# Posted 1:47 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

BRITISH GENERAL EVALUATES US WAR EFFORT: In the current issue of Military Review, a US Army publication, Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster of the British armed forces shares his thoughts on "Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations".

Aylwin-Foster neatly sums up his argument about the current situation in Iraq on page six:

• There was a training issue: a significant proportion
was unaware of the doctrine, or the relative
importance of influencing the population through
appropriate interaction.

• Intuitively the use of options other than force
came less easily to the U.S. Army than her allies.

• High levels of emotivity, combined with a
strong sense of moral authority, could serve to distort
collective judgement and invoke responses to
insurgent activity that ultimately exacerbated the
situation.

• Despite its own multi-cultural nature, the Army
was not culturally attuned to the environment.

• U.S. Army personnel instinctively turned to
technology to solve problems. Similarly, their
instinct was to seek means, including technology,
to minimise frequent close contact with the local
population, in order to enhance force protection,
but this served further to alienate the troops from
the population.

Although all of Aylwin-Foster's observations -- based on first-hand experience serving in Iraq -- should be taken seriously, his article doesn't evaluate a number of plausible hypotheses that run directly counter to his own.

First of all, with regard to US forces being too eager to go on the offensive, I think it is important to consider the possibility that in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the insurgents had the opportunity to establish themselves precisely because American forces didn't go on the offensive right away.

One of my friends has argued that during the first months of the occupation, before it was even clear we were facing an insurgency, American commanders kept their soldiers in the barracks to avoid further casualties after the invasion, rather than taking to the fight to the fledgling guerillas.

Of course, it is possible that both my friend and Aylwin-Foster are right. We may have been too cautious at first and then become too aggressive in the face of an established insurgency.

My second general point in response to Aylwin-Foster is that he ought to consider the positive side of the Americans' "strong sense of moral authority". To be fair, Aylwin-Foster does consider one positive side: the motivation that moral authority provides. Yet in addition, given that our mission in Iraq to build democracy, the principles on which this moral authority rests are absolutely vital to ensuring that our soldiers conduct themselves in a manner that befits the mission.

Of course, embarassments such as Abu Ghraib make some critics wonder whether American soldiers and Marines can serve as ambassadors of democracy. Yet I would argue that our forces' unflagging commitment to minimizing civilian casualties and taking other measures that protect the population, possibly at the cost of American lives, is only sustainable because of the principles on which our moral authority.

Now, in an ideal world, we could have both moral authority and a capacity for judgment uninfluenced by moral precepts. But that may be a little too much to ask.

Aylwin-Foster's third point is that our forces would benefit from greater cultural sensitivity. In general, I agree. Greater knowledge of and sensitivity to local culture is always an advantage. Yet I have serious questions about whether a lack of cultural sensitivity has played all that important of a role in provoking the insurgency.

Strangely, Alywin-Foster never discusses the remarkable fact that the occupation force has established a solid working relationship with the Shi'ite majority in Iraq. Cultural insensivity has not prevented that from happening. As I see it, we demonstrated to the Shi'ites that we really will allow them to reap the benefits they deserve from a democratic system. This calcuation of interests seems to be far more important than culture.

As for the Sunnis, I'm not sure that greater cultural sensitivity could have changed anything. Have there been numerous small incidents that might have been avoided as a result of greater sensitivity? Unquestionably. But the insurgents' leadership emerged out of the wreckage of the Ba'athist regime and has fought to restore Sunni domination over the whole of Iraq.

The Sunni population as a whole may have been somewhat amenable to demonstrations of sensitivity, but my instinct tells me that this privileged minority simply couldn't accept the American notion of an Iraq in which Shi'ites held majority power. Yet amazingly, the Sunni population has come around and decided to participate in elections and government, presumably because it has begun to question whether violence is the answer.

Aylwin-Foster's final point regards the American forces' excessive reliance on technology. Not being all that familiar with the issues at hand, it is hard for me to make a call on that one. However, I am fully amenable the notion that the current drive for "transformation" at the Pentagon places far too great an emphasis on technology, as opposed to human knowledge and skills.

All in all, I would say that Aylwin-Foster's comments are very welcome both because of their intrinsic value and because they are coming from someone who is self-evidently committed to a victory for America and for democracy in Iraq.

Yet interestingly, a number of Aylwin-Foster's observations bear a striking resemblance to an arch-liberal version of the quagmire hypothesis, which holds that cultural insensitivity and an excess of moral confidence were responsible for our defeat in Vietnam and are responsible for the negative aspects of the war in Iraq. (The more common version of the quagmire hypothesis is that Bush's incompetence is the real problem in Iraq.)

Aylwin-Foster himself makes it absolutely clear that he rejects simplistic comparisons of Vietnam and Iraq. Nonetheless, parts of the conceptual framework he applies to the situation almost seems to have been borrowed from the multi-cultural relativists of the academic left.

Perhaps this is a good thing. There should be some generals on the ground capable of asking whether the academic left's criticism of the war has any merit. Yet because such generals still have the best interests of the Coalition at heart, they will not presume that such criticism has merit simply because it advances a certain ideological agenda. (18) opinions -- Add your opinion