How to Counter ISIL

Much of the news of late has been focusing on President Obama's attempts to build a coalition to "degrade and destroy" ISIL. The news, and the coalition has focused mostly on setting up for a systematic air campaign, ala Operation Allied Force or Northern Watch. While this option may be the most politically tenable option, it is not the way to effectively degrade the influence of ISIL.

The current upper bound for estimates of ISIL's fighters are at 31,500. That might sound like a lot, but it must be taken in the context of how much territory the group controls. The group has effective control/governance of territory from Aleppo, Syria to approximately Baiji and Kirkuk in Iraq, with some control of areas south, near Falluja. This is a distance of almost 400 miles, and when Mosul is counted, ISIL controls almost 8000 square miles of territory. It's not possible to control 8000 square miles with 31000 fighters. The US put 30,000 troops into Baghdad alone in the "surge" in 2007 to bring the area under control. 

To deal with it's comparatively low number of fighters, ISIL has been fighting and exerting control in ways that maximize it's effectiveness across multiple fronts. For starters, with the exception of strategic facilities, ISIL is not stopping to fight. Several months ago, it appeared that Baghdad was on the verge of falling like Saigon (in a rather haunting parallel). However, as soon as ISIL fighters began to reach Shia resistance, they seized an oil refinery, then stopped. They were not willing to take territory they would have to fight to take, then fight to hold. Forces very quickly appeared further to the west in Iraq, seizing more towns where there was comparatively little resistance. This is textbook maneuver warfare. Don't worry about your flanks, don't stop to fight, just advance until you can't, then find somewhere else to advance. The way ISIL practices this adds to the lists of places it has "conquered" and increases its ability to instill fear and "shock and awe". Furthermore, in order to reduce the area it must control, ISIL has been largely ignoring sparsely populated areas, instead focusing on major population centers and the supply lines (LOS) and lines of communication (LOC) between them. 

Finally, to effectively control the territory it holds, ISIL is using local militias. This is where the fight gets political. These Sunni militias have felt disenfranchised and persecuted by the central government. While they may dislike ISIL and their interpretation of Islam, they do not feel persecuted simply for being Sunni. In general, Arabs tend to be pragmatic to a fault. In this case, the citizens of northern Iraq simply want to live their lives, with a minimum of bloodshed/violence. They are willing to pick the lesser of two evils, or in this case, the victor of two evils over what they would ideally want. At this point, ISIL looks to be the victor, so the Iraqi's are willing to tolerate/support them for their own sake. As time goes on, they may begin to split from ISIL and break back down into tribal militias, however, that will take several years. Local frustration with Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) caused a similar effect post-US invasion. AQI's violence towards Shia Muslims and marriage of foreign fighters to Iraqi girls (breaking tribal/family structures) eventually cumulated in "the awakening" where the US and the Baghdad government were able to shift Sunni militias over to fight on the government's side. This severely limited the ability of AQI to communicate and maneuver, both of which are critical elements for an insurgency to survive. However, this process will take a long time and cannot be used in the short run, unless it is accelerated by making the government seem more attractive. 

Keeping this in mind, the focus on airstrikes must be eliminated. Targeted strikes must be only a small component of comprehensive strategy to degrade ISIL. At this point, while the group likes to label itself as "the Islamic State" it is still an insurgency and must be fought as such. This means that air strikes alone will not be effective, as the fighters will simply melt away into the population and will gain more recruits in the fight that increasingly becomes anti-west/anti-US. This draws attention away from ISIL's violence and total intolerance all other religions/creeds and reduces the chances of completing the stated objective of degrading ISIL. The strategy of the day must focus on turning the local population against ISIL, and showing that the central government can and will win the fight against ISIL and will stay as a positive influence after ISIL has been driven out.

Unfortunately for the US, the single most important part of this campaign hinges on the ability of the Baghdad government becoming more inclusive. Bombings of civilian areas must stop, completely. Indiscriminate detentions must also be heavily reduced, even if there is an increase in bombings/attacks on civilians. Shia outlaws must also be punished with the same severity as Sunnis. For the newly-formed coalition, the composition of the air campaign must be changed dramatically. The number of humanitarian flights so far has been just enough to make the plight of the Yazidis disappear from CNN. Humanitarian flights should be the primary objective the campaign; most combat flights should be to support these supply drops. The population must know that the US (and the government) is there as support, and should not be seen as an ominous force overhead that occasionally blows up buildings. Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR)  flights must also be increased, and this means drones, and more drones. Heavy use of ISR and and highly targeted strikes is what allowed the US to decimate AQI during the occupation, and ISIL will be just as vulnerable. "Signature" strikes should be done away with, and no bomb should come off an aircraft unless it is known exactly who it is going to blow up. Targets should be limited to ISIL upper-echelon leadership, LOS and LOC interdiction, as well as ISIL militants that are in contact with or moving to engage friendly forces/civilians. Shows of force should be almost regular, simply to enforce a sense of persistence on the local population; as referenced above, the US/Government needs to be seen as a force that will be there even when ISIL is not. 

The current political climate in the US appears to shy away from a counter-insurgency campaign in favor of dropping a few bombs. This aversion to an involved fight will allow ISIL to continue to exist, torment civilian populations and remain a thorn in the US's side. It must be dealt with strongly, but the strength must come from emphasizing an ideology counter to ISILs, not from the size of warheads.

References:

Freedberg Jr., S., & Clark, C. (2014, September 10). ISIS Force Remains Low-Tech: DoD Data. Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/isis-force-remains-low-tech-dod-data/


How ISIS Works. (2014, September 15). Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/16/world/middleeast/how-isis-works.html
Junger, S. (2010). War. New York: Twelve.

McChrystal, S. (2013). My share of the task: A memoir. New York: Portfolio/Penguin.

Mitt Romney: The need for a mighty US military (and my inability to stop making stupid comparisons)

By: a snarky, liberal college student

Mitt Romney continues to make the same stupid comparisons that led to, in my humble opinion, the 3rd best debate retort of all time.




Romney recently wrote an OpEd piece that appeared in the Washington Post arguing for increased military spending, and in a few spots calls for reduced spending on domestic things, like healthcare and benefits. All in all, its a fairly generic, establishment GOP essay. He even raises several valid concerns; the rate at which the PRC is expanding their military forces and the rising tension with Russia. Yet, despite a multitude of of valid reasons to emphasize a need to expand our military, or emphasize it's size, he's back to the same comparisons to the early 20th century, which completely neglect changes in technology and geopolitics. Or real numbers. The actual quote is:

"...the Army is on track to be the size it was in 1940, the Navy to be the size it was in 1917, the Air Force to be smaller than in 1947 and our nuclear arsenal to be no larger than it was under President Harry S. Truman."

Lets break this down and see what we can do with it:

"...the Army is on track to be the size it was in 1940..."

So, looking at this piece, you can tell what the connotations are. Everybody knows that the US was woefully underprepared at the start of WWII, and it was only though hard work and capitalism that we built up our military forces to defeat the Japanese and the Germans. (Little bit of sarcasm here)

I decided to look up just how badly US troop numbers had fallen over time. I found a table of numbers from 1940 to 2011, with some gaps. Let's look at the graph below.

So, for reference, in 1940, the US had ~270,000 active duty in the army. That huge spike is from WWII, and following that there are minor spikes for the Korean and Vietnam wars, followed by returns to normalcy. The end of the cold war saw a reduction of about 33% from ~750,000 active duty to ~500,000 active duty, which has remained fairly constant for the past 2 decades or so. So, as Romney is implying, a cut back to 270,000 active duty would be a major issue and would represent a massive reduction in US military power, if it was happening.
That's right, it's not happening. The best numbers I have found indicate that the Army's target for 2017 troop numbers are ~490,000 active duty, down from about 520,000 at present. So yes, cuts are happening, but they are about in line with the average over the past 20 years. Considering the US military is working to draw down from a decade long war, the defense cuts we are going through are actually fairly minor, when compared to those that followed Vietnam and Korea.

"...the Navy to be the size it was in 1917..."

That would mean that the US Navy had shrunk to the size it was when the Ottoman Empire still existed. For the numbers on this, I'm not going to be making my own graph, since the US Navy actually has a series of wonderfully annotated tables describing force levels on their website. As the Navy charts show, in 1917 the US Navy had 342 total ships with 160 surface combatants. The US Navy presently has 290 active ships (as per USN website), so the factoid is true.

The counter to this point is two-fold. For starters, while the USN only has ~115 surface combatants (less than 1917), there are currently 72 submarines in service, pushing the number of major combatants in service up to 187, about the same as the first year of WWI. Furthermore, there's a bigger point to be made, which is the USN has been this size since 2000. Throughout the entire Bush administration the shipbuilding plans called for under 325 ships in the navy, as per the CRS. This trend has continued, and I doubt it will change. As President Obama very condescendingly put it, the Naval force structure has changed such that there is vastly more capability available than there was throughout even WWII, when US Naval ship numbers peaked.

"...the Air Force to be smaller than in 1947..."

Basically, the Air Force would be smaller than when it was founded. This has also been true for the past 20 years or so. This has come as a result of draw downs at the end of the Cold War, increasing capability (cost) of existing airframes and a larger portion of the defense budget going to C3, ISR and space systems. Even 20 years ago, the US didn't have the ability to keep an ISR asset on a target continuously, but today it can do that for multiple targets in disparate areas of the globe. There are further reductions in maned aircraft planned, which make for good talking points, however, they do not reflect that the nature of conflicts has changed, and in many cases there are other platforms that can complete certain jobs better across a wider range of environments. However, I will grant the Governor this point, although he is a few years late to be making it and it is in the wrong tense.

"...and our nuclear arsenal to be no larger than it was under President Harry S. Truman."

I'm fairly certain this statement comes from a misreading of the New START treaty. New START limits countries to 1550 deployed weapons at any time, with no restriction on number of stockpiled warheads. When Truman left office in 1953, the US had 1,486 nuclear warheads of all types, not just deploy-able ones. Referencing raw numbers also underestimates the destructive power of today's nuclear weapons. The biggest nuclear weapon available in 1953 had a yield of 160 kt, compared to high yields of up to 475 kt today. Accuracy has also vastly improved, from 2000' on a B-29 (nowhere near accurate enough for a counterforce strike) to about 300' for modern ICBMs. This means that while the warhead numbers might be close, compared to the 1950's, the US can put far more destructive power on targets today.

All in all, with the exception of the piece about the Army, the Governor is using easy numbers to make political points. These numbers do not reflect the reality of the situation, but they do sound good, and I'm sure they'll get lots of air time on Fox News and the Sunday talk shows. As always, if anyone has better sources or different information, I'd love to hear it.