By Robert Dujarric
What implications will the war on the Islamic State have for U.S. power in the Asia-Pacific?
U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken urbi et orbi, to American citizens and the world, about fighting the Islamic State (IS). To his credit he did not promise a cakewalk. Some of his rhetoric, such as looking forward to when “those who offer only hate and destruction have been vanquished from the Earth” bears no connection with reality. But, like “God bless America,” it is part of the incantations Americans, unlike Europeans, need to hear.
Obama’s speech did not go into details. This was unavoidable. It would be unwise to let the enemy know what are America’s strategy and operational plans (strategy, as Clausewitz reminds us, should not be confused with policy).
Obama made it clear that the U.S. will not send massive ground forces to Mesopotamia. Given the failure of the American expeditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, a President John McCain or a President Mitt Romney would have made the same decision. American voters don’t want to fly large legions to Iraq. The lessons of the recent past are that it would anyhow not bring about success unless the U.S. brought back conscription to station millions of soldiers and Marines for a century or two.
The U.S. will limit itself to airpower, intelligence, equipment, money and diplomacy. But, with the exception of U.S. special forces, air force targeting personnel, and advisers, the “boots on the ground,” will be neither American nor from close allies (NATO, Australia, Japan and the ROK are not providing army divisions to fight this war). But if IS is defeated, what happens will be decided by the armies and militia that will occupy it. Humans are land mammals. They can be influenced by airpower and naval action but in the end soldiers and policemen decide what happens in human communities.
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