Patience for the Long Haul
The New Sort of War Will Not Be Won Quickly

Only some four weeks after the US began to bomb Afghanistan and less than two months after the attacks of September 11, armchair critics are already beginning to criticize the lack of perceived results. One expects criticism from opponents of the US effort to bring down the Taliban and Usama bin Ladin's Al-Qa‘ida network, and from those opposed to war in general or to US policy in particular, but it is rather curious that some commentators who claim to be supportive of the effort to respond to the attacks on New York and Washington are complaining of a lack of results. That seems to expect too much from a very new sort of war, for most wars of any kind have barely begun at such a stage in their history.

To add a bit of perspective, since many have compared the attacks to Pearl Harbor: two months after Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), the British still held Singapore (it fell on February 15, 1942), and the battle of the Philippines was still under way (Corregidor did not fall and the Bataan death march did not begin until May). In other words, the worst was yet to come, and no one was asking why the war was not over yet. Of course, this is not World War II and Afghanistan is not Japan, but this is not Kossovo, either. The overall war against terrorist networks may well have more in common with the Cold War — fought outside the bright light of actual military operations — but the campaign in Afghanistan, which is more conventional, can be judged more conventionally.

Since the US operational plan has not been spelled out specifically, it is difficult to judge whether or not it is succeeding. But the one response which seems singularly out of place is "why is it taking so long?".

Afghanistan is a country the size of Texas with impenetrable mountain fastnesses; finding those who wish to hide there is extremely difficult and is not going to be accomplished with air power alone or, for that matter, with one or two special operations missions.

It may be that the ease with which Western goals were accomplished in Kossovo — perhaps a unique case in which air power alone succeeded — or the lightning speed of the ground war for Kuwait in 1991, make it easy to forget that war is not only an ugly business, but a methodical one. Kuwait was tiny; the Iraqi Army — which had little if any local Kuwaiti support — was forced out in days. Afghanistan is huge, and the Taliban are not without their support base.

Nor is there any shortage of critics who are concerned that military operations are only being conducted on a single front; those who are eager to go after Iraq "next" seem to assume that the war in Afghanistan should be over quickly, and then the Iraqi regime will be easy pickings.

Leaving aside the fact that there is so far no clear evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks of September, what if there were? What approach would the US take? Iraq is already contained by a rigorous sanctions regime, and much of its airspace is patrolled under the northern and southern no-fly zones. The US and Britain regularly bomb radars and other air defense sites. The US has supported the Iraqi opposition in various ways for a decade, seeking to bring about an internal revolt against Saddam Hussein. What else, precisely, can the US do, short of a major ground invasion? And a major ground invasion would require hundreds of thousands of troops and the cooperation of Saudi Arabia and/or Turkey, probably both, and both are on record against an attack on Iraq. As the Greeks said, with a lever big enough and a place to stand, you can move the world: the US military may have a big enough lever, but it needs a place to stand. If Saddam Hussein could be brought down with bombing, he would have fallen in January 1991. Clearly the US has decided that whether or not a confrontation with Iraq is inevitable, it is not the first priority, and cannot be readily accomplished at this time.

The critics of the campaign in Afghanistan may be the victims of a post-Desert Storm, post-Kossovo notion that wars can be won quickly (and even more mistakenly, cleanly). The US shows little sign of being drawn into the type of Afghan quagmire which ensnarled Britain in the 19th century and the Soviet Union in the 20th, but that does not mean that it can accomplish its goals with speed or ease. It may also be that, with the World War II generation passing from the scene, the concept of a protracted war that lasts for years and marshals all the resources of a nation to fight it is a strange one for many; the "video-game" type of war fought over Kossovo is more familiar and is what is expected in every case. The long war most middle-aged Americans remember was Vietnam, America's longest war and the only one it clearly lost; the psychological repercussions are fairly obvious.

In every war, there will be criticism by armchair strategists and weekend generals; and of course protests by those opposed to all war, or this war, or any US war. That is part of what Clausewitz called the "friction" of war, the force that slows down and distorts the most carefully crafted plan. Friction is the subject of this issue's Dossier, the fourth in our series on "What Kind of War?". Friction is inevitable, but what is most curious is that the criticism, as noted, is not just coming from the usual suspects who are critics of US policy; it is also coming from critics on the right who seem frustrated that the war is not yet over. As noted earlier, what does one really expect? So far only one ground special forces operation has even been publicly acknowledged, and an air war is certainly not going to be enough to topple the Taliban by itself, let alone catch Usama bin Ladin. And Afghanistan is only one front of a broader effort. Clearly, patience for the long haul is needed. Whether one approves or disapproves of the particular tactics employed, any attempt to accomplish what the US has stated to be its objectives will take a very long time. The Taliban regime could collapse tomorrow, but it could also survive in the gorges of Afghanistan for years to come. Al-Qa‘ida is, by its nature, a cell-based loose confederation, and it may survive even if many of its hydra heads are cut off, even if Usama bin Ladin himself is eliminated. Al-Qa‘ida after all means "base" or "headquarters"; it is a coordinating body. It will not be eliminated if every square foot of Afghanistan is pacified.

Whatever one may think of the war, or of the utility or wisdom of specific tactics — whether or not to pursue the war during Ramadan, for example — not only the US and its allies but its adversaries as well need to understand that the war is not going to be over soon. It may transform itself from a military campaign to a police one, or an economic one such as is already being waged. But it will not end quickly, and it might be wisest for those shaping opinion to make that point again and again, as they have already made it several times.

It has become fashionable of late to quote Winston Churchill's soaring rhetoric after the fall of France and in those days when Britain stood alone in 1940 and 1941; it may be more appropriate to recall his quote from November of 1942, as the war began to turn: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." For the US war on terrorism, it is barely even the beginning of the beginning.

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