Small Wars and America

We’ve got a lot experience with small wars going back to the frontier Indian wars, Pancho Villa raids, the Banana Wars, the guerrilla actions in the southern Philippines going back to Pershing, and even the small war in Iraq. The recurring problem is the perishability of the knowledge and lessons learned. The short attention spans and short times of generations of American soldiers makes it part of the nature of the beast. Kicking down doors in Iraq, or Sri Lanka, may hurt more than helps. Amplify this by back knowledge from old National Geographic articles from the third world as long as 100 years ago, and there we are. A new layer of humans even complicates this more. It is the academic well intentioned younger people who study and form their own opinions more based in study than experience. They too have a real basic on which to contribute. Their operations analyst ancestors did much to contribute to the winning war effort in WWII.

Now it seems like the latest fad, the small war in Iraq, will become the tail that wags the dog. Many well intended people suggest that the Army should focus on small wars as in America’s national interest. Maybe they are right, but then maybe they are wrong. As a retired Marine it is appealing to see the effectiveness of Army “light” units doing so well in the small wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are “kick tail” Americans, and we should be so proud of them and their families at home here in the USA.

Assuming we the USA cannot do it all, as in police the world, or even fight all possible wars our State Department and American humans can get involved or dragged in, then maybe we should spread our efforts and monies to try do it all. We American voters should not get distracted into the so-called “fighting the last war” syndrome, though many will try, for good and bad reasons. Perhaps we should vote for those who think more balanced and less distracted by the latest war for which we have Americans committed. Assuming all our soothsayers cannot really predict the future, perhaps we should hedge our bets, and fund and think about trying to do it all, within budget, and with reasonable limitations.

Let me take a parochial point of view with saving our tax monies as an objective. We in the USA already have a small wars military, called the naval service with the Marines. While the Marines advertise themselves as a 911 force, they bring much more to the small wars arena to include professional education. Add in the great Army light units, and we in the USA are sitting pretty good, at least compared to our competition, which is most tribal leader and city-state peoples. And if our entire professional military education can include courses that are small war oriented, to include respect for third world leaders in tribes, as an example, then we can exploit our USA while we cover our rear-ends if things get really bad. Then it is time for the regular Army and Air Force.

Only the most naïve may miss the implications. The other USA bureaucracies must assume these same ideas and professional education principles for our new world in the USA to be the future of the World. We can bleed ourselves out if we choose to make our bureaucracies jobs programs*. Or we can do better. We should focus on educating our bureaucrats long before we focus on educating our losers in society. We are not stuck with history nor the well intended Americans telling us what is best. A little American common sense and accountability goes a long way. Our Defense Department is a good example for what to think, good and bad, about our future.



* Who is the bigger jobs program? Is it the Department of Defense, or the Department of Homeland Security, or the Department of Health and Human Resources, or ? Is the distribution of our taxes and massively borrowed monies about us, or our USA future? The old world may have been about our past, and the waters we should carry in honor of our ancestors causes. The new world is about us, dirty, confused, complicated, and reeking of all the best parts of the new world.