Another Item from The Strategic Studies Institute

CONFERENCE REPORT
WINNING THE WAR BY WINNING THE PEACE:
STRATEGY FOR CONFLICT AND POST-CONFLICT IN THE 21st CENTURY

Fifteenth Annual Strategy Conference
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania
April 13-15, 2004
Lloyd J. Matthews
December 2004

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The conference architecture did not provide for a canvass or survey of participants’ views on particular issues, so it is not feasible to arrive at consensus findings and recommendations. However, informal analysis of remarks by panelists and other speakers reveals such strong recurrent endorsements of some proposals that it will be
useful to highlight them. While no claim to unanimity can be made regarding these positions, it can be said that a number of participants expressed support for them in one guise or another, and that few if any voices were raised in opposition. The positions in behalf of which significant support was expressed are as follows.

• More troops are required for the war in Iraq. By a wide margin, this was the most frequently and emphatically voiced finding, often expressed in the soldier’s phrase, “We’ve got to get more boots on the ground.” In fact, many presenters spoke of the troop increase not as a need, but as a foregone conclusion: “There will be a troop increase.” And in stating this, they were not referring to Secretary Rumsfeld’s emergency increase of 20,000 soldiers announced several weeks ago.

• The date September 11, 2001, marked a historic juncture in America’s collective sense of security. Our presumption of invulnerability has been irretrievably shattered.

• We need greater international participation in the Iraqi nation-building effort, preferably under the aegis of the UN. Significantly, not a great deal was offered about how this step can now be achieved, although most participants appeared to favor greater multinational involvement.

• As soon as possible, we need to turn the reins of Iraqi government over to an indigenous entity that will be viewed as legitimate and that will have the muscle to maintain order. However, it seemed to be assumed that for an indefinite period, a Coalition troop presence would continue to be necessary in an overwatch posture, even after an Iraqi government takes formal control.

• A finding corollary to the foregoing was that the U.S. Government, under whichever political party, must summon the will to stay the course. To pull out prematurely, with Iraq still unstable, would be a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

• Even with some troop increases, the U.S. strategy in Iraq will continue to be a moderate, hold-the-line approach until the presidential election of November 2004. After that, decisive changes can be expected.

• The only credible institutions for mounting nation-building efforts are the Army and the Marine Corps, but even they are maladapted for such work. Faced with this dilemma, several conferees were inclined to explore the concept of constituting civil reconstruction corps (modeled after CORDS in the Vietnam War?) subordinate to the joint task force commander.

• We cannot replicate Western-style democracy and representative government in Muslim-majority states of the Middle East. This was an oft-stated theme, despite the Bush administration’s declared determination to proceed with democratization. The implication was that when we propose democracy in a state like Iraq, we are, in fact, speaking of qualified democracy, at least at the national level, with embedded structural bars to the emergence of radical Islamic rule.

• There can be no military solution in Iraq, only a political solution. This sentiment was expressed often but rarely explained. It seems to mean that the militarily victorious Coalition cannot successfully impose a reconstructed Iraqi government on the people by fiat and brute force. Rather, a successful reconstruction, i.e., one that is legitimate, viable, and appreciably democratic, can emerge only from the broadly inclusive participation and concurrence of a deliberative body representative of the country’s political, ethnic, and religious
constituencies.

• In the global war on terrorism, conclusive victory in the classic sense is probably unattainable. This sentiment was rarely expressed outright, but was implicit in the frequent use of such terms as “war of unlimited duration” and “war of uncertain outcome.” The sentiment was also present in the view of those who regarded the best attainable result as a gradual rapproachement between the haves and have nots of the world. Here, economic integration and equality, with a consequent dissipation of alienation and mutual hostility, offered the best chance of ultimately nudging the two camps to a peaceful modus vivendi.