Of escalators and quagmires

In the fall of 1990, a period of calm between the dying days of the Cold War and the execution of Operation Desert Storm, historian and strategic studies theorist Lawrence Freedman gave the inaugural lecture at Kings College London’s Centre of Defence Studies.  

In his speech, Professor Freedman argued that the coming intervention in Iraq would shape attitudes and policies towards international conflict for many years to come and recognized that there was “a serious possibility that [Western] forces will be retained in the Gulf for a long period.” He also worried that these occupying forces would be hard pressed to keep the peace and avoid the destabilization of the entire region.  

{mosads}Summing up his concerns, Freedman warned, “Step on the escalator and you are taken inexorably up the scale of violence until eventually the holocaust is reached. Step into the quagmire and you will soon be bogged down, thrashing about, unable to escape.”   

Not only is the current conflict with ISIS a clear validation of these concerns but also a unique example of their manifestation, a strange mix of an escalator and a quagmire.  

It is also because the enemy is a unique state/non-state hybrid.

The territorial gains made by the Islamic “State” have demanded a steady escalation of forces in both Syria and Iraq. The limited effectiveness of air strikes, combined with the abrupt entry of Russia and the recent French declaration of war, augur the deployment of thousands of ground troops to take back lost cities, oil fields, and infrastructure and to destroy the enemy once and for all.  

However, fighting a non-state terrorist group requires a different strategy involving surveillance, armed commandos, and supporting proxy forces such as the Kurdish Peshmerga. This is the “Obama Doctrine,” designed to meet the president’s election promise to avoid getting “dragged into another ground war in Iraq.” Whether the experience of Vietnam or the 2003 Iraq War, the United States may have finally learned that overconfidence in victory may lead them into a quagmire. 

As a result, the military campaign is stuck somewhere between an escalator and a quagmire, growing in complexity and peril. The impression that ISIS has now increased its reach and influence has led to calls for even greater intervention as well as warnings that more conflict will simply supply the catalyst for the recruitment of fresh fighters.  

For Freedman, the ideal is intelligent limited war where military needs and political demands are balanced; a precise use of force that weighs the mission with concerns for casualty levels and economic cost. It is a mistake to either under-commit, failing to provide enough resources out of concern for getting bogged down, or to over-commit, which may trigger an even wider conflict. Unfortunately, the various players in the haphazard fight against ISIS are guilty of both. 

Notably, it is the Gulf War that started not long after Freedman’s speech that may be the best example of the ideal strategy. A massive military campaign with clear and practical goals executed over a period of months with broad domestic supported from a participating coalition of nations. The key to success, of course, was chasing Saddam Hussein back to Baghdad and leaving him there, avoiding the occupation of a fractured and fragile country.  

The undoing of this success by the last American administration has brought us to the current and much more complicated crisis.

Tabachnick is a professor of political science and has published scholarly articles and books in the area of global politics and the philosophy of technology.