The Korean War ended in an armistice; technically we are still at war with North Korea. Like France and its defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, facing the North Vietnamese Army and its Viet Cong surrogates, the United States simply could not sustain a lingering war in Vietnam. We claimed victory in Iraq after deposing Sadem Husein, but today, that nation is squarely in the Iranian camp, telling the United States to stop operating within its borders. In our longest war, we pushed the Taliban out of Afghanistan only to lose decades later to… er… the Taliban. We simply do not seem able to win asymmetric wars of attrition against passional local zealots… or “patriots” if you ask them.
The primary reasons for our litany of failures, that Israel is facing right now, is a combination of the “nothing left to lose” “insurgents” driven by passion and faith against our willingness to sustain a very long military commitment for distant wars from vastly different cultural settings. Locals usually know the terrain far better than do we, often place a very different premium on human life itself (some believe they will be rewarded in heaven for dying in support of their cause) and have local/cultural/religious roots that may be centuries in the making. We are seen as colonial invaders who are seeking local control in areas where regional residents’ goals are seldom well served.
Where we have interfered, it is often to preserve regional influence, protect valuable natural resources (usually oil), and often to protect regional repressive regimes against other regional repressive regimes. Fear of ideological encirclement – like our former anti-communist fear of nations falling like “dominoes” to radical left wing, anti-Western despots. We have a massive military, which may fare better when matched to other comparable militaries, often in the form of mutually assured destruction. But when it comes to battling insurgents, bombing those forces into the ground has seldom worked. Loathe to deploy our own troops on the ground, we tend to deploy strategies that are dependent on military aircraft, missiles, drones and artillery without much in the way of boots on the ground. We’ve been in the region a very long time.
Ally Israel has swatted more than a few wasps’ nests of late where the United States (and some of our western allies) are viewed by many regional (and even international) powers as puppet-masters pulling Israeli strings. Even as this is hardly the case, Israel’s dependence on US military aid and our deployment of two of our seven numbered naval task forces in the region speaks otherwise. Holding Iran at arm’s length (sort of) and focusing mainly on her surrogate terrorist organizations in the region has placed the primary burden on those fleets. Case in point: the extended use of naval task forces built around our nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The US and her European partners have recently focused on a section of Yemen (bordering the Red Sea access to the Suez Canal) controlled by Shiite militia, Iranian surrogates, who have been targeting ocean freight traffic heading to the Mediterranean with missiles and drones. We seem to have very limited options if we must use US military force directly.
Indeed, as long as the Gaza conflict remains violent and unresolved, the stress and strain on those US carrier fleets is mounting by the day. Writing for Time Magazine February 12th, Gil BarndollarLuke Cocchi describes what he calls The U.S. Navy Is Sinking in Middle East Sand: “The U.S. has a range of options for dealing with Yemen’s Houthis, none of them good. But a long campaign of naval strikes and interception against them, as is now being floated by the Biden Administration and outside experts , is certainly the worst response of all. That’s because it means the U.S. Navy continuing to sink into Middle East sand for an unachievable goal all while losing ground in the far-more important Pacific.
“Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping have summoned Tomahawk cruise missiles and Top Gun pilots from the deck of the USS Eisenhower. The newly-renamed Operation Poseidon Archer is just two weeks old, and the Biden Administration is already drawing up plans for a longer effort, despite admitting that defeating the Houthis is not viable. There is a risk of escalation in the Middle East, especially with the death of three U.S. soldiers after a drone strike in Jordan. But the effects on the U.S. Navy will be predictable, because they have all happened before: overworked ships and sailors, expenditure of precious precision munitions, and a continued punt on the pivot to the Pacific…
“Because of this relentless demand, carriers often have their deployments extended or are ‘double-pumped,’ conducting back-to-back deployments without a major maintenance period in between. The last three carriers deployed in the Mediterranean were all extended: the USS Gerald R. Ford was at sea for 239 days, the USS Harry S. Truman for 285, and the USS George H. W. Bush for 257. This overwork has consequences. After the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower did two sets of double pumps, its subsequent 14-month maintenance period ballooned to 23 months because of wear and tear…
“The future looks grim for the overworked fleet. Like the rest of the U.S. military, the Navy is facing an unprecedented recruiting crisis , fueled in part by fatigue from time away from home during extended deployments. In an all-volunteer force, sailors will vote with their feet. A shrinking fleet is the likely outcome, regardless of how many warships America has.
“The most immediate danger of overstretch, though, is munitions not manpower. The opening Jan. 12 strike on the Houthis expended 80 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, more than half the missile’s annual production . In the near term, expending hundreds of these missiles in a tertiary operation like Prosperity Guardian could have major impacts in a far more important theater in the Pacific. Precision strike missiles like the Tomahawk are vital to the U.S. military’s ability to deter, and if necessary, defeat a Chinese attack in the Pacific—a contingency where the Navy will be carrying most of the fight, unlike in America’s Middle East wars. The U.S. may already lack sufficient precision munitions for a shooting war with China. The Navy’s newest Middle East operation adds further risk to the service’s most essential mission.”
As our capital ships continue to be severely taxed, as our local shipbuilding is in decline, China, although suffering significant economic strife across the board, is still focused on expanding an all-purpose navy plus a massive global commercial fleet: “‘The scale [of China’s shipbuilding] is just almost hard to fathom,’ said Thomas Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security whose research focuses on maritime competition. ‘The degree to which it dwarfs American shipbuilding is just unbelievable.’” WSJ, February 13th.
“On September 10, 2001, the U.S. was the unchallenged global superpower, with naval preeminence as the bedrock of American military dominance. The U.S. Navy outgunned China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) by more than 100 warships . China had no aircraft carriers and just 21 diesel submarines … Some 20 years later, America’s sailors look out at a different world. PLAN is now the world’s largest navy (though the U.S. Navy still boasts more tonnage). China’s third aircraft carrier, Fujian , is nearing its sea trials . In the time since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, PLAN has commissioned 313 ships . Recent wargames suggest the U.S. Navy would struggle mightily to defeat a Chinese fleet that was an afterthought just two decades ago.” WSJ, February 12th.
If this limited Middle Eastern military operation is draining our resources at an alarming rate, pulling our main strike force fleets away from China’s regional claims to neighboring seas, how much more would it take to neutralize US effectiveness in a larger confrontation? That a relatively small rebel contingent can tie up major US military forces in an indefinite struggle should tell us that what were are doing, what we have been doing for a long time, just might not be the wisest approach. Particularly when you realize that taking out a single major US aircraft carrier, carrying 4-5,000 sailors and airmen with 70 to 90 of the most expensive missile-and bomb laden aircraft imaginable, would be a casualty and mega-billion-dollar catastrophe. Are we fighting new asymmetrical wars with outdated mega-weapons? Can we do both?
I’m Peter Dekom, and while we have the most powerful naval and air strike capacity ever assembled – for now – is our military capacity able to deal with long, withering regional conflicts any better than well-supplied local insurrectionists?
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