The Best Defense Is a Good Offense (Anthony H. Cordesman)

[Barrett808]

AMERICANS cannot see a tragedy like last week's attack on a military mess tent in Mosul, Iraq, without wondering how it could ever have occurred - and how it can be prevented from ever happening again. Like the furor over improved armor for trucks and Humvees, the attack rouses the instinct to make force protection the immediate priority for United States forces in Iraq. No American wants Americans soldiers to be vulnerable.

These instincts, however, are wrong. The United States can win in Iraq only through offensive action. It cannot afford to make every American base a fortress, or to disperse scarce manpower and other military resources in force-protection missions. United States forces have to be mobile and able to redeploy where the threat is - even though such redeployments often mean moving forces to vulnerable areas. If the Pentagon concentrates on protecting troops in the short run, the war will last longer and total casualties will be greater. Worse, the United States will simply never win.

This is not a pleasant message for military families and the ordinary soldier in the field. Senior commanders understand its importance, but no one who has just been wounded or seen a friend die does. Experience also tells us that incidents of this kind lead to immediate political opportunism: members of Congress grabbing headlines, contractors rushing forward to sell in the guise of helping the troops. It also leads to instant news media trials of commanders for failing to protect our troops. This happened after the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and it gave the attackers a major additional victory.

(more)

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8508

[blindpig]

1. define winning. n/t