Afghanistan and the American Revolution
Posted by:
Brian Schoeneman
()
Date: May 25, 2011 01:59PM
There are times when I feel as if our enemies remember our own history better than we do. Lately, there has been a loud chorus from both sides of the aisle to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Some of this is partisanship, some of it is simply anti-war nonsense, but I feel that a lot of it is just fatigue. America wrote the book on how to defeat a global superpower by tiring them out. We shouldn’t allow that to happen to us.
With my son’s birthday falling on the same day as Pickett’s Charge and Washington’s taking command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts – and it being one day prior to Independence Day – I’ve found myself reading a lot of history, particularly of the American Revolution. While many claim (erroneously) that Afghanistan is America’s longest war (we fought the Sioux for 36 years, and Vietnam arguably lasted 13, from 1961 – 1973), up until the latter half of the twentieth century, one of our longest wars was the Revolutionary War (lasting from 1775 to 1784 when the Treaty of Paris went into effect).
The Revolution was a turning point in western history. Never before had a colony declared independence from its home country successfully. Never before had a monarchy been replaced by a republican form of government. And never before had a world superpower been defeated by such a relatively weak opponent. How did they do it? Washington and our forefathers adopted an age old strategy first introduced by the Romans in the Second Punic War. Military historians call it the Fabian strategy. For those of us who aren’t channeling Edward Gibbons, the Fabian strategy can be summed up simply: win by not losing.
Washington rarely faced the British on their terms in a set piece battle like Waterloo or Austerlitz. He never gave the British the opportunity to destroy his army. He attacked where he could, retreated when necessary, ignored British capture of major cities like New York and Philadelphia, and recognized that as long as he had an army in the field, the war would continue. And the longer he kept that army in the field, the more likely he would be victorious. And he was. It took 9 years, but we prevailed and the United States won its independence from the world’s greatest military power. The longer the war dragged on, the more unpopular it became in Great Britain and the more hard pressed George III was to continue it.
Lee used the same strategy after Gettysburg, doing his best to maintain his army in the field, and was able to prolong the Civil War for another 2 years. While he was unsuccessful, had the South been able to sustain his army in the field, American history may have turned out far different.
So what does this have to do with Afghanistan? Simple – the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies in Afghanistan seem to remember our own history better than we do.
The best and most effective way of defeating a world power is to tire them out. The Afghans know this – they learned it against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. They know it because they know that it worked against us in Vietnam. And they know it because we used it against Britain in 18th century. Force the larger power to expend resources, maintain its army in the field, never give them a decisive victory, and wait for their internal political forces to bring the war to an end, regardless of the cost or the potential for victory. It’s a time proven strategy, and those who are agitating for an end to the war in Afghanistan are playing right into it.
Whether it’s Ron Paul, Joe Scarborough, Michael Steele or the legions of Democrats who don’t seem to recall President Obama’s statements about Afghanistan being the real war that President Bush ignored in favor of Iraq, all of the folks who are being hypercritical of the President, our Afghanistan strategy and demanding we end the war in Afghanistan now are simply playing into the hands of our enemies. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are counting on us getting worn out, tired of spending our time and resources there, and are prepared to simply wait until we decide to leave before working directly to topple the Karzai government.
It’s a great strategy. Why try and fight the most powerful army the world has ever seen on their terms? Isn’t easier to just let the American politicians and talking heads win the war for you? Of course it is. Why defeat the Americans on the battlefield when their own politicians and reporters will do it for you over the airwaves? Why not let them convince the American people and their leaders that the war isn’t worth it, we’re wasting our time and we should just head home? Let them obscure the reasons why the war began. Let them act like victory is impossible. Let them play politics with war. A victory is a victory, regardless of how it is won. And if we give up, that’s a clear-cut victory for the enemies of America. They know it, and they’re right.
If we, the American people, lose our resolve and let these short-sighted and even shorter-memoried talking heads and politicians compel the President to end this war before we’ve achieved a complete victory we’ll be handing a complete victory to our enemies. An American victory will only be achieved when we have nullified Al Qaeda in the region (including in Pakistan), nullified the Taliban as a political and military force and enabled a self-sufficient and self-governing Afghanistan to emerge – in whatever form it takes. I am confident that General Petraeus will be successful, and I am hopefully optimistic that President Obama recognizes, as his predecessor did, that this war is too important to let politics interfere.
Politicians have never won a war, but they have lost quite a few. We can’t afford to let Afghanistan become one of the latter. If Afghanistan becomes a failed state, we’ll be back in the same position we were pre-9/11, with Afghanistan being a haven for terrorists of a variety of flavors, including Al Qaeda. We can’t afford to let that happen.
While I am often critical of the Obama Administration, this is one area where I support it – we must achieve victory in Afghanistan. The price of failure is too high. Let’s remember our history and not allow lessons we taught the world to be retaught to us.