Political leaders may ask how to delay defeat, not win

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 1:47:15

   Or is that not attributable to distortion of information in something else? Oh, I think Afghanistan is a very interesting case study of how we ended up for 20 years in that war. I think you should talk a bit about that to see we're in that fight. There's a pride aspect to it of, can you get it done? Yes, I can. Uh, and it's not necessarily overstating what you're able to do, but understanding you, there are constraints on your resources and, uh, and what you have available to, to accomplish the mission. And nobody wants to be the one to say, I can't do that.

2. 1:47:48

   and there's yeah there's just some pride in in finding a way to make it work and i think a lot of that comes down to bad advice at some level of setting those conditions they you should not be put in that position if you cannot accomplish the task afghanistan great example would be we were we had combat units flooded across the entirety of the country great for security not necessarily great for nation building not necessarily great for um developing changing a culture, if that was even possible in Afghanistan, to get the people out in Zari district in Kandahar province to understand that the person in Kabul that doesn't speak their language and they've never seen before represents them, that's not a soldier's job.

3. 1:48:29

   We don't know how to do that. We're not very good at it. But we don't want to say we can't. So we say, we got it. We can figure it out. We'll learn counter. resurgency operations. We will send people to language courses when in reality, somewhere along the line, somebody should have said, you know what? This isn't what we can do. We need State Department. We need USAID. We need XYZ to be able to step in and fill this. I think it's a military mindset. And I don't think that's unique to the United States. I imagine most countries, the higher you get up the ranks, the generals are very much, we got this. I want to add to Preston's great perspective, the point of view from the other side, having had a bit of experience dealing with political leadership, sometimes the information that the military is passing up is overly

4. 1:49:18

   optimistic. It's, you know, this mindset of, I don't want to say I can't get it done. But there are also definitely times where the political leadership has clear assumptions and is very resistant to information that is adverse to those assumptions. First, when the basic inputs into the war is when leaders think they are going to go to war, is war optimism. They have a clear set of assumptions. Often it's that the war will be sharp and short, that it'll be a quick war. Good example, Russian full-scale invasion in 2022, or our war with Iran this year. They are resistant to information that actually it's quite risky. What will happen if it becomes a prolonged war?

5. 1:50:03

   when military leaders tell them that it might be this, it might be that, then, you know, these forces, they face the problem that if they basically tell them this can't be done, the political leader will tell them, no, you're just the wrong person for the job. I'll find somebody who'll tell me they can do it. You think you need 300,000 troops for Iraq? I'll find someone who will do it for a lot less, okay? And lastly, there are often cases also, let's say you're a prolonged conventional war like Afghanistan. And political leadership might ask, not would you need to win the war? It's not clear that victory defined in their terms is necessarily possible. They'll ask, really, what is the amount of troops you need for me to kick this can down the road so that we don't lose the war on my watch? And then it goes to the next election

6. 1:50:50

   and then maybe becomes somebody else's problem. Okay. So there are many times where I've seen that it's not the military leadership that's to blame. It's that the political leadership, which at the end of the day makes key decisions on the war, sets constraints on the military of how they can fight, what forces they have available to fight, have certain assumptions, have certain ideas, and they're not necessarily amenable to military advice. They're listening to the military advice, but they're also considering domestic politics. They're considering international politics is other things that predominate in their calculus other than strict kind of operational planning or military analysis. And I think that's important to consider because wars at the end of the day are started by political leaders. They're the ones

7. 1:51:38

   who decide to go to war and they have very strong views and assumptions and to some extent also emotions and fears that play into that. How often is it that the military leadership, like the generals try to say, don't do this. In terms of starting wars, this comes to a bigger theme is I would love to see a long distance future of human civilization that doesn't have wars. And it seems like we start wars, we broadly humanity. And I would love to know which are the humans amongst us that can stop them from starting.

8. 1:52:14

   I think there are plenty of times where military leaders give the advice that a war could be a risky or a costly misadventure. They don't necessarily say, don't do this. But the advice they give and they lay out has clear implications to it. And there are plenty of times where military leaders, or not military leaders, let's say civilian leaders, in our case, what was the Department of Defense, will advise against the war, right?

9. 1:52:54

   Yes, there are plenty of times where they don't give that advice. But I'd be open to Preston's views on this. But if there's some public sense of the military profession as folks that are actually eager to go to a war, that's often not the case. And that's not been my experience. People who have commanded other folks in combat and who have lost lives and who understand the implications of that endeavor are very rarely eager to pursue it.

10. 1:53:24

    right especially if they're not sure that the cause is right or that it's been well thought through or that the strategy makes sense or that this is very much a necessary war so it's not been my my impression one of the challenges there lex is it's not at least the way we operate in the united states it's not the military's job to make the decision to go to war or not it's their job to advise on what the possible what the capabilities are what the options are for the president to eventually the commander in chief to eventually make that decision so i think we have to be careful with that that bleeding into this war is a political endeavor so when the when the military starts advising on we should or we shouldn't go to war i think that's a very slippery slope they can say this will or will not accomplish our objectives you know if we drop a couple bombs

11. 1:54:11

    it might not get us to the point where we actually can say that we we got what we wanted out of this But broadly speaking, yes or no to war, I think, is probably not best reserved for the military. Absolutely. War is a social political phenomenon. And there's political leadership that has to not just make these decisions, but holds the supremacy making them and the accountability for it. And in our system, specifically in the United States, the senior most military officer, the chairman and joint chief staff, does not command forces.

12. 1:54:40

    They are the top advisor on military affairs to the president. Actually quite different than other systems where you might have commander-in-chief or someone else that actually could directly, for example, in the case of Ukraine's or the Russian military, where you have a chief of general staff or a commander-in-chief that's a military position that actually can directly command forces.