If we step back and look at the post WW II period, we literally had hundreds of wars. This is not including the terrorist or insurgency campaigns. At this time, we have the Iraq pustule and some half forgotten ones in Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast merrily burning along, although Iraq gets most of our attention. Right now, the foreign governments in Iraq are talking about how to extricate themselves from that absolute mess. Can a quick review of the past six odd decades tell us or give us some indications on the best way to end this situation tidily?
Back in the dim and distant past, when I used to debate enthusiastically rather than the current frustrated situation when I just go “yes dear” and nod, I heard a quote by Lord Samuel Mancroft, “a speech is like a love affair, any fool can start one but it takes considerable skill to end it tidily”. Strangely enough, wars are like this as well, any idiot can start one but it takes considerable skill to end it tidily and come out of it with all loose ends tied. But what does it mean to say “ending it tidily”? There are very many factors in this answer but they can all be sorted nicely into two major categories, fulfilment of objectives and the cost (men, money and materials). Naturally there are other factors as well in addition to these two, such as the image of the country, psychological damage or change, change in the national mood which are all intangible factors. The final factor comes from the law of unintended consequences and whether these unintended consequences were first taken into consideration and then managed or not. So, a tidy war would be a war which has achieved its objectives at a bearable or minimal cost. I have to admit that this judgement is a subjective one, and despite my quantitative and empirical bias, I will warn my gentle readers that this is just my personal opinion and there are quite a lot of other interpretations available out there.
So which wars would be “tidy” out of the hundreds of conflicts since WW II? Off the top of my head, I would say that there are comparatively a lesser number of good wars compared to “bad” wars or wars which didn’t end tidily. In fact, all wars are “bad”, but amongst some of the tidy ones, I can think of the 2002 British intervention in Sierra Leone, the Falklands War of 1982, 1967 Arab Israeli War, the 1990 Gulf War I and the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. I am sure others can come up with other “good wars”, but these wars ended tidily. It should be born in mind that like beauty, tidiness is in the eye of the beholder, hence please make allowance for that factor. But before we see why these wars were tidy little wars, we have to see the untidy ones.
Well, where do I start? Starting from the Korean War to the Malaya Campaign, to the various interminable civil wars in Asia and Africa, the Indo Pakistani wars (with the war of 1971 exception), the Iran-Iraq War, the small spats in Central and Latin America, the Arab-Israeli wars (with the potential exception of the 1967 war), all have been a right mess. As somebody said, “viewed over the long term, wars are not fought to see who wins, but who remains standing at the end”. As a way of solving problems, it is a spectacularly stupid way, and as Churchill said, “it is better to jaw-jaw than war-war”. That said, humans are violent, and despite the best efforts of all the religious leaders, humanists, non-violence preachers and the United Nations, wars will keep on happening. Because it is so spectacularly stupid, it is not surprising that most of the wars do not end up resolving the issue and both sides end up looking foolish with egg on their faces. We all know about why we call these wars as untidy. I reiterate, it depends upon where you are standing as to the level of untidiness. When the initial objectives are not achieved, the war escalates, the cost is too high, etc, and it can be called as untidy.
Take the current Iraq War, the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 1982 and Pakistan’s 1999 Kargil war. The objective in each case was pretty clear. For the Iraq War, the short term objective was to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction, while the longer term objective was to protect the oil/gas energy sources for USA, promote democracy, increase living standards, give everybody apple pie etc. The Israeli Lebanese war was driven by a desire to provide a buffer zone between the PLO and Israel. The Kargil war was driven by Generalissimo President Pervez Musharraf’s desire to avenge the Siachen imbroglio, to bleed India, to cut off the Dras Kargil road, to raise international attention, etc.
In each of these cases, while some of the objectives have been met, such as removal of Saddam Hussein, or initial few months of peace in Lebanon with a buffer zone or interdicting the Dras Kargil road, these wars were untidy. In the latter two cases, both the aggressor parties were forced to withdraw. USA is going to withdraw as well in the near future and it will not be seen as a withdrawal but as a defeat. Each of these untidy wars created huge problems internally as well as externally to the countries.
In Iraq, although it is far too early to say, a well stated humanitarian and moral objective (to get rid of a tyrant and remove mass murderers) has been achieved, but the morality and humanitarian basis has long vanished, because of the mismanagement, bad planning and the sheer human and economic cost of this war. The Israeli’s and Pakistani’s did the same, achieved the short term objective, but lost the long term objective thereby are seen as defeated.
But enough of moaning about the untidy ones, let us go back to the tidy ones. We gave some examples of wars, which were tidy and some immediate lessons jump out. The first lesson is that the entry and exit criteria are very clearly defined. In other words, the objectives are clearly defined and the rationale / plan to stop hostilities are also well defined. Whether it be Falklands or Bangladesh, the objective was to liberate a country and the country was exited smartly after the liberation was achieved. More importantly, a vacuum wasn’t left behind and after a minimal period a civilian authority (which was recognised by the local population) took control. The armed forces came out smelling of roses. Costs were bearable, there were not too many casualties (both civilian and military), the equipment needed and used was available, intelligence was good, the local population supported the war and were involved. Another factor which is important is to ask if the relevant people were proud of that war. As we have seen in these cases, they have been defining moments, moments to be proud of and this passes into national history as a “high” point. Nobody likes a failure.
What lessons need we draw for Afghanistan and Iraq? We have already talked about this before (http://piquancy.blogspot.com/2004/09/vietnam-groundhog-day.html), but it is worth reiterating some of the things that they can still do. I still find it amazing that despite seeing what NATO and the Americans have done in Afghanistan, they cannot replicate that same success in Iraq. Troops are less than what are required; policing is minimalist; frontiers are not guarded; rebel strongholds are attacked; cleared of insurgents; and then the strongholds are abandoned back to the rebels; corruption is rife and the judicial system is in tatters, etc. etc. Yes, it is a big job and yes, expectations are high, but frankly what else did the Americans expect? That they will waltz in, chuck out Saddam Hussein, and waltz right back out with roses being chucked at their feet by weeping grateful women? I think they did and I am afraid post war planning and execution is a horrendous shambles.
One thing which people have to recognise while taking about tidiness is that both parties should recognise that the war was tidy. After USA/UK withdraw from Iraq, they may claim to have had a tidy war, but I am afraid, going by the current trends, it will not be considered tidy at all, not from a long shot. As a matter of fact, the UK withdrawal will be far tidier than the US withdrawal. But enough of moaning, they can still try to retrieve the situation from ending up as a total loss, and believe you me, withdrawing the troops is not going to make the situation tidier. They just have to grit their teeth and carry on till things settle down. All this talk about wars and tidiness made me remember a very sarcastic quote by Barbara Ehrenreich, a columnist for the Guardian. She wrote it when the Somalian crisis was in full flow, "When the Somalians were merely another hungry third world people, we sent them guns. Now that they are falling down dead from starvation, we send them troops. Some may see in this a tidy metaphor for the entire relationship between north and south. But it would make a whole lot more sense nutritionally - as well as providing infinitely more vivid viewing - if the Somalians could be persuaded to eat the troops." We have seen whether wars have been ended tidily or not, but this analysis can be extended to see whether UN Peace Keeping operations have done so as well. But that is for another essay.
All this to be taken with a grain of salt!
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