Repurposing a comment I made in this thread, I thought I would run a chart of American military fatalities in Afghanistan. I use American military fatalities “as a quick and dirty way to tell how things are going in a US counterinsurgency effort, figuring that killing an American soldier is always a valuable achievement for an insurgent, that American soldiers (especially in the respective surges) are in harm’s way, that killing one requires mobilizing a certain amount of effort on an insurgency’s part, and that (perhaps most importantly) the Pentagon can’t really fudge the number of deaths (they can with wounded; the definition of “wounded” changed in the middle of the Iraq War to, shock! surprise!, reduce the numbers). It’s not perfect (not nearly so), but it worked pretty well for me looking at Iraq in 2008 and 2009.” Note that this is not a statement about the morality or utility of the war, but simply an attempt at measuring the military effectiveness of the American effort there.
In Afghanistan, the two periods to look at are summer and winter. Summer has the highest number of fatalities and winter the lowest. In both seasons, American fatalities began surging in 2009, peaked in 2010, and started downward in 2011.
That suggests to me that, like Iraq, the American effort is knocking the insurgency down, if slowly.
[UPDATE, 3:00 PM: Having written and scheduled this post on Friday, it turns out to be ill-timed, given the horrific slaughter of Afghan women and children by an American soldier over the weekend.]
The Edge of the American West 
54 comments
March 12, 2012 at 11:54 am
Tim
It might be worth doing this per capita, although since troop levels have been steady since 2010, the point stands.
March 12, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Mark Lafue
Could not changing tactics be a reason for this? I was given to understand that NATO forces are doing more work with the ANA soldiers, with the latter being the sharp end of the stick during operations. Is there any number for how many fatalities the latter are suffering?
March 12, 2012 at 3:37 pm
silbey
@Mark The surge in Afghanistan actually put American forces in more exposed positions and as the tip of the spear (as it did in Iraq), not the ANA. This while McChrystal reduced the allowable use of airpower and artillery.
But, in any case, there’s a report here (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41084.pdf ) on Afghan casualties and the fatality pattern for the ANA is the same as it is for coalition forces: peaking in 2010 and dropping in 2011.
March 12, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Mark Lafue
Thanks for the clarification.
March 12, 2012 at 4:11 pm
silbey
@Mark You’re welcome. Thanks for the question.
March 13, 2012 at 5:34 am
Dave
It doesn’t really matter, since the US and UK are committed to full withdrawal of combat troops in 2 years, and are already in talks with the ‘nice Taliban’. The country will be back to, if not square 1 total talibanisation, at least square 2.5 massive areas of taliban impunity, within 3 years. Or someone will finally get pissed-off enough with Karzai and his corrupt cronies to cap him, then all bets are off.
Fecking waste of time, money and blood, always was, always will be.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
March 13, 2012 at 5:59 am
silbey
and are already in talks with the ‘nice Taliban’. The country will be back to, if not square 1 total talibanisation, at least square 2.5 massive areas of taliban impunity, within 3 years
The “unconditional surrender” model doesn’t work terribly well in insurgencies, so you have to make peace by negotiating with your enemies. That means giving them some of what they want. But the realistic goal in counterinsurgencies is to get the society to a position where it has a chance of managing on its own. That’s what happened in Iraq (mostly with the Sunnis) and the result was a somewhat democratic government (albeit corrupt, riven by discord and ethnic rivalries, and quite fragile). After that, it’s up to them.
March 13, 2012 at 11:19 am
ajay
silbey: so you’re, what, you’re saying we won?
March 13, 2012 at 11:21 am
silbey
In Iraq, yes. In Afghanistan, I think we’re in the process of winning, yes.
March 13, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Dave
But when Afghanistan ‘manages on its own’, it will in the process reject almost everything that western intervention has tried to achieve. That’s not ‘winning’, that’s ‘giving up and running away’. Which is, anyway, the right thing to do, but pretending it’s ‘winning’ is just delusional.
[I note in passing that you speak as if there was a war going on in both these countries before we arrived, and we have helped to bring it to a conclusion. That is not how I remember it.]
March 13, 2012 at 1:04 pm
silbey
@Dave Hypothesizing about the future is not useful as evidence.
but pretending it’s ‘winning’ is just delusional
Obviously, I disagree. Moreover, I don’t particularly like the imputation of dishonesty that ‘pretending’ carries, so I’ll ask you to tone down your responses, please.
you speak as if there was a war going on in both these countries before we arrived
I don’t believe I do. If that’s the message that’s coming across, then I’ll just go ahead and say that I don’t think there was a war going on before we arrived.
March 13, 2012 at 1:42 pm
Dave
Cool. I am genuinely puzzled as to how anybody whose job does not depend on agreeing could possibly see anything like a US ‘win’ coming out of the current politico-military constellation in Afghanistan and its neighbouring territories, except by defining ‘winning’ down to a euphemism for ‘running away’. However, I accept your claim of good faith as a fellow professional.
March 13, 2012 at 2:34 pm
silbey
I am genuinely puzzled
All wars are disasters; all wars look like disasters. That frequently has very little to do with how they’re going for one side or another.
March 13, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Mark Lafue
A question of framing: given that peak casualties were lower than trough casualties now, could it not be said that counter-insurgency efforts were doing better in 2004, before they suddenly got worse? That’s glib, I know, but 2004 casualties were obviously not an accurate measure of Taliban capability. Speculating here, but were I a Talibani, I’d look at NATO plans to leave and decide that now would be a good time to expend just enough effort to encourage their exit while saving my resources for a post-NATO fight against the ANA.
March 13, 2012 at 3:09 pm
ari
I remember you saying the surge in Afghanistan was working, silbey, and based on your definition of working, that seemed fair enough. Still, I’m surprised to hear you say that you think the US is in the process of winning the war there. Can you lay out for me what you see as the war aims and what makes you think the US is on the way to achieving those aims? To be clear — because this is the comments section of this blog — I fear that you’ll assume that I’m baiting you, but that’s really not the case. I’ve just heard few people* I trust saying that Afghanistan is going well, so I’m curious what causes your optimism.
* For “few people”, you might as well substitute “nobody”.
March 13, 2012 at 3:11 pm
ari
I guess, looking upthread, you mean: “get the society to a position where it has a chance of managing on its own.” If that’s the case, I suppose the US may well be on the road to success. But that seems so far from the sort of war aim that makes sense to me — assuming that you’d agree that the Afghanis were actually managing on their own (albeit in a way that resulted in some important American landmarks being demolished) before the US invaded — that I don’t know what to say.
March 13, 2012 at 3:14 pm
ari
Thinking about it a bit more, it seems likely to me that you mean, “managing on their own in a way that doesn’t present a major threat to American interests”. By that definition, assuming I’m right that you’d accept such a formulation, it’s very hard for me to know if the US is succeeding or failing in Afghanistan. I guess we’ll see.
March 13, 2012 at 8:06 pm
TF Smith
I don’t think you can make the judgment that a lower casualty rate for one participant in any conflict, by itself, means that same participant is achieving its military and political objectives; there are too many variables, in terms of the strategy and tactics used by all powers concerned – as Cols. Summers and Tu famously observed.
As an example, US casualties in the Vietnam War essentially follow the same surge, peak, and decline as suggested above; see link and numbers below:
http://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html
CACCF Record Counts by Year of Death or Declaration of Death (as of 12/98)
Year of Death or Declaration of Death – Number of Records
1956-1960 – 9
1961 – 16
1962 – 52
1963 – 118
1964 – 206
1965 – 1,863
1966 – 6,143
1967 – 11,153
1968 – 16,592
1969 – 11,616
1970 – 6,081
1971 – 2,357
1972 – 641
1973 – 168
Total – 58,193 (note that this total includes several hundred declared deaths that were declared after the US withdrawal in 1973, and even after the fall of Saigon in 1975)
I suppose one can argue that the US and RVN were “knocking the insurgency down, if slowly” in 1969-73, but if so – as Tu reportedly said – it was still pretty much irrelevant.
Best,
March 14, 2012 at 2:45 am
Peter T
I’d second TF Smith. If winning is about achieving most or all or your initial aims, or even coming better than you went in relative to the other players, then I definitely can not score Iraq as a win. The people who came out ahead were the Iraqi Shia, the Kurds and the Iranians. The people who lost ground were the Iraqi Sunnis, Saudis and associated Sunni states around the Gulf (who now have to reckon with emboldened Shia minorities and a less restrained Iran). Iraq remains hostile to Israel, and oil access is little better than before the war. These results were definitely not on the US wish-list before the war. I suspect that the outcome in Afghanistan will be to leave and declare the result a win regardless of what happens.
March 14, 2012 at 7:52 am
silbey
@Mark given that peak casualties were lower than trough casualties now, could it not be said that counter-insurgency efforts were doing better in 2004, before they suddenly got worse?
Yes, fatalities are at least partly a measure of the capability of the insurgency and in 2004, the insurgency simply wasn’t particularly capable. I’d also look at the trend line, to see what direction fatalities were going in. In terms of whether the insurgency is deliberately holding back in advance of NATO leaving, my sense is that insurgencies are not really *that* organized. Note that the same argument was made about Iraq, and there doesn’t really seem to have been a resurgence in fighting since the US pulled out.
@ari I fear that you’ll assume that I’m baiting you,‘
It’s because I’m a Jew, isn’t it?
I trust saying that Afghanistan is going well, so I’m curious what causes your optimism
Optimism may be too optimistic a word, but let me give it a shot. The first thing I’m looking at is whether things are going well on a basic military level. I mentioned why I use American fatalities as a proxy for that, so I won’t go back into it. On that level, I’d say that the military effort is going pretty well. I think that’s pretty important, as I don’t think all the other efforts–political, social, and economic–are possible when the violence is above a certain level.
On that political, social, and economic level, I’d say that getting the country (whether Iraq or Afghanistan) to the point that it has structures on all three of those levels that are potentially sustainable and an improvement on what came before, or what the enemy would put into place. The caveats on both are important: it’s “potentially sustainable” because the US can only impose so much. After that, it’s up to the citizens of that particular nation to take it forward. The improvement is only relative to what came before, or what the other side might put into place.
In any case, I should note that what I just wrote is going beyond what I was doing with the post or comments. I’m looking simply at the military side of things at the moment, and that’s primarily where my “optimism” is based. Some might point out the Clausewitzian sense of politics and war being interrelated, but I’d suggest not pushing that too far. War is politics by other means, but it also excludes politics to a large degree.
@TF SmithAs an example, US casualties in the Vietnam War essentially follow the same surge, peak, and decline as suggested above; see link and numbers below:
Sure, but that’s during a period when US troop numbers in Vietnam are dropping precipitously and Nixon was putting into place his policy of Vietnamization. By contrast, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, troop numbers went *up* even as fatalities went down.
@PeterIf winning is about achieving most or all or your initial aims, or even coming better than you went in relative to the other players, then I definitely can not score Iraq as a win.
I’ll introduce you to another President, who spent years speaking glowingly of the aims of the war he entered (many accused him of manipulating the US into that conflict): democracy, freedom for all, an end to poverty, and the like. Unfortunately this President then handed large chunks of the disputed territory over to a malign dictatorship that stood for everything America opposed, while not achieving his initial goals. Within a decade after this war was over, we were faced by not only that dictatorship in enmity, but had lost a major ally in the war to the other side. Both of the main countries we fought in that war were rearming and becoming major economic rivals.
The President? Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I don’t think anyone would argue that WWII wasn’t a victory.
March 14, 2012 at 9:59 am
Dave
Now, that I think is almost the definition of a cheap crack, historically speaking. But I’ll leave it to others to judge.
March 14, 2012 at 10:04 am
silbey
It’s not a cheap crack, it’s pointing out that leaders almost always announce grand goals for wars, and that, despite the fact that few of those grand designs come true, we still think of those wars as victories.
March 14, 2012 at 11:34 am
Margarita
I don’t think anyone would argue that WWII wasn’t a victory.
What? Many have argued that WWII was not a victory in that respect.
March 14, 2012 at 11:41 am
Mark Lafue
“Yes, fatalities are at least partly a measure of the capability of the insurgency and in 2004, the insurgency simply wasn’t particularly capable. ”
I dunno. I concede I speak with the ignorance of one who relies on the media for his information on this subject, but if low American casualties are the fault of Taliban/insurgency incompetence in 2004, it doesn’t seem obvious to me that low American casualties should necessarily be a credit to American competence in 2011. I think it is entirely possible that fewer Americans are dying at the hands of Taliban because the Taliban/insurgency have decided to kill fewer Americans. More than a decade holding out against NATO speaks to some organization on their part, or at least a disciplined use of resources.
March 14, 2012 at 11:59 am
Main Street Muse
I find that chart chilling, rather than reassuring. Yes, the numbers of US fatalities have dipped since their 2010 peak. But it shows that since we started sending US troops to the Afghanistan front in the War on Terror, we have made no gains – the US death tally today remains higher than in the early years of the war.
Since 2004 – after three years in-country, the US death count began to rise to rather significant heights, only to be quelled by increasing the number of US troops (if I’m to understand silbey’s response to TF Smith correctly: “in both Afghanistan and Iraq, troop numbers went *up* even as fatalities went down…” Silbey, please correct me if I’ve misinterpreted that.)
We are engaged in a conflict with goals that are nebulous (what WOULD constitute a clear US victory in Afghanistan? We entered Afghanistan to engage in a “war on terror.” And victory is when we leave them able to manage their country on their own, without us? What does “manage” mean in this context?)
And we are thus engaged in battle with a nation that has a long history of sucking the life out of countries that dare to invade its borders. After more than a decade of engagement, that it takes more US soldiers to diminish the number of deaths of US soldiers is troubling.
March 14, 2012 at 1:41 pm
silbey
What? Many have argued that WWII was not a victory in that respect
“in that respect” makes all the difference. I’m talking about whether people would argue that World War II was not a victory, full stop.
@Mark; it’s not that the Afghan insurgency was incompetent in 2004, it’s that it’s capability was limited both geographically and in size. As best we can tell, the Taliban spent most of 2002-2005 rebuilding in the Pakistani tribal areas and southern Afghanistan, helped by American distraction in Iraq. Note also that we should be careful about claiming that there is one set of insurgents, controlled by one command structure. Like Iraq, there are multiple sets of forces, some national, some local, that are fighting. They don’t all cooperate with each other, and they don’t all share the same goals. That’s what I meant by the insurgency not being organized enough. It’s certainly possible that some leader managed to impose discipline on all these different folks and told them to stop killing Americans and wait for 2014, but I highly doubt it.
And we are thus engaged in battle with a nation that has a long history of sucking the life out of countries
Eh. That reputation is highly overstated, based on the Soviet experience (where the Soviets discovered that armored warfare doctrine works badly in the mountains) and the British being stupid enough to lose an army there in the 19th century (the British lost armies all over the place during empire: Afghanistan and Isandlwana being the two most famous). There’ve been lots of successful invasions of Afghanistan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan#History
After more than a decade of engagement, that it takes more US soldiers to diminish the number of deaths of US soldiers is troubling
Welcome to counterinsurgency, where insurgents trade time (instead of space) in combat.
March 14, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Mark Lafue
Well, I don’t think it requires a central command or coordination for disparate forces to independently come to the conclusion that if NATO is leaving anyway, there’s not much to be gained by risking resources and manpower in operations aimed at killing them, when you can bide your time and make your move – whatever it might be directed towards – when the guys without air-support and night-vision goggles aren’t around to stop you. In any case, I won’t presume to claim that I think it’s the explanation, but it might be a factor. I guess one way to determine it would be to compare the number and scale of attacks/attempts mounted by the Taliban/insurgency (In my defense, I did use the slash before for distinguishing purposes). Is that sort of number available?
March 14, 2012 at 2:33 pm
mrearl
From the Wikipedia article, it seems as if Timur was the only invader who could claim unqualified, enduring success, though one might add the British in the 2d Afghan War, considering their definition of success apparently did not include conquest and dominion and was satisfied by establishment of a puppet regime.
March 14, 2012 at 4:09 pm
eric
I’m talking about whether people would argue that World War II was not a victory, full stop.
Winning the war and losing the peace is a special presidential talent.
March 14, 2012 at 4:27 pm
silbey
I guess one way to determine it would be to compare the number and scale of attacks/attempts mounted by the Taliban/insurgency (In my defense, I did use the slash before for distinguishing purposes). Is that sort of number available?
Brookings has a Afghanistan index, http://www.brookings.edu/afghanistanindex , with those numbers. I’m a bit wary of trusting them, because they’re terribly dependent on who is reporting them, what their incentives are, and so on. The numbers they have in the latest report only go up to June 2011, but they indicate the numbers of attacks were dropping before Obama announced his 2014 withdrawal.
unqualified, enduring success
I don’t agree with your evaluation, but, in any case, no goal-post shifting, please. You don’t get to be the “graveyard of empires” by denying your enemies “unqualified, enduring success.”
“Afghanistan: invade us and you won’t have unqualified, enduring success.”
March 14, 2012 at 4:34 pm
Mark Lafue
Ok! Thanks for your responses!
March 14, 2012 at 4:48 pm
silbey
@Mark My pleasure. Good discussion.
March 14, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Main Street Muse
So from the Wiki article you cite, it seems that the superpowers that ventured into Afghanistan in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries did not share the same success as Genghis Khan. Duly noted.
Also duly noted that our military does not share Genghis Khan’s strategy of “completely destroying [key areas] and brutally killing vast numbers of its civilians.”
Still, it seems that a war requiring more US troops to get less US deaths is destined for a troubled, ambiguous end, not a decisive victory. I do not share Silbey’s optimism. I wish I did.
March 14, 2012 at 5:44 pm
silbey
Genghis Khan
‘Not quite as successful as Genghis Kahn’ encompasses most military victories, now that you mention it.
Still, it seems that a war requiring more US troops to get less US deaths is destined for a troubled, ambiguous end, not a decisive victory.
Welcome to counterinsurgency.
March 14, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Peter T
Note that I noted a number of outcomes of Iraq, which were not questioned. Match these not against the rhetoric before the war, but the actual situation before the war, and tell me where you find grounds for declaring victory.
If the US leaves Afghanistan, and leaves (probably best case),
– a feeble regime in Kabul with Pushtun/Taliban domination of the south and west, financed by the heroin trade and closely tied to the wider fundamentalist movement;
– a centre and north supported by Iran and Central Asia, and
– Pakistan confronting an emboldened Pushtun/Taliban/internal Islamic coalition, and drifting out of the US orbit
Would this constitute “victory”?
March 14, 2012 at 6:30 pm
silbey
@Peter: Note that I noted a number of outcomes of Iraq, which were not questioned
No, what was questioned was the silliness of using the prewar rhetoric as a checklist for victory. If it doesn’t apply to FDR & WWII, why does it apply here?
As to Afghanistan, future events that may or may not happen are not evidence. They are speculation. If you have actual evidence, feel free to post it.
March 14, 2012 at 11:21 pm
Peter T
Who used the pre-war rhetoric. My metric is: achieving most or all or your initial aims, or.. coming [out] better than you went in relative to the other players.
Even if the aims of the US were as modest as the overthrow of the Baath regime, establishment of a pro-US government, and strengthening US influence in the region, only the first has been achieved. Relative to the other players in the region, the US has come out weaker. How would you measure it?
March 15, 2012 at 3:36 am
silbey
Who used the pre-war rhetoric
Oops. Sorry. I said “prewar rhetoric” when I meant “initial aims.” FDR’s initial aims in WWII were quite expansive and nowhere near fulfilled. Does that make WWII a defeat?
March 15, 2012 at 5:30 am
Main Street Muse
“No, what was questioned was the silliness of using the prewar rhetoric as a checklist for victory. If it doesn’t apply to FDR & WWII, why does it apply here?”
What happens when the pre-war rhetoric terrifies the world into believing Saddam’s about to blow up the US with nuclear weapons, and the pre-emptive strike called by the US [AKA the “coalition of the willing”] leads us to discover a nation without nuclear weapons? I cannot consider that a victory of any kind. Do you?
March 15, 2012 at 6:08 am
silbey
What happens when the pre-war rhetoric terrifies the world into believing Saddam’s about to blow up the US with nuclear weapons, and the pre-emptive strike called by the US [AKA the “coalition of the willing”] leads us to discover a nation without nuclear weapons? I cannot consider that a victory of any kind. Do you?
By that logic, a country with bad motivations or that was misled into war has never ever won a conflict. You should notify the French of 1940. They’ll be pleased to know that the Germans did not, in fact, triumph. Also the Spanish of 1898, numerous Native American tribes, the Polish (choose a year, almost any year), and so on.
Stating that the United States won the war in Iraq does nothing to condone going to war in Iraq or the appalling behavior of the Bush administration.
March 15, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Peter T
silbey
Still would like to know by what measures you consider Iraq a win.
March 15, 2012 at 4:11 pm
silbey
Still would like to know by what measures you consider Iraq a win
Uh, in multiple comments above, I’ve laid out essentially why I consider Iraq a win. Start here:
https://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/measuring-afghanistan/#comment-90943
and work your way down.
Oh, and you haven’t answered my question about WWII. Make sure your next comment contains an answer to that question.
March 15, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Main Street Muse
Silbey, when did Iraq invade one of our neighbors? And when did Iraq pose the same global threat as pre-WWII Germany? What was Iraq’s Poland? Or Austria? Do you find pre-WWII Germany and post-9/11 Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11) comparable in power and might and danger?
Seems apples and oranges to me. Unless Iraq posed the same threat as pre-WWII Germany (and it did not, and never did), “that logic” does not apply.
Peter T – in a comment above, Silbey defines the Iraq victory as giving the world “a somewhat democratic government (albeit corrupt, riven by discord and ethnic rivalries, and quite fragile).”
March 15, 2012 at 4:22 pm
silbey
@Main Street Muse What on earth are you talking about?
March 15, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Peter T
Worked my way down twice, and all I can find is “giving the world “a somewhat democratic government (albeit corrupt, riven by discord and ethnic rivalries, and quite fragile).” What am I missing?
The above is certainly an outcome. I’m a bit puzzled as to how it constitutes a win. A win is where you come out ahead of the other guys. the other guys in this case are Saddam (definite loss), Iran (win on points), Iraqi populace (hard to score – lots of death and destruction, fragile government, ongoing insurgency, balanced against a bit more freedom and maybe some better opportunities down the track), al-Quaeda (new opening in Iraq, so maybe a plus), US allies in area (now have to cope with Shia and Iran, tied more closely to US for support). On the US side, state of army exposed as unable to cope with more than one major campaign, and then not for too long. Plus really major budget costs. Plus erosion of support among some key supporters.
So, on balance, I would score a loss.
On WW 2 – the liberal democratic order (US, British Empire, France plus small European states) was under severe ideological challenge from 1930 from nazism, fascism and communism. First two explicitly militaristic and aggressive, so posed a military as well as an ideological threat. The war eliminated fascism and nazism as threats. Think of it as an elimination round – the winners were Russia and the liberal alliance. But Russia’s victory was bought at enormous price, and it played poorly in the next round. I think FDR’s core aim was to eliminate nazism (although he certainly had others). Hard to score as other than a win.
March 16, 2012 at 4:53 am
silbey
From an earlier comment:
The first thing I’m looking at is whether things are going well on a basic military level. I mentioned why I use American fatalities as a proxy for that, so I won’t go back into it. On that level, I’d say that the military effort is going pretty well. I think that’s pretty important, as I don’t think all the other efforts–political, social, and economic–are possible when the violence is above a certain level.
On that political, social, and economic level, I’d say that getting the country (whether Iraq or Afghanistan) to the point that it has structures on all three of those levels that are potentially sustainable and an improvement on what came before, or what the enemy would put into place. The caveats on both are important: it’s “potentially sustainable” because the US can only impose so much. After that, it’s up to the citizens of that particular nation to take it forward. The improvement is only relative to what came before, or what the other side might put into place.
I think Iraq fits all those requirements, so I would call it a win. “Finishing ahead” of the other guys is such a nebulous concept that I don’t know how to measure it. More, it ignores that some goals may be more important than others: was getting rid of Saddam worth more Iranian influence in Iraq? Was creating a somewhat democratic government in Iraq worth more Iranian influence?
I think FDR’s core aim was to eliminate nazism
You’re shifting the goal posts. I wasn’t asking about the “core aim.” My question was that, given that World War II did not achieve FDR’s initial aims, why is it a victory?
(I’m on a trip to Boston today, so responses will be spotty.).
March 16, 2012 at 9:11 am
Main Street Muse
Was responding to your comment: “By that logic, a country with bad motivations or that was misled into war has never ever won a conflict. You should notify the French of 1940.”
I don’t understand your point here. How were the French of 1940 misled into war? Or what where the “bad motivations” that led the French government to declare war against Germany? Was Hitler not a threat to peace in Europe? How is pre-WWII Germany comparable to post-9/11 Iraq? How was post 9/11 Iraq so much a threat to the US that we needed to declare a pre-emptive strike against it? How does a fragile, unstable democracy in Iraq help us today? Seems instability is not the vital outcome we’d like to see in that region.
Not a historian (obviously, which is one reason I come to this site, to learn from historians) – can you elaborate what FDR’s initial aims were outside of defeating Hitler? Are you saying that the defeat of Hitler was not a victory, in that other initial aims were not reached?
March 16, 2012 at 9:50 am
Pudd'nhead Wilson
“I don’t understand your point here. How were the French of 1940 misled into war?”
Silbey’s saying that the French couldn’t claim victory in 1940 just because the Nazis had bad motivations and misled their nation into war. The other questions here are aimed at a post that Silbey didn’t write. I take his point to be that by certain military metrics and measures of basic political stability the United States has succeeded in these conflicts. That’s it. This has nothing to do with justifying the start of these wars, Pyrrhic victories, geo-strategic consequences, etc. Those are very separate questions.
March 16, 2012 at 10:07 am
silbey
PW explained it well, probably better than I was going to. @MSM, google “The Four Freedoms” and the Atlantic Charter for a sense of what I mean with FDR.
March 16, 2012 at 7:28 pm
JAFD
Hello, Dr. Silbey,
Ghod, you’re setting up some loaded questions here:
“Unfortunately this President then handed large chunks of the disputed territory over to a malign dictatorship that stood for everything America opposed”
Well, the Russians were our allies, had done most of the fighting, taken most of the casualties, and got very little territory they hadn’t conquered themselves.
“Within a decade after this war was over, we were faced by not only that dictatorship in enmity, but had lost a major ally in the war to the other side.”
The question “who lost China?” is much less informative than “Was their any way the Chaing Kai-Shek government could have defeated a popular insurgency in the late ’40’s?”
“Both of the main countries we fought in that war were rearming and becoming major economic rivals.”
And major military allies, with societies thoroughly transformed and demilitarized.
David Brin’s take on the Marshall Plan is worth reading:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-americans-spent-themselves-into.html
OK, you’re trying to take the right-wing mythology of WWII and reverse-english it to make a point. My counterpoint is that this mythology is toxic enough – as reality-distorting as the ‘Lost Cause’ myth of the Confederacy – that even ironic expositions of it are a disservice to the history-reading public.
March 16, 2012 at 10:41 pm
acharn
Silbey, I’m not intending to provoke you, but are you by any chance a professional soldier, field grade or above? Your remarks about how well the war is going on the ground sound like they come from a West Pointr (I was an NCO, we used to call them “ring-knockers” from the class rings they wore). They famously see lights at the end of tunnels and are sure they will succeed if they just stick it out and try a little harder, and any dead bodies they see are either “militants” or “unsurgents” or “those who support the insurgency,” down to babes in arms (“in arms” doesn’t sound right, how about “babies who haven’t learned to walk yet.”?).
Like most Americans, you are in denial. Our war aims in both Iraq and Afghanistan are: “To install a centralized government which will controll the population and follow the orders of the American ambassador. They must also protect American corporations, suppress labor unions, and enforce American copyright and patent laws.”
Our military forces in Afghanistan are not fighting “insurgents.” They are fighting people who are trying to either eject an enemy occupying force, or, more primitively, get revenge for the innocent people (including babies who haven’t learned to walk yet) out military forces regularly slaughter. Please don not think I am disrespecting the American men and women soldiers who are doing their best to do what is required of them. If they urinate on the bodies of people they have killed, or make necklaces from the ears or fingers of people they have killed, or go out from their bases and kill 16 “civilians”, or if from their aircraft they drop bombs on kids tending flocks of sheep or goats, that is what they are supposed to do. That is what soldiers do when you make war. That is how you gain control of a population that does not want you there.
I believe our motives for sending soldiers to both Iraq and Afghanistan were evil, and we can only expect evil results.
March 16, 2012 at 11:29 pm
silbey
@acharn I believe our motives for sending soldiers to both Iraq and Afghanistan were evil, and we can only expect evil results.
Well, then, nothing that anyone says in this thread is going to change your mind one way or the other. Given that, there’s no need for you to comment again.
March 17, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Main Street Muse
“Silbey’s saying that the French couldn’t claim victory in 1940 just because the Nazis had bad motivations and misled their nation into war.”
Silbey, with this logic, it seems you are comparing the US that invaded Iraq with the Germany that invaded France (two nations that used bad motivations and misleading statements to invade other countries). Seems an odd comparison.
And I would agree that the French could not claim victory in 1940, in that they were a country invaded and occupied by Germany that year.
The logic of this argument is weak – to compare the “victory” of France when it was an occupied nation years before the end of a terrible global war with that of “victory” of the US as it pulls out of Iraq, an engagement launched ten years earlier by the US as a pre-emptive strike to rid the world of Iraq’s nuclear threat. It’s apples and oranges.
The victory is what I’m looking for. “A somewhat democratic government (albeit corrupt, riven by discord and ethnic rivalries, and quite fragile)” is not something I consider a victory after a decade-long war started over questionable motives. We definitely differ on that.
March 18, 2012 at 7:40 am
silbey
@MSM. You originally argued that a country that got into a war with bad motivations or by misleading its citizens could never claim victory. Since the US was misled into war in Iraq that thus meant that it could never achieve a victory. I pointed out the silliness of this by noting any number of examples where countries got into wars with bad motivations or by misleading their citizens and yet won victories that no one disputed. Simply handwaving it away with “it’s apples and oranges” does not change the fact that your original argument was wrong.
And with that, folks, I think we’ll call this discussion at an end. We’re beginning to circle back around on ourselves, and that’s always a good time to move on. Thanks for the comments.