If the State of the Union address and Republican campaign slogans are any indicators, America is about to achieve both of its near-term goals in Iraq: victory over the terrorists, and a quick withdrawal of American forces. Unfortunately, the idea that the Iraq war is the kind of war that can be quickly won with a modicum of troops, minimum time commitment, and without any burden on the occupying force is flawed to its core. At the center of the debate about Iraq is a simple and overlooked fact: legislators have convinced Americans that an insurgency is just a wartime tactic, instead of what it really is- a kind of war unto itself.

While Saddam Hussein was not a revolutionary fighter, he adhered to revolutionary principles when fighting his most recent and most powerful opponent, the United States. Iraq was capable of fighting a conventional war with its neighbor Iran; Iraq even had an advantage in terms of personnel and materiel. Yet against the United States, his large force was no match for the speed and technology of the American military and its superlative management and organization. This was proved in Desert Storm, and Hussein had been fortunate not to lose any Iraqi territory.

In 2003, Hussein made a strategic decision to fight a classic guerilla war against the Americans. His plan was to melt into the people, and those loyal to him would wage a war against the invaders. What he did not count on was the franchising effect of his strategy, nor on his ultimate capture and execution.


Perhaps there is no better encapsulation of an insurgent strategy than Mao Zedong’s four-line verse:

When the enemy advances, we withdraw
When the enemy rests, we harass
When the enemy tires, we attack
When the enemy withdraws, we pursue

Mao wrote this in the 1920s as he led a guerilla army through the Chinese countryside. His campaign lasted over twenty years, and was successful because he won the respect of the people, and struck the will of his enemies. The most important takeaway is that Mao’s insurgent victory was achieved through destroying his opponent's will to fight. In the Iraq war, the American people have lost theirs as well.

What the Republicans don’t understand, and the Democrats refuse to acknowledge, is that insurgencies are fought over the course of decades. Often it is enough to endure and outlast an opponent for an insurgent to win. Mao and Ho Chi Minh understood this, and I believe Moqtada Al-Sadr does as well. If you watch Sadr, you can see that his authority over his people is absolute even as he changes strategies. He tried conventional war in Najaf and failed, he tried harassing tactics in Baghdad’s Sadr City slums and was surrounded; now he tells his private army to stop fighting and give the fledgling government a chance. This is not because he believes in the government, but because his supporters have a majority of the parliamentary seats, and if the government succeeds, Sadr will win his ultimate goal, control of the state. Insurgencies are fought in decades, not in years.

The American military establishment, for its part, is desperate to return to a focus on technology as a means to fight opponents in conventional warfare. When I was an officer candidate in college, the Navy published a new strategic vision called Network Centric Warfare. The idea was that through information networks, decision-making could be made faster and at higher strategic levels. Marines call this “pushing the decision making process to the highest level” and it is something to be abhorred. Inevitably, the network will go down or someone will be away at chow, and a decision that could have been correctly made by a well-trained 19-year-old, will not be made at all.

One of the missions of the Air Force, that of gaining and maintaining air supremacy, lends itself to a largely technological solution. The new $160 million F-22 Raptor promises ultimate air superiority with its six missiles capable of engaging six separate targets simultaneously, but ignores two vital issues. First, what if the enemy brings seven airplanes? Second, who says they’re interested in doing air battle with us anyway?

Americans are attracted to warfare through its drama, action, color, and violence. One look at the previous few summers’ movie receipts confirms this. What Americans aren’t good at is studying the reasons for warfare, or how it evolves. Take a look at Africa, and the poverty that is widespread across the continent. Despite its natural resources and the abundance of labor, its population has a short life expectancy and enjoys few economic prospects, living under predatory or otherwise corrupt regimes. As poverty ferments, violence is certain to follow. American military theorists are still planning for cyber warfare, blatantly ignoring all evidence to the contrary. The Somali warlord recognizes the value of information flow- especially if his desire is to defeat the will of a western nation- but he could care less about how to send viruses; he probably cannot type and may not be able to read.

For my part, I’m going to learn Swahili and continue to study Mao. Retired Marine Col. Thomas X. Hammes, in his insightful book The Sling and the Stone: On war in the 21st Century identifies four generations of warfare, the fourth being the modern counter-insurgency that is the only form of warfare to defeat an international superpower, and has on multiple occasions. He writes: “One final caution- fourth generation warfare is more than seventy years old and reaching maturity. While we are only beginning to understand it clearly, history tells us the fifth generation has already begun to evolve.” This is a warning, and where the American military establishment refused to recognize the coming insurgency in Iraq, the current junior officer corps must train their minds and bodies for the next evolution of warfare. The enemy has not yet been identified, but you can bet your life they will be ready.