Joshua Treviño

I have already expressed my pessimism on the prospects for a “surge” in Iraq. Unfortunately, the President’s address this evening has done nothing to dispel those doubts — and even done a bit to deepen them. The beginning and the end of the surge’s probability of success lays in its numbers, and the President’s numbers are too low. The expected range of additional forces for the surge was 20,000 to 50,000 — and the President has announced that he has “committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq.” So the surge is on the low end of expectations, when even the high end was not enough. Though we do not fully know which units will provide the additional soldiers (a brigade from the 82nd Airborne will deploy, at the least), it is important to note that of those numbers, only a minority will be engaged in active combat and/or engagement with Iraqis. This is simply a function of modern war and its logistical demands: the point is that a surge of c.20,000 means perhaps 5,000-8,000 more with rifles on patrol.

How many soldiers are necessary to secure Iraq? One of the many tragedies of this war is that General Eric Shinseki was essentially correct: “something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” was and is what is needed to run an effective occupation — and by extension, quell an insurgency. (On a related note, we should not forget the disgraceful calumnies hurled against Shinseki for his failure to support the Administration line on needed force levels in Iraq. “Ric was right” indeed.) History never offers exact parallels, but it does have useful lessons. In assessing manning needs for Iraq, one would do well to look to prior conflicts of similar nature. One might look to Algeria, where the Morice Line offers an instructive example of just how a hostile border can and should be sealed; and one might look especially to the Boer War, in which a fractious, semi-fanatical culture was slowly ground into submission by an occupying force — several years after the seeming success of the initial invasion. If it sounds familiar, it should: and so the means of victory there offer an instructive thought experiment for Iraq today.

Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals. The men who remained were hindered in their movements by the wire stretching from blockhouse to blockhouse (a phenomenon that the Morice Line experience has shown would be massively more effective now); they could either surrender or die. Absent women and children, the rules of engagement were lax. From implementation to victory took under 18 months. To accomplish this required over one-quarter million soldiers.

Consider the Boer-era strategy for victory as it might apply in Iraq. Consider it because in doing so, one considers the course of action that arguably maximizes efficacy per soldier, thereby yielding a plausible figure for needed soldiery. According to the CIA World Factbook, Iraq’s land area is 432,162 sq km. For the purpose of estimation, let’s say that about half of this is not howling wilderness. (It’s probably much less than that.) The necessary garrisons would therefore need to cover 216,081 sq km of inhabited territory — again, probably less without any need to occupy Kurdish, Assyrian, and some Shi’a territory. The purpose of these garrisons would be, first, to monitor and repair the wires stretching from blockhouse to blockhouse. (A detected breach in the wires would, of course, bring a reaction from separate Quick Reaction Forces, which would bomb and/or flood the area to kill the presumed insurgents. The secondary task of these posts would be to conduct limited civil affairs work and intelligence-gathering with whatever local population was not resettled into camps. Finally, they would train and monitor the attached Iraqi forces. The Boer War-era blockhouses were in visual contact with one another; this would not be necessary today, so let’s assume a need for one small garrison per each 20 sq km. That’s roughly 11,000 garrisons. Say there’s a small platoon of c.30 Americans plus a larger number of Iraqis per post, and one arrives at a figure of c.330,000 Americans. We can reduce the number by perhaps a third given our prior overestimation, leaving us with a figure of c.220,000. Adding in the QRFs, the logistical and support personnel, and the personnel necessary to administer the resettlement camps — which would only be open to women and children — and you’re talking about c.300,000 Americans necessary to make Iraq quiescent. This is, in fact, comparable to the 250,000-300,000 British Empire soldiers needed to bring the Boer republics to heel.

By contrast, the President this evening proposed increasing the American force in Iraq to approximately 160,000.

What was good about the President’s speech? He remains committed to victory. Whether he will achieve it or not is a separate matter; the mere fact that he seeks it sets him on a moral plane above the mass of the American left that thinks defeat a wholly palatable option. These men reject the rhetoric of a “surge,” preferring instead “escalation,” apparently on the premise that fighting harder is somehow discrediting and bad. This is to be expected from that corner, of whom no more need be said here. The President also spoke openly of what has been obvious to observers of this war for years: that Iran and Syria are actively engaged on the battlefield against us. One wishes he had been this forthright when United States Marines were grappling with Iranian jihadis in Najaf in April 2004, but better late than never. The warning to these enemy states — coupled with the odd and portentous mention of Patriot batteries and a carrier battle group — is a step in the right direction. This war is bigger than Iraq: and it may have to get bigger still before it is won.

That is, if it is won. What was bad about the President’s speech overshadows what was good. A desire to win is small consolation without the means to win, and those means were not announced tonight. The assurances that clear and hold operations will now work demand more proof than we have hitherto seen. The focus on Baghdad does not suffice for an entire nation that cries out for American attention; and the extra four thousand Americans for Anbar province are a risibly small force set against the demands of that bloody expanse. Iraq demands a hammer, and we offer an awl. Perhaps that is all America can give now, with its leadership divided between one faction that seeks a certain defeat, and another that seeks an uncertain victory.

UPDATE: Lots of comment elsewhere on this piece, most of it based upon the understanding that I propose Nazi-style concentration camps and indiscriminate killing as the solution for Iraq. There’s little to be done for the reading comprehension of the online left: to quote a colleague, “There can be no rational discourse with people who claim to own reality.” For all others, suffice it to say that genocide and murder are the last items on any sane wartime agenda. The point of the excursion into the Boer War example is not to make a policy prescription, but to conduct a thought-experiment to demonstrate the insufficiency of the President’s “surge,” even under conditions maximizing military efficacy. This is explicitly stated in the essay — fourth paragraph, second sentence — but it’s no surprise to see that rather important point ignored by the fulminating left. They are not, in fact, sincerely outraged or offended by this illusory call to genocide, murder, indiscriminate killing, etc., so much as they are excited to participate in ephemeral points-scoring against the right. The latter is central to their public self-concept, whereas the former would lead, uncomfortably for them, into inexorable and implacable opposition to the genocide-minded murderers and indiscriminate killers whom we fight in Iraq.

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