Right now, much of our energy seems to be going towards blaming someone (take your pick: Biden, Trump, Bush, etc.) for the current Afghanistan debacle. What we really should be doing (and I am sure that there are people quietly doing this) is figuring out why we, the country known as America, have been in these long, drawn-out wars since the middle of the 1950’s (think Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan). I know that there have been some successes (e.g., the first Gulf War), but we learn more by looking at those which have not been successes.

I think that the bulk of the problems are political. For one thing, Congress has not declared a war since WWII (as called for in the Constitution) but rather ceded responsibility to the executive branch. However, right now I am not going to go down that (well-trodden) path; I want to draw attention to one military aspect.

The actual fighting of wars has become (organizationally) simply a step in a military career. People are rotated in and out in a series of tours; at least one combat tour is essential for an officer’s career. Whether consciously or not, the goal becomes serving one’s time and getting back to normal life. I am sure that nearly everyone in the military is trying to do their assigned duties well and often these are duties that nobody should be asked to endure indefinitely. What I am arguing for is that those responsible for planning and acting at a larger scale should be focused on the task for the duration. For generals and their key staff there should be basically four ways out: victory, death, promotion, or firing.

What are the benefits and what are the risks?

First the benefits.

Clarity. Colin Powell (as I remember) said that we need an “exit strategy”. Heads nodded and that was that. If Generals are in for the duration, they will demand to know just what defines “victory”? They will resist the gradual shifting of the goals that has become so common. Will they always succeed? Probably not, but their resistance may help to concentrate political minds.

Focus. While there will always be conflicting priorities, the command focus will be on getting the job done so they can get home. Distractions will be delegated to someone else, hopefully better equipped to deal with them. The price of failure will be clear.

Expertise. Leaders will have the time to develop a deeper understanding of the peculiar circumstances they are working with. They will have time to gain knowledge of the terrain, the people, and the enemy. This can be used not only in the theater of operations, but also in the preparation of troops before deployment.

Continuity. Strategies and emphasis will not change with each frequent change of command. What is good will have time to succeed, what is bad will have time to fail.

Relationships. These are an outgrowth of continuity. Leaders will have the chance to develop longer term working relationships and even friendship with local leaders and allies.

Now the risks.

Many of these are the inverse of the benefits.

Gaming the system. There will be the temptation to set easily achieved goals which may not be in harmony with our long term aims.

Becoming “too specialized”. Officers are now rewarded for breadth of experience. They may fear that their career will become limited by becoming an expert in this particular war. That they will have real depth of knowledge in cross-service operations, logistics, etc. may be undervalued. This would lead to the “best” officers trying to avoid such assignments.

Lack of fresh ideas. This speaks of itself. Higher leadership will have to be alert to a lack of progress and take appropriate action.

Morale. Long term deployments are hard on families and other relationships. Home leaves can only help so much.

Caesar. The Romans had armies which became loyal to the general leading them, not necessarily loyal to Rome. This is a danger to our system of civilian leadership. It can be mitigated by having the actual troops doing the fighting rotate out of theater as presently done.

Summarization

We have proven that our current system does not work well for anything but short actions. It is time to try something else.