Mattis on Our Way of War
Some of General Mattis’s statements and reasoning follow; my comments are in italics.
–America doesn’t lose wars, it loses interest.
–We have no overall strategy about how to defeat our enemy. (Just killing them is not working because, as I wrote years ago, the proper analogy comes from Greek mythology, Hercules’ adventure where, for every enemy soldier he killed, ten more sprung up in each one’s place.)
.. –Irregular warfare must become a core competency of our military; also our new weaponry must be focused on this new kind of war. (Most military training and procurement still concerns the strategy of World War II.)
.. Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way—not because he went all “mad dog,” which is his public image, and the view at the White House, but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order consequences of military action against Iran.
.. Washington did have a “strategy” when it attacked Iraq, the neoconservative one. This was to intimidate the Muslim world with massive bombing, “Shock and Awe”we called it, so all Muslims would be afraid of us and then do what we ordered. Then we planted giant, billion-dollar American air bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. These would, they thought, give us hegemony over Central Asia, intimidate Russia and Iran, while Iraq would turn into a friendly, modern democracy dependent upon Washington.
.. In past wars American “strategy” has usually been to return to the status quo ante, the prewar situation. Washington violates nearly all of Sun Tzu’s dictums for success. Endless wars for little purpose and with no end strategy are thus likely to continue. They are, however, profitable or beneficial for many Washington interests.