...why, the list of crimes doesn't end!

Oh, and his focus on securing peace and rebuilding the economy and social services instead of antagonizing militias and bombing indiscriminately in Iraq? That's been a complete failure. I mean, Iraq is much more violent and chaotic now than it was before Gates.

[bigtree]

6. mere tinkering

Gates is still committed to pursuing his ideological crusade behind the sacrifices of our nation's defenders. Gates, in May of this year cast the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as the same kind of 'ideological' battle that Bush has promoted in defense of his unbridled military aggression across sovereign borders.

Who wasn't calling for Walter Reed reforms after the disclosures?

What does Gitmo's closure have to do with reforming the rendition and detention policies he's overseen? How does transferring these prisoners to other prisons actually resolve the indefinite detentions without trial or charges? What about the other prisons around the world where U.S. captives are being held? Easy to mouth the consensus that it should be closed. Harder to propose anything near the justice those prisoners deserve.

Gate wasn't alone in standing against military action with Iran. Knee-deep in two occupations had something to do with that. Again, he's lagging the consensus and not leading the opposition.

Gates is a phony who is cleverly working to perpetuate the spoils of Bush's militarism while presenting chair shuffling and inevitable economic cutbacks as some sort of progressive reform.

Too bad for you that you've bought into his rhetoric.

[Occam Bandage]

7. So, even though he's saying and doing all the right things,

the problem is that he's secretly pursuing an "ideological crusade" behind the scenes, and is cleverly making that look like he's a reasonable pragmatist by talking and acting like a reasonable pragmatist, to the point where he has fooled not only most political observers and most members of the Pentagon, but President-elect Obama and his advisory team as well. In fact, he's done such a good job of hiding his secret true nature, the only people who can tell he's a neocon in disguise are the members of the left-wing blogosphere who complain that everyone from Hillary Clinton to Pat Leahy are neocons in disguise.

And hey, even though he just wrote a sterling seven-page article declaring his intended direction for America--and even though that is entirely in line with most everything he's ever said or done--he once claimed conflicting ideologies were involved in the war in Iraq. Which, you know, is entirely true (the only way peace can be achieved is by convincing people that peace is a better ideology than blowing shit up for no good reason) but he probably meant it in the neocon "America must spread its influence by force" sort of way. Because, you know...well, because.

[bigtree]

8. He just engineered the political 'surge' in Iraq which cost over 800 U.S. lives

He delayed the drawdown recommended by the generals in the field. He just advocated a choice between refurbishing our nukes to make them more usable and building new ones. He's actively engineering our military to more effectively prosecute the nation-building type of warfare we've been saddled with in Iraq.

Gates is trying to manage the coming wave of inevitable reforms from Bush's strident militarism (which he was an active and enthusiastic supporter, defender, promoter, and practitioner of) by presenting his version of these inevitable reforms under a Democratic administration as sufficient and prudent.

It will serve his efforts to perpetuate the constructs of the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan while presenting all of the shuffling as some sort of deescalation. He's not 'secretly' pursuing his agenda. He's doing it right in front of you and, apparently, you're willing to accept his rhetoric as some significant reduction in the level of militarism promoted by the Pentagon.

What have we gained if troops defending Baghdad are merely shifted to the defense of Kabul? His rhetoric and shell-shuffling is an attempt to assert that our goals are correct, but our methods are flawed. Let's just pretend like the entire assault on Iraq was and is some necessary defense of our national security. Let's pretend that installing and maintaining a corrupt regime in Kabul is some sort of representation of the democracy he's blathering about.

Do you believe Kabul and Baghdad are the 'center' of a 'terror war?' If so, Gates is truly your man.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. But, we will go broke trying. Like sending 20,000 more "peacekeepers" to Afghanistan.

Sounds like an apologia for Neo-Liberalism to me.