Dakota Beacon

When enemy action kills our troops it is unfortunate.

            When political dalliance and indecisiveness kills our soldiers it is inexcusable bordering on criminal.

            Political decision making as the final arbiter of military strategy is the incongruent bane and glory of democracy. This is America’s historical experience, but even more so in the last century.

            KOREA

            The Korean war provides the classic example of unpreparedness produced by political dithering. It began when seven North Korean infantry divisions and an armored brigade, about 90,000 thousand men, poured south across the 38th parallel. Within the first 100 hours Seoul, the capitol of South Korea, fell and the South Korean Army was destroyed.

            In spite of the Cold War danger signs, America demobilized its military rapidly after World War II. So radical was the drawdown that only two infantry companies from the entire Pacific Theater could be mustered. They were thrown into the fray in the face of the North Korean onslaught to fight a delaying action. Only the company commanders and first sergeants of each company survived.

            The war dragged on from June 25, 1950 until July 27, 1953. Hostilities ended between North and South with only a ceasefire agreement, no armistice or treaty. North Korea declared that ceasefire void on May 27, 2009, with the conduct of its second underground nuclear test.

            Every major mistake in Korea, the unpreparedness in the face of a known threat, the eventual intervention of Red China leading to the firing of General Douglas MacArthur and the eventual rise of a nuclear North Korea all resulted from political decisions. Politics cost the United States 33,600 lives in the Korean War.

            VIETNAM

            The embarrassment of Vietnam culminated with a hodgepodge of political piecemeal commitments known as containment. The strategy of limited response and “pacification” was a political decision that protracted the war from September 1959 to April 1975.

            The political decision of containment rather than a strategy to win typified the Vietnam War. Political involvement reached absurd levels with President Johnson planning bombing raids from the basement of the White House. He played with the lives of soldiers rather than allow the field commanders to finish the job quickly and cleanly.

            Congress was not exempt from political interference. Most onerous was the Cash-Church Amendment which prohibited direct military involvement after 1973. As a consequence, Vietnam fell in 1975 at the cost of over 58,000 U.S. dead.

            FIRST GULF WAR

            The Gulf War exhibited one of the finest hours of military professionalism. Within one hundred hours of the attack the entire Iraqi military was in shambles and the elite Republican Guards were crushed. Yet, General Norman Schwarzkopf, instead of attacking west to Baghdad to finish the job militarily, was told to halt his advance. That was a political decision. History might have unfolded differently had he been allowed to proceed to capture Baghdad and Saddam Hussein. There may have never been a need for a Second Gulf War in Iraq.

            AFGHANISTAN

            Six decades after the Korean War the American political elite have learned little from our collective experience. President Obama’s hand-picked commander on the ground, General Stan McChrystal, submitted a request for what he believes it will take to succeed in Afghanistan. That was six weeks ago. His call for resources remains unfulfilled while the American death toll in Afghanistan climbs to the highest level of the war and America’s enemies at home and abroad take heart.

            For all Obama’s eloquence, he is indecisive. Has no set strategy, yet he demurs on General McChrystal’s recommendations. Victory, he told the nation recently on national TV in an allusion to the surrender of Japan, is not something with which he is comfortable. The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is rapidly devolving into a protracted conflict by political fiat.

            Today’s military is a highly professional and all volunteer force, a tribute to our young people, their leaders and their training. How foolish for the political elite to abuse this precious resource by ignoring good military strategy as laid out by General McChrystal in favor of political dithering.

            Either the president should show confidence in his handpicked field commander and accept McChrystal’s recommendations, or pull the troops out. Let the national security chips fall where they may.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).