Reports from the front
Max Boot of the LA Times gives us one of the few realistic, balanced assessments of the situation in Iraq you're likely to find.
The situation is not nearly as bad as the Democrats and their media allies would like us to believe. Nor is it nearly as good as some of the war's supporters think it is. The violence is largely confined to only four of Iraq's 18 provinces- but in those four, anarchy is the order of the day.
And Baghdad, the nation's capital, is one of the places where anarchy rules. As Boot points out, the Iraqi blogosphere - The Mesopotamian and Iraq the Model are cases in point- warn of a situation in Baghdad which is deteriorating on a daily basis.
I've supported this war from the beginning, and I still do. But it's long since become clear that serious mistakes have been made in its management. Not the least of these was the failure of the Bush Administration and specifically the Rumsfeld DOD to heed the advice of Colin Powell and many serving senior officers that the task of pacifying Iraq and giving its fledgling democracy a fighting chance would require a much larger commitment of troops than we have been either able or willing to send.
Can the situation be kept from getting completely out of hand while Iraqi security forces are trained in large enough numbers to pacify Baghdad and the other areas in Iraq where chaos holds sway? Literally everything hangs on that question.
In a larger sense, it's time for the United States to face an unpleasant truth. Far from being less dangerous, the post-Cold War world is a far more dangerous place than it was before. Far from being able to relax into comfortable a state of diplomatic and military lethargy, in the post-9/11 world we still have to worry about a great strategic opponent- China- as well as regional threats like North Korea and Iran. And that's just for starters. In addition, we have to be prepared to give whatever decisive military response may be required to the likes of al Quaeda!
Our present military model, relying as it does on volunteer armed forces and heavily dependent on National Guard troops which may be needed for domestic purposes, has stretched our ability to project power past the point of viability. Questions about our capacity to address the antics of Iran and North Korea while we are still engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even on our own southern border are not idle ones.
We are going to have to either bring back the draft, or do something far preferable which would be almost impossible, economically: make service in the military such an attractive proposition that sufficient numbers of recruits would be brought into the ranks by the laws of the marketplace. There are few proposals less calculated to be acceptable anywhere along the political spectrum than reinstituting the draft. Conservatives in particular- who are, not without reason, up in arms over the current budget deficit- would not be likely to look with favor upon the kind of spending which would be required to turn the volunteer military into a viable proposition. And I somehow have a difficult time seeing the Left being willing to go along, either.
But the only third alternative- a retreat into Pat Buchanan/hard Right isolationism, tending our own garden and letting the world shift for itself- isn't a realistic option, and never has been.
In fact, we found out just how unrealistic it is on 9/11. Add to that lesson the consequences of the emergence of petty nuclear tyrannies all over the globe for the global economy in which we have no choice but to play a major role, and for a world in which China is all too willing to take our place as the predominant power, and the picture becomes depressingly clear.
The shadow of an involuntary trip to Vietnam hung over my high school and college years, and that of my entire generation, like a dark and bloody cloud. Advocating a return to those days is not something I would do lightly, even if I did so with a 55 year-old's curmudgeonly hunch there would be worse things for today's young people than having to reckon with the quaint notion that they have obligations to something larger than themselves.
I am acutely aware, in any case, that it is very unlikely that men in their late fifties would be liable to any renewed draft. This is, after all, an option which I can toss around with few personal consequences
Far better to drastically overhaul the pay and benefit structures of the military so that young men in large numbers would come to look upon it as a realistic career, rather than as an employer of (utterly) last resort. There is an additional reason to consider this course: it is a national disgrace that the families of those who put their lives on the line to defend our country should be forced, in many cases, to live on welfare. Whatever the economic cost of using the carrot rather than the stick to build a military adequate to the demands of our time, the moral cost of not doing so is far higher.
And the unpleasant facts of the world we live in these days leave us with few options. Our role as the sole remaining superpower is simply not one we can give up without catastrophic consequences, not least to our own most vital interests. Nor is it one we are likely to be able to fulfill without either making the military something people will be attracted to in far higher numbers than they are today- far higher numbers- or re-instituting the draft.
HT: Real Clear Politics
The situation is not nearly as bad as the Democrats and their media allies would like us to believe. Nor is it nearly as good as some of the war's supporters think it is. The violence is largely confined to only four of Iraq's 18 provinces- but in those four, anarchy is the order of the day.
And Baghdad, the nation's capital, is one of the places where anarchy rules. As Boot points out, the Iraqi blogosphere - The Mesopotamian and Iraq the Model are cases in point- warn of a situation in Baghdad which is deteriorating on a daily basis.
I've supported this war from the beginning, and I still do. But it's long since become clear that serious mistakes have been made in its management. Not the least of these was the failure of the Bush Administration and specifically the Rumsfeld DOD to heed the advice of Colin Powell and many serving senior officers that the task of pacifying Iraq and giving its fledgling democracy a fighting chance would require a much larger commitment of troops than we have been either able or willing to send.
Can the situation be kept from getting completely out of hand while Iraqi security forces are trained in large enough numbers to pacify Baghdad and the other areas in Iraq where chaos holds sway? Literally everything hangs on that question.
In a larger sense, it's time for the United States to face an unpleasant truth. Far from being less dangerous, the post-Cold War world is a far more dangerous place than it was before. Far from being able to relax into comfortable a state of diplomatic and military lethargy, in the post-9/11 world we still have to worry about a great strategic opponent- China- as well as regional threats like North Korea and Iran. And that's just for starters. In addition, we have to be prepared to give whatever decisive military response may be required to the likes of al Quaeda!
Our present military model, relying as it does on volunteer armed forces and heavily dependent on National Guard troops which may be needed for domestic purposes, has stretched our ability to project power past the point of viability. Questions about our capacity to address the antics of Iran and North Korea while we are still engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even on our own southern border are not idle ones.
We are going to have to either bring back the draft, or do something far preferable which would be almost impossible, economically: make service in the military such an attractive proposition that sufficient numbers of recruits would be brought into the ranks by the laws of the marketplace. There are few proposals less calculated to be acceptable anywhere along the political spectrum than reinstituting the draft. Conservatives in particular- who are, not without reason, up in arms over the current budget deficit- would not be likely to look with favor upon the kind of spending which would be required to turn the volunteer military into a viable proposition. And I somehow have a difficult time seeing the Left being willing to go along, either.
But the only third alternative- a retreat into Pat Buchanan/hard Right isolationism, tending our own garden and letting the world shift for itself- isn't a realistic option, and never has been.
In fact, we found out just how unrealistic it is on 9/11. Add to that lesson the consequences of the emergence of petty nuclear tyrannies all over the globe for the global economy in which we have no choice but to play a major role, and for a world in which China is all too willing to take our place as the predominant power, and the picture becomes depressingly clear.
The shadow of an involuntary trip to Vietnam hung over my high school and college years, and that of my entire generation, like a dark and bloody cloud. Advocating a return to those days is not something I would do lightly, even if I did so with a 55 year-old's curmudgeonly hunch there would be worse things for today's young people than having to reckon with the quaint notion that they have obligations to something larger than themselves.
I am acutely aware, in any case, that it is very unlikely that men in their late fifties would be liable to any renewed draft. This is, after all, an option which I can toss around with few personal consequences
Far better to drastically overhaul the pay and benefit structures of the military so that young men in large numbers would come to look upon it as a realistic career, rather than as an employer of (utterly) last resort. There is an additional reason to consider this course: it is a national disgrace that the families of those who put their lives on the line to defend our country should be forced, in many cases, to live on welfare. Whatever the economic cost of using the carrot rather than the stick to build a military adequate to the demands of our time, the moral cost of not doing so is far higher.
And the unpleasant facts of the world we live in these days leave us with few options. Our role as the sole remaining superpower is simply not one we can give up without catastrophic consequences, not least to our own most vital interests. Nor is it one we are likely to be able to fulfill without either making the military something people will be attracted to in far higher numbers than they are today- far higher numbers- or re-instituting the draft.
HT: Real Clear Politics
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