I'm not saying there weren't hiccups in our C3. There is always the fog-of-war and things you never plan for. But there is no denying that the ability for our commanders to see the entire battlespace was much better than our enemies, especially once we took their comms out.
If there was a civil war in Iraq, we wouldn't be quibbling over whether or not it exists. The monthly death toll of civillians would be in the thousands.
I think your characterization of the situation is rather short sighted and optimistic. The ultimate goal of Islamic fundamentalism is to dismantle secular institutions and set up an Islamic state. The main thing preventing this currently is US influence in the region. Iraq is only a piece of this.
It's hard to group terrorists together and say they all want an Islamic state. I'm not sure Bin Laden's desired end state is another Iran.
However I think we must realize that Bin Laden et al have no real expectation of winning militarily. This never was a military war for them. This is an economic war. I think the grand strategy for them is to keep the US engaged in a war which they are not financially able to maintain indefinitely, and I believe they are doing it. Iraq is costing hundreds of billions. The US dollar is weakening significantly. Foreign nations are starting to move away from the US dollar. Iran is setting up their own oil bourse.
That's a good point. In that sense I think you could argue Bin Laden is making progress towards his strategic goal. But in the context of this thread, I don't think you could say insurgents in Iraq are winning. Also I think you have to ask yourself, does Bin Laden's finnancial plan solve? Will it bring the US to its knees? I think he underestimates our strength. His logistical and financial support to the insurgency is definitely a pain but one that I think we can overcome.
The terrorists just want to keep the US engaged. They don't care where. The US has more resources available to them than anyone, but the manner in which they conduct war is orders of magnitude more expensive than the terrorists, and thus less sustainable.
I think Bin Laden was happy when the US invaded Iraq. This development shifted the financial costs of the war even further in his favor. Thus, while the US has achieved many military goals, his financial strategy is coming to fruition.
I agree with you here. Iraq was really the wrong war. But now that we are in it, leaving prematurely would give such a huge information operations campaign victory to the insurgents. Additionally I fear leaving Iraq in its weakened state would allow it to become a puppet for insurgents (eg. Taliban's relationship with Al Qaeda) and it will inevitably force us to return there if we don't finish the job this time.
But who only has another 2 1/2 years to win, something that is far from certain will happen, and has a growing unrest with his policies at home.
It is definitely far from certain but I wouldn't say it's improbable.
Which has been working *so* well so far.
I don't understand the justification for sarcasm. If you've been keeping up with the Iraqi Army or if you simply googlenews Iraqi Army you'll see a slew of reports indicating progress.
Either you're wrong, or the insurgents are pretty stupid. Because if they agreed with you, then their best course of action would be to stop fighting for a few weeks. So either they don't agree that they just want us out of Iraq, or they are too obtuse to recognize the shortest path to their goal. Which do you think it is?
I don't quite understand where you are going with this so I'll just state whwat I think is their real goal: to keep us there. They want us there because we give their leaders a cause to rally insurgents behind. Our presence empowers them.
The world is a safer place when there is one nation with an overbearing military force, than many nations with about equal military force. Witness WW1, WW2 and pretty much war before then. Also witness that we haven't really had a large conflict since then.
Well the insurgency is facing three reasons why they won't win.
A commander-in-chief who is committed to this conflict.
Our training of the Iraqi National Army so they can stand up to the insurgents when we leave.
The fact that most of the insurgents are driven to fight by our very prescence. When we leave, much of the motivation for the majority of terrorist groups in Iraq leaves with us.
My impression of the popularly elected government is that it is immensely fragile and that, for the majority of Iraqis, is essentially switching one strong Saddam for many small ones. Oh, and also their power and water don't work and they're shelled every now and then. I don't imagine that the Iraqi government will survive long in the power vaccuum when the US leaves. I hope I'm wrong, and I very well could be. It's hard to judge what things are actually like there there's so much noise.
They are immensely fragile, and so I think it wouldn't be appropriate to leave right now; we must beef them up first. I don't think it is accurate to say that we have replaced one strong Saddam for many small ones. They genuinely have a democracy and they have good representation amongst the different political/racial lines. I agree that the Iraqi government wouldn't last long now, but I believe everyday we are getting them closer to that point where they can stand on their own.
That they've been an immensely destabilizing influence? Which is really their goal. They obviously can't fight the US toe-to-toe, hence the adoption of the Maoist tactics.
But how effective has their destablilizing influence been? They wanted to scare the Iraqis into not voting, they have failed. They wanted to bring the country into a civil war with the Golden Mosque bombings and related attacks, they have failed. They are definitely a pain in our side, but it seems like they are a tolerable pain in our side because we continue to make progress in spite of their prescence.
That may be true for the foot soldier on the ground but the goal of their senior leadership is not wanton violence, they have specific strategic goals in mind.
Although there are many similarities between Iraq and Vietnam, they are dissimilar in this one important regard: we are making progress and the enemy is not. I think our success can only be measured by our ability to give Iraq the ability to defend themselves and our ability to make Iraq free. To that end, Iraq has had free elections, we've incorporated the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites into the government and we training of their military is ongoing.
What progress can insurgents really say they have made since the start of the war?
No one is suggesting that the terrorists should make it easy for us to find them. I'm just saying that by going underground, they make it harder for themselves to utilize their assets.
How can you argue they are doing rather well when they have not made any progress to their strategic goal? At best, they are moving sidewards. However by the progress we are making, I would argue that we are moving forwards and they are delaying the inevitable: the point at which we leave a free Iraq with a military equipped to defend themselves.
I'm not sure what's the exact reasoning for why decentralized economies and centralized militaries work. But one advantage that a centralized force will have over a decentralized one is that they will be more informed, and perfect information of the battlefield is one of the greatest force multipliers.
The aim of the insurgents is not to just be a pain in our side but to drive us out of Iraq and seize control of a weak state. They have failed to do this and are not making any progress on this front.
Compare that with our opposing goal of trying to turn Iraq into a democracy and giving them a state powerful enough to stand alone on its two feet. We have made much progress on this front since March 2003.
This implies that they are losing and we are winning.
How are you measuring their effectiveness? By the number of bodies they kill? That's the standard of a military force that wants to lose. You measure effectiveness by your ability to meet strategic goals.
If their goal was to prevent free elections in Iraq, they have failed.
If their goal was to defeat us through attrition and failed public support, they have failed.
If their goal was to create a lawless Iraq through instability and/or civil war, they have failed.
I simply don't see how you can say they have been successful thus far.
but I get a bad taste in my mouth about the idea of any nation having the capacity to control another *on the cheap*
I feel the same way sort of but then again if we did have to go to war with another nation I'd rather see our country completely decimate another country than have a bloody war which would cost the lives of many American soldiers.
Terrorists would love to have the kind of Command, Control and Communications (C3) that the US military enjoys. The reason they don't is because doing so would give them a large footprint and make it easy for us to round up senior leadership (by simply following the comms back). So they are forced to engage in decentralized command and control and an ad hoc communications network.
This again offers the advantage of making it hard to find senior leadership while it has the disadvantage of not allowing them to utilize their assets in a centralized manner which would be far more efficient and effective.
Our General raised hell over the fact that our wall clock (which is a set of LED clocks of local time, zulu time, Baghdad and Kabul) in one conference room was two minutes faster than the wall clock in another conference room. I'm not really sure why so much vitrol was spent over a clock discrepency (the clocks aren't used to conduct operations with, just to give rough situational awareness of what time it is in different parts of the world) but that day our systems guys learned the importance of synchronized clocks. Although I think their solution wasn't anything elaborate (like syncing to a central database), just adjusting the slower clock two minutes forward.
And why do we view them with suspicion? Because they only came forward with their nuclear program AFTER they were exposed by NCRI and details of their secretive nuclear program for 20 years became known. Under the NPT, Iran does, as you said, have the right to enrich uranium. But they have demonstrated thus far that they are unable to keep to the NPT and they should forfeit everything they have especially considering Ahmadinejad's feelings for Israel.
Unlike Iran; Israel, Pakistan and India have not signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. Therefore only Iran is to forfeit all their entire program as they decieved the international community for over 20 years.
It's amazing how ignorant you are. In a force on force war, we would dominate the Iranians. Now they may make our jobs tough with gurrella warfare but that's OK because we don't need to occupy Iran. Just blow up every nuclear facility they have. Iran has no right to the bomb after lying to the IAEA about their program for over 20 years.
If we can't get the patent holders to come to some sort of comprimise maybe we can get the content producers to do so. In fact, they have incentive to resolve this mess because the market won't really take off if people are hesitant to risk purchasing a format that may become obsolete in a few years. This is bad news bears for the content producers who want to rerelease Jaws SUPERDUPERBIT Platinum Plus edition and the like to reap insane profits.
So in order to fix this two-standard mess content producers need to distribute their media on double sided discs. One side HD-DVD, the other Blue-Ray. This way, no matter which player you buy, you can watch it on either. This allows content producers to rerelease old films and make insane profits. Win-win for everybody. Yaaaaaaay.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not saying there weren't hiccups in our C3. There is always the fog-of-war and things you never plan for. But there is no denying that the ability for our commanders to see the entire battlespace was much better than our enemies, especially once we took their comms out.
If there was a civil war in Iraq, we wouldn't be quibbling over whether or not it exists. The monthly death toll of civillians would be in the thousands.
It's hard to group terrorists together and say they all want an Islamic state. I'm not sure Bin Laden's desired end state is another Iran.
However I think we must realize that Bin Laden et al have no real expectation of winning militarily. This never was a military war for them. This is an economic war. I think the grand strategy for them is to keep the US engaged in a war which they are not financially able to maintain indefinitely, and I believe they are doing it. Iraq is costing hundreds of billions. The US dollar is weakening significantly. Foreign nations are starting to move away from the US dollar. Iran is setting up their own oil bourse.
That's a good point. In that sense I think you could argue Bin Laden is making progress towards his strategic goal. But in the context of this thread, I don't think you could say insurgents in Iraq are winning. Also I think you have to ask yourself, does Bin Laden's finnancial plan solve? Will it bring the US to its knees? I think he underestimates our strength. His logistical and financial support to the insurgency is definitely a pain but one that I think we can overcome.
The terrorists just want to keep the US engaged. They don't care where. The US has more resources available to them than anyone, but the manner in which they conduct war is orders of magnitude more expensive than the terrorists, and thus less sustainable. I think Bin Laden was happy when the US invaded Iraq. This development shifted the financial costs of the war even further in his favor. Thus, while the US has achieved many military goals, his financial strategy is coming to fruition.
I agree with you here. Iraq was really the wrong war. But now that we are in it, leaving prematurely would give such a huge information operations campaign victory to the insurgents. Additionally I fear leaving Iraq in its weakened state would allow it to become a puppet for insurgents (eg. Taliban's relationship with Al Qaeda) and it will inevitably force us to return there if we don't finish the job this time.
It is definitely far from certain but I wouldn't say it's improbable.
Which has been working *so* well so far.
I don't understand the justification for sarcasm. If you've been keeping up with the Iraqi Army or if you simply googlenews Iraqi Army you'll see a slew of reports indicating progress.
Either you're wrong, or the insurgents are pretty stupid. Because if they agreed with you, then their best course of action would be to stop fighting for a few weeks. So either they don't agree that they just want us out of Iraq, or they are too obtuse to recognize the shortest path to their goal. Which do you think it is?
I don't quite understand where you are going with this so I'll just state whwat I think is their real goal: to keep us there. They want us there because we give their leaders a cause to rally insurgents behind. Our presence empowers them.
The world is a safer place when there is one nation with an overbearing military force, than many nations with about equal military force. Witness WW1, WW2 and pretty much war before then. Also witness that we haven't really had a large conflict since then.
A commander-in-chief who is committed to this conflict.
Our training of the Iraqi National Army so they can stand up to the insurgents when we leave.
The fact that most of the insurgents are driven to fight by our very prescence. When we leave, much of the motivation for the majority of terrorist groups in Iraq leaves with us.
They are immensely fragile, and so I think it wouldn't be appropriate to leave right now; we must beef them up first. I don't think it is accurate to say that we have replaced one strong Saddam for many small ones. They genuinely have a democracy and they have good representation amongst the different political/racial lines. I agree that the Iraqi government wouldn't last long now, but I believe everyday we are getting them closer to that point where they can stand on their own.
That they've been an immensely destabilizing influence? Which is really their goal. They obviously can't fight the US toe-to-toe, hence the adoption of the Maoist tactics.
But how effective has their destablilizing influence been? They wanted to scare the Iraqis into not voting, they have failed. They wanted to bring the country into a civil war with the Golden Mosque bombings and related attacks, they have failed. They are definitely a pain in our side, but it seems like they are a tolerable pain in our side because we continue to make progress in spite of their prescence.
That may be true for the foot soldier on the ground but the goal of their senior leadership is not wanton violence, they have specific strategic goals in mind.
What progress can insurgents really say they have made since the start of the war?
No one is suggesting that the terrorists should make it easy for us to find them. I'm just saying that by going underground, they make it harder for themselves to utilize their assets.
How can you argue they are doing rather well when they have not made any progress to their strategic goal? At best, they are moving sidewards. However by the progress we are making, I would argue that we are moving forwards and they are delaying the inevitable: the point at which we leave a free Iraq with a military equipped to defend themselves.
Summary of what I said: Terrorists would love to use our C3, but they can't, so they use ad hoc comms and a decentralized C2.
We are arguing the same thing.
I'm not sure what's the exact reasoning for why decentralized economies and centralized militaries work. But one advantage that a centralized force will have over a decentralized one is that they will be more informed, and perfect information of the battlefield is one of the greatest force multipliers.
Compare that with our opposing goal of trying to turn Iraq into a democracy and giving them a state powerful enough to stand alone on its two feet. We have made much progress on this front since March 2003.
This implies that they are losing and we are winning.
If their goal was to prevent free elections in Iraq, they have failed.
If their goal was to defeat us through attrition and failed public support, they have failed.
If their goal was to create a lawless Iraq through instability and/or civil war, they have failed.
I simply don't see how you can say they have been successful thus far.
I feel the same way sort of but then again if we did have to go to war with another nation I'd rather see our country completely decimate another country than have a bloody war which would cost the lives of many American soldiers.
This again offers the advantage of making it hard to find senior leadership while it has the disadvantage of not allowing them to utilize their assets in a centralized manner which would be far more efficient and effective.
Our General raised hell over the fact that our wall clock (which is a set of LED clocks of local time, zulu time, Baghdad and Kabul) in one conference room was two minutes faster than the wall clock in another conference room. I'm not really sure why so much vitrol was spent over a clock discrepency (the clocks aren't used to conduct operations with, just to give rough situational awareness of what time it is in different parts of the world) but that day our systems guys learned the importance of synchronized clocks. Although I think their solution wasn't anything elaborate (like syncing to a central database), just adjusting the slower clock two minutes forward.
They're crackers, not hackers.
And why do we view them with suspicion? Because they only came forward with their nuclear program AFTER they were exposed by NCRI and details of their secretive nuclear program for 20 years became known. Under the NPT, Iran does, as you said, have the right to enrich uranium. But they have demonstrated thus far that they are unable to keep to the NPT and they should forfeit everything they have especially considering Ahmadinejad's feelings for Israel.
Unlike Iran; Israel, Pakistan and India have not signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. Therefore only Iran is to forfeit all their entire program as they decieved the international community for over 20 years.
It's amazing how ignorant you are. In a force on force war, we would dominate the Iranians. Now they may make our jobs tough with gurrella warfare but that's OK because we don't need to occupy Iran. Just blow up every nuclear facility they have. Iran has no right to the bomb after lying to the IAEA about their program for over 20 years.
If we can't get the patent holders to come to some sort of comprimise maybe we can get the content producers to do so. In fact, they have incentive to resolve this mess because the market won't really take off if people are hesitant to risk purchasing a format that may become obsolete in a few years. This is bad news bears for the content producers who want to rerelease Jaws SUPERDUPERBIT Platinum Plus edition and the like to reap insane profits. So in order to fix this two-standard mess content producers need to distribute their media on double sided discs. One side HD-DVD, the other Blue-Ray. This way, no matter which player you buy, you can watch it on either. This allows content producers to rerelease old films and make insane profits. Win-win for everybody. Yaaaaaaay.
I don't know what you were aiming for but that was not the least bit amusing. Really.
Inter-Continental Missile Ballistics!