Why the campaign against Islamic State is doomed

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/why-the-campaign-against-islamic-state-is-doomed-20141013-1154pa.html



Why the campaign against Islamic State is doomed
Hugh White
October 14, 2014

Tony Abbott hopes for a good, quick, cheap war in Iraq. But after the first few weeks of bombing everyone now understands that western air strikes alone will do little to "degrade and destroy" the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. They will only be defeated on the ground. That will require very large land forces, committed for a very long time, and accepting heavy casualties.

Most of those forces are supposed to come from the Iraqi Army and "moderate" factions in Syria's civil war, both of which have already been soundly beaten by IS. The hope is that weapons, training and advice from the US-led coalition will transform them into crack troops who can turn the tables on IS and win the war for us.

This is not a new idea. For half a century America and its allies have been trying to win messy civil wars without fighting themselves and by training and equipping one side or the other. It never works. We need only recall Afghanistan, where we have just spent many billions of dollars and quite a few lives over almost a decade, trying and failing to create effective, pro-western security forces that could beat the Taliban. Or Iraq, where an equally massive effort produced the Iraqi Army, whose dismal performance allowed IS to seize so much of Iraq in the first place. Or Vietnam.

There are deep reasons for these failures. Making good soldiers is a very complex business. A few days "instruction" by a foreigner who doesn't even speak their language does not do it. As IS itself shows, civil wars are not won by better weapons or technical skills, but by stronger motivation and morale. Foreign advisers cannot supply that.

[DetlefK]

1. Here's some suggestions for "ungentlemanly warfare":

ISIS is expanding right now, which means they have a high ratio of troops to controlled area. They can't keep going forever. Sooner or later they will reach a limit where they will be forced to relocate their troops: From a dispersed force with a smooth expansion to localized military-bases. (For example, fortresses in medieval times were not for garrisoning armies, they were for showing off who's the boss.)

And that's when they will be vulnerable.

In the mean-time, here's a few suggestions:

- cut their internet-access

- cut their telephone-lines

- destroy everything that looks related to oil or gas or electricity

- give the Kurds some RPGs

- drop leaflets with the fatwa that declared ISIS heretics


And, if someone wants to go into secret-intelligence territory:

- send in ethnic arabic spies to locate their HQs

- have captured ISIS-fighters publicly executed by women

- A coordinated PR-campaign by all of the Arabic League. And I do mean all of it. Flood the media:
1. From now on, when referring to ISIS, it has to be mentioned that they are heretics. They think that they are the only followers of the "real" Islam. That's their spiritual root. If we can break that, ISIS will run out of recruits.
2. Paint them as thieves and slavers: Rather than depicting them as an army, depict them as a gang of roving thugs. That's their second spiritual root: They are mimicking the caliphate of medieval times, which means they are noble warriors of a golden past. If we can break that image, ISIS will run out of sympathizers.