U.S. Defense

Last week, the Polish government raised the ante to allow the US to place its missile defense shield in their country. Why all of a sudden would Poland renege on hosting the shield at the last minute when talks have been going on for years? Were they successfully pressured by Russia?  

And is the same happening to the Czech Republic? “Russian cut oil supplies to the Czech Republic by half, just days after the United States signed an agreement to build a missile shield radar station on Czech territory.” 

This looks like the start of the “aymmetric response” as promised by Russian officials if the deal went through: economic warfare. The Russians are smart enough to know that money is more powerful than military. Economic warfare is felt by everyone in the targeted country, not just a small minority in the military. It can be subtle and conducted behind the scenes but with powerful effects. And most of the time, it is a legal means of attacking the competition. For instance, Russia can do whatever it wants with its oil - sell it or withold it, whereas no country can militarily intervene in another without some kind of international legitimacy. 

Despite assurances from Bush that the shield is not directed at Russia, the Russians rightfully don’t believe it. By its very nature missile defense is an offensive weapon. This has to do with nuclear strategy and the deterrence value of having a second strike capability. The US missile defense shield takes away that capability and leaves Russia vulnerable to a nuclear first strike from America.This is an unacceptable development for the Russians as their “Star Wars” nightmare from the 1980s is coming true. When it comes to nuclear weapons, defense shields are destabilizing and the US should assuage Russian fears first, before plunging ahead with the deployment of a shield.

It’s gotten to the point that Afghanistan is no longer “the other war,” but is starting to claim more of the spotlight from Iraq with each day. Consider these developments:

In the months of May and June, more Americans died in Afghanistan than died in Iraq.

On June 13th, the Taliban successfully staged a well-planned out jailbreak of 400 of their kind from an Afghan prison in Kandahar.

Two US air attacks in the last few days that have allegedly killed many Afghan civilians.

The very fact that the US is conducting air attacks in a people’s war is indicative of just how poorly the campaign in Afghanistan has been run.

Bush will launch a troop surge into Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Yesterday, a suicide carbomber hit the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 41 and wounding 139.

And this is only the mayhem that is getting reported.

For seven years, CENTCOM has been able to keep Afghanistan at a simmer using only 8,000 troops so the rest of the Army and Marines could occupy Iraq. However, all they have been able to do with such few troops is try to contain the Pashtuns in the south. They have not been able to degrade the Taliban’s numbers significantly and now we are seeing a resurgence as the Taliban conduct bolder operations and exact more casualties from the coalition than ever before. Although, the US presence has been greatly increased to about 32,000 troops, this slow buildup has not been able to make a major difference.   

From CENTCOM’s point of view, the Afghanistan surge is necessary to keep up with the escalating tempo of operations that the Taliban are initiating. However, the surge will only bring us back to the simmer point and not actually make any inroads to changing the situation. For that, we need to either send in massive amounts of troops or to get completely out of the country.    

Although in regards to Iran, Bush used his favorite phrase, “all options are on the table,” he did say, military action would not be his first choice. More importantly, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen admitted “opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us — that doesn’t mean we don’t have capacity or reserves — that would really very challenging, and the consequences on that would be difficult to predict.” But I’m convinced that the solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behaviour, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.”  

With nationalist resistance in Afghanistan and Iraq starting to pick up again, is this really the right time to open a third front? While the Army and Marines are bearing the brunt of occupying the first two fronts, the Air Force and Navy would be conducting the initial assault against the third front in Iran. But what then? Destroying a few buildings with centrifuges and some Iranian military capability will not slow down appreciably Iranian enrichment activities, if that is what they are doing. To have any kind of long term objective, any air attack on Iran must be followed up with a ground presence.  

Unlike Iraq’s armed forces which had been retrograded from 1991 to 2003 by US action and sanctions, Iran’s military is expanding and acquiring greater stand off capabilities. Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, where US forces pretty much just waltzed in as far as invasions go, Iran will not be as easy. Getting in will be bloody and the occupation will be resisted by a professional guerrilla organization, Hezbollah. 

The US won’t attack Iran because it can’t. Or in the words of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, it will be “challenging” and “difficult.”