A losing cause.

• Author: Clark, Ray Kenneth
• Position: American Thought - Essay

IN APPROXIMATELY three years, the U.S. and its allies won World War II, attaining total victory over Japan and Germany's military might. Except for beating back the Iraqi forces in Kuwait in 1991, we have won nothing since. While fighting in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we expended massive treasure and spent thousands upon thousands of precious lives. We fought three years in Korea. Then it was 10 years in Vietnam, almost a decade in Iraq, and now another 10 years-plus in Afghanistan. The U.S. is the strongest country in the world. Why have we not seen clear and decisive victories?

Let us be clear about the American military: it unquestionably is the finest and strongest in the world, and has been since WWII. Might is not the problem. However, where do we send our forces? What situations do we put them in? What goals do we set for them? Once engaged with an enemy, do we, as a country, facilitate their ability to perform and achieve victory, or do we somehow prohibit them from winning?

The U.S. military is under civilian leadership and control, which is as it should be. Civilian leadership determines whether, when, and where combat forces are committed. To be sure, the military is involved in deciding location and timing once the decision to fight has been made. Once that decision is in place, the politicians need to step aside and retreat to a position of oversight. That is not happening to the degree it should. Civilians restrict where and how our forces can move. They then go about pushing generals out of the way and severely limiting combat effectiveness by interfering with or preventing certain tactics--all the way down to the small unit combat level.

It began in Korea when Gen. Douglas MacArthur wanted to destroy the bridges over the Yalu River to prevent a massive move of Chinese Communist troops into South Korea. He was denied permission, ostensibly because doing so might provoke Communist China. Shortly afterward, hundreds of thousands of Communist troops poured across those bridges, inflicting thousands of casualties on U.S. and South Korean forces.

That was the first of the Washington directives that said, in effect, "You go in there and fight, but only according to the rules we give you." Thus began the U.S.'s timid approach to war. Such thinking was elevated to an art form in Vietnam and is prevalent today.

There are problems with those types of policies. The first has to do with how, where, and why American combat...