Warfighting: August 2006 Archives

Blogging over at Hot Air, Allah collects a morose assortment of down-in-the-mouth quotes from conservative hawks disappointed about Iraq. His own take:

Why the despair and why now? Because, I think, of Israel's predicament in Lebanon. Until last month, it could plausibly be argued that most problems in the war on terror (read: most problems in Iraq and Afghanistan) were the result of Bush's mismanagement. Which, for conservatives, is hugely depressing in one way but hugely comforting in another: if your big problem is personnel, the solution is simple enough. All in due time. But if your problem is strategic, that's not so easy. A lot of hawks, me included, have near-blind faith that Jewish genius and resilience will always carry Israel through when it's beset by its enemies, but even the invincible IDF doesn't seem to be making much headway against the jihad.

Add Yoni to the ranks of the Low Morale Brigade.

Look again at the cycle of jihad:

The good guys appear to be neglecting the publicity, recruitment, and training efforts of our enemies. Plus, we're not serious about cutting off state support for jihad (Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia, I'm looking at you). The western world needs to stop worrying about offending the tender sensibilities of the Arab Street™. They're going to hate us more if we become weak and irresolute.

To hell with political correctness and diplomatic kabuki dances. We are in a war. We need to kill more of the enemy, disrupt his recruitment and publicity efforts, openly confront Syria militarily, spend billions to support and grow Iran's domestic opposition movement, and choke off Saudi money flowing to Islamist madrassas.

Update: Manny says "be of good cheer." Amen.

Yoni Tidi reports that Hezbollah's TV and radio broadcasts have been hacked by Israel. Why aren't we this smart about propaganda?

I don't know about you, but I'm getting frustrated with the way the West is fighting the War On Islamism. For a civilization that's in danger of annihilation, we sure aren't fighting with everything we've got. Something's got to change.

The ongoing propagandizing coverage of the Lebanese civilian deaths in Qana have really gotten under my skin this week, and I spent all night fuming and thinking. My typical gut reaction lately has been: "Screw the rest of the world's dainty reservations and P.C. whining. Let's take the gloves off and really hit the Islamists where it hurts." But where exactly is that? And what's the best way to hit them?

In his latest column, Dennis Prager stakes out a position that basically says: "To heck with world opinion." Tony Blankley replies: "World opinion does suck, but we can't ignore it completely." Meanwhile, Frank Gaffney questions the wisdom of trying to hamstring Israel in ways we'd never tolerate if applied to our own military. They're each right, and yet they haven't taken their thinking far enough. We can't just lash out in frustration at the whole screwed-up Muslim world; we've got to intelligently disrupt the Islamists' strategy if we hope to crush their will to fight.

I sketched out this rough diagram to help me frame my thoughts.

This "cycle of jihad" shows what I think their overarching method looks like. To run smoothly, the cycle requires active funding and/or logistics support from one or more nations (represented by the cloud). The boxes outside the cloud indicate the two steps that don't require immediate state support to be successful. The whole thing feeds on itself.

To stop the global jihad we must either completely break a link in the cycle, severely weaken several links, or eliminate the support offered by sympathetic nation states. So what are we doing to disrupt the cycle of jihad, and is it enough to guarantee victory? That's what I'll be writing about in the next few days.

If anybody out there is familiar with things like 4th generation warfare (often called "netcentric warfare") and the concept of the OODA Loop, please chime in with your own blog posts or comments. I don't have all the answers, and I'd like to start a wide-ranging discussion on this. Toss out suggestions, criticism, anything that'll help chip away at this. As a wise man once said:

Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. ... So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. ... He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.

-- Sun Tzu

I look forward to hearing from you.