Too Big To Win

The Taliban were a self-funded insurgency composed of mostly illiterate fighters using weapons designed more than 70 years earlier.
Although
they lacked the techno-wizardry of the Pentagon forces, their budget grew to approximately $600 million per year from tolling narcotics and the import of fuel used to feed a thirsty Pentagon presence.

Fuel logistics alone cost the Pentagon
tens
of billions per year, despite the fact that a vast reserve of crude – Amu-Darya Field in Balkh Province Afghanistan – had been drilled, proven and properly cemented by Soviet
forces
before they left in 1989.

But what could have supplied the entire Afghanistan operation with low-cost, reliable hydrocarbon energy was ignored in favor of paying,
by the time the fuel
reached the vehicles, an operational cost of $250 per gallon.

It's fair to compare the longevity of the Soviet-built Afghan forces,
holding on for years after the Soviets left,
versus
the Pentagon-built Afghan forces collapsing only weeks after the American withdrawal. Today of course the Taliban rule Afghanistan with an iron sandal.

The trillions of dollars and thousands of lives expended by America's youth were completely wasted – and nobody has ever been held to account. The Taliban have not become more moderate
–
they are exactly the same group as before and hosting more terror groups than ever. Al Qaeda is resident once again in Kabul and
reportedly gathering means to enrich uranium in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan wasn't even the worst US military failure over the last 20 years. Almost exactly the same Neocon fever dream also played out in Iraq. Here again, the fantasy of deposing a dictator in the name of installing democracy in a country with a culture with no history of
representative democracy followed its inevitable course.

After
an initial phase of 24/7 war porn of the US invasion, broadcast by the network media through“embedded journalists,” the Pentagon was quickly dragged into an urban
counter-insurgency quagmire involving a Sunni faction rebranded as Al Qaeda in Iraq, Saddam regime holdovers and Shia insurgents
armed, trained
and sometimes led
by
the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

This development was not inevitable.
I still recall a sliding door moment early in the conflict when the director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service came to see me with his CIA
liaison officer in early 2004. He described the scale of the efforts by
the
IRGC Quds Forces to infiltrate Iraqi society and establish a proxy capability similar to Hezbollah in Lebanon and requested that we develop a joint program to locate and eradicate the Iranian presence.

Unfortunately,
the program was blocked by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, on the grounds that Iran was not our enemy and that the US must support the political process in Iraq.
In the
event,
this political process spun into a vicious civil war, killing
hundreds
of thousands of civilians. Meanwhile, our“non-enemy” Iran flooded the country with thousands of lethal EFP roadside bombs, to shred armored vehicles with American soldiers inside.

Today Iraq is subjugated by Iran with Tehran making key decisions and approving all key ministry appointments, including who becomes Prime Minister. Their power is backed by the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or Hashd al Shabi – an Iranian-controlled proxy mirroring Hezbollah in Lebanon. The PMUs are paid for by the Iraqi Government, armed in most cases with American weapons and led either by Iranian-appointed commanders or by serving IRGC officers directly.

America continues to wage futile forever wars of convenience because Washington believes we are immune
to reality
and evolved beyond history. The grand strategy of the so-called Global War on Terror was conceived on a false premise promoted by Neocon think tanks
and the Military Industrial Complex that American drone technology could revolutionize counter-insurgency warfare through surgical strikes targeting only the leadership of terror organizations.

This delusion produced sclerosis in the military by stripping authority away from field commanders
concerning
when to shoot and when to hold fire. A fixation on large orbiting cameras
likewise
devolved into high-tech voyeurism with lawyers, not commanders, making battlefield decisions even when friendly troops were in peril and requiring urgent
air
support.

Ultimately, the paradigm flies in the face of the realities of war. Leaders are replaceable. There's always another ambitious jihadi looking to wear the crown of command. What actually ends wars is destroying enemy manpower, finance, logistics and ability to resupply.

Every relevant historical example tells the same story, from the wars of ancient Greece to continental European and Napoleonic wars
to the American Civil War and the world wars of the 20th Century. In the course of losing WWII Germany lost 5.3 of 17.7 million men aged 15-44 years old, or 30% of their male population.

This brutality is the reality of winning wars – as the recent US track record of failure shows. The“measured and proportional response” crowd wants a war without war. It's a fantasy that only seems plausible to people who have never experienced war and are insulated from its consequences; their firstborn children should be drafted into frontline combat units
to relieve them of this problem.

After the Roman Empire lost a crushing defeat at the Battle of Cannae, the Roman Senate immediately became 40% undermanned because
the Roman
leaders actually
served in the defense of their Republic
and risked their lives in battle for it. Today, America's elites instead spend their time on Wall Street or in think tanks gathering degrees and attending conferences. The old concept of
noblesse oblige
has gone missing from our national culture and so has the concept of accountability.

Despite the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, there have been zero lessons learned or course corrections made. Consequently, the failures keep coming.

When Hamas unleashed thousands of rockets, missiles, paragliders, and ground assaults across 30 breach points into Israel on October 7 of last year, they showed how dangerous complacency can be. Clearly, Hamas had plotted their operation for years. Their network of 300 miles of tunnels spanning all of Gaza was built with
one
goal in mind: to suck the IDF into an urban quagmire in order to maximize carnage and casualties,
of
both Palestinian civilian and Israeli
soldiers.

But why not flood the tunnels
with seawater
using Texas precision drilling technology? The tactic would have obviated the need to bomb urban areas containing civilians and the terrible suffering that
this tactic
entails. Flooding
the tunnels
would have destroyed all underground weapons storage, prevented maneuver and would have forced Hamas to move or lose their
hostage
human shields.

In fact, an entire package of drilling/pumping and technical support for precisely this tactic was offered by donors to the IDF. Yet the IDF – under pressure from the Pentagon diktats – instead chose bombing. The result has seen a wave of global sympathy generated for the Palestinian cause and left Hamas in charge of uncleared southern Gaza: a double nightmare scenario far from being resolved.

***

In 2011, Hillary Clinton, chief Neocon of the Obama administration, proudly declared of Libya's US-sponsored revolution:“We came. We saw. He died.” Colonel Qaddafi may not have been perfect but Libya under him was
politically
stable.

Now? For 13 years the country has been wracked by civil war and chaos. Rife with Russian and Turkish PMCs fighting for regional hegemony, the country is now a major exporter of weapons and one of the biggest channels to Europe for drugs and human trafficking.

Further east, Iran, with Hamas, Hezbollah, Hashd al shaabi (Iraq), and the Houthis in Yemen, have built a powerful network of regional proxy forces, now extending even into South America through the Lebanese diaspora in the narcotics and weapons trade. In Yemen, the Houthis have developed into effective pirates, shutting off Red Sea shipping traffic with long-range anti-ship weapons hidden in Yemen's rugged terrain.

As a result, an already economically struggling Egypt – a key American ally – has suffered a 40% blow to their GDP from lost Suez transit fees of $800 million per month and everyone else has seen punishing supply chains inflation from dislocated transit routes and runaway insurance premiums.

Why are Iranian surrogates in Iraq and Yemen being permitted to fire hundreds of precision drones, cruise and ballistic missiles at US forces on land and sea, largely without meaningful response from Washington?

What response there has been has mainly consisted of announcing a coalition named“Prosperity Guardian” to protect shipping which collapsed almost immediately after multiple vessels were struck and destroyed. Why are US policymakers and the Pentagon unable to innovate effective military solutions?

It doesn't have to be this way. In the 1960s, Egypt, then a Soviet client, seized half of Yemen and deposed the
Yemeni
monarch. In response, Britain and Saudi Arabia hired SAS founder David Stirling's PMC Watchguard International. Within months they had sufficiently amplified the Yemeni Tribesman fighting capabilities to force Egypt to withdraw. Stirling actually received a medal from the IDF for engaging so many Egyptian troops that it assisted the IDF victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Fast forward to 2017, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were trying to battle Iranian surrogate Houthis who seized control over half of Yemen. They request PMC support to replicate the successful Stirling model from the 1960s, and once again they
are
blocked, this time
by Neocon Secretary of Defense James Mattis serving under President Donald Trump. The Houthis remained unchecked and ascendant, and
eventually
strong
enough
to shut off one of the world's major trade routes.

Meanwhile, this
same approach
is still
failing
in Africa. There have been a staggering
nine
coup d'etats across Africa in the last four years, mainly in ex-colonial French regions, where decades-long insurgencies have exploded following the destruction of Libya. The looting of massive Libyan state arsenals following the overthrow of Qaddafi flooded the region with weapons.

Long insufficient
COIN
operations
by France and their USG partners reached the end of the road; local militaries ousted their Paris-sponsored leadership. The current US humiliation in Niger and Chad, where US forces are
being
forced to
vacate
new
multi-billion
dollar facilities built to support drone operations across Africa,
is the result.

Compare
this
to
Russia.
Having embraced PMC capabilities,
Russia
is currently running a successful playbook
in Africa
against ineffective Western-friendly governments by showing a firmer hand against jihadists. This cycle will continue unabated so long as the State Department and the CIA restrict their thinking to coming up with PR strategies while America's rivals
implement
military
solutions.

The Central African Republic, rich in buried mineral wealth, suffered a descent into civil war in 2014 and the empowerment of criminal gangs like the Seleca and Anti Balaka. In 2017, the CAR government requested Western PMC assistance to build a robust mining police force in order to choke out the gangs. Contracts were even signed and funding-ready.

But once again this solution was blocked by the Neocons at the State Department and their pet, the UN, refusing to waive their sanctions against CAR for the purchasing of small arms to equip police. But Russia had no such issues and sent 400 Wagner personnel immediately. Now multiple Wagner units run mines that net the Russian PMC billions of dollars per year, funding many of their other operations across Africa.

Somalia has been a geopolitical problem since the early 90s, sucking up tens of billions in ineffective foreign aid, killing hundreds of thousands, exporting terrorism, sheltering pirates and flooding America with hundreds of thousands of migrants. In the spring of 2020, Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta reached out for private sector assistance to finally tourniquet this endless bleeding. Every terror attack in Kenya costs it more than $1 billion in tourist revenue.

The PMC offer was made, and Kenyatta asked President Trump for financial assistance to run this private sector solution. Trump agreed and funding was passed into law by Congress. But Team Biden took over before the already-appropriated funds were released.

As a result, they were used instead on the same failed approach – the surgical decapitation strategy which has repeatedly failed globally for 20-plus years. Today, Somalia still bleeds and still drains funds, while America is stuck with culturally incompatible migrants that we“cannot deport” because Somalia remains a failed state.

When does Western incompetence end?

The Syrian civil war saw Neocons funding a radical Sunni insurgency to depose Bashar Al Assad. This force quickly morphed into ISIS and promptly conquered half of Iraq by appealing to a Sunni population repressed by Iranian Shia proxies.

The point is worth repeating.
ISIS emerged directly from Neocon meddling in the Syrian civil war. Today,
in the aftermath, US forces occupy eastern
Syria as some sort of
ill-defined
buffer between various Kurdish factions, Turkey and the Syrian government, at a cost of billions per year and for no tangible benefit to American citizens.

Cui Bono? Who benefits? And who is benefiting from the ongoing tragedy of the war in Ukraine ? Since historical perspective in conflicts is always useful, I invite readers to consider the staggering costs in manpower borne by the USSR to defeat the Wehrmacht: over 22 million lives lost compared to US losses of 250,000 troops.

While the US was invading North Africa in a warm-up to the invasion of Europe, the Soviets
were
killing
1.2 million Axis soldiers at Stalingrad,
while losing almost twice that number themselves. That loss is genetically imprinted on surviving generations and
strategically
imprinted in the thinking of the Russian state.

The effect of the eastward expansion of NATO culminating in
a
proposal
to include Ukraine despite clear red-line language expressed by the Kremlin was highly predictable. Yet the Neocons kept pressing the issue,
even after assisting in the overthrow of a pro-Russian president. One should take note of how upset the US government was when the USSR began emplacing missiles in Cuba during the early 1960s.

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At the outbreak of WWII, in Britain's greatest hour of danger, America sent them 50 surplus Navy destroyers, combat aircraft and weaponry. Meanwhile, in the Chinese
theater, combat aircraft were purchased by a Nationalist government which needed American Volunteer Group Contractor support to stop the Japanese from bombing Chinese cities.

Similarly, as tensions rose in Ukraine in late 2021 and a Russian invasion looked imminent, a combination of Lend Lease and the Flying Tigers was offered to the White House. For fiscal year 2022, 200 plus fully functional combat aircraft including 50 F-16s, 50 F-15s and 42 A-10s explicitly designed for destroying Soviet tanks were set to be retired, flown to the desert and parked forever.

These are not state-of-the-art aircraft but entirely adequate when flown by well-trained contract pilots filling the gap for 18 months while Ukrainian crews could be readied.
Team Biden could have made a grand announcement before the invasion stating Ukraine would never join NATO but would have the means to defend itself.

This airwing deployment with weapons crews and fuel would have cost less than $800 million
compared
to
the hundreds of billions and incalculable deaths on both sides.
Announcing no NATO expansion and instant deployment of a robust
air wing could have prevented the largest war in Europe in 80 years.
Or did the
Neocons want a war?

Which brings us to Taiwan. Taiwan,
and China's claim on it,
remains the
flashpoint in the ultimate
cold war in the
final
stages of warming. Clever deterrence measures have been offered and rejected. The Pentagon wants to fight by our own playbook, but as always
in war, the
enemy
gets a vote.

A hot war between China and the US would see US cities annihilated and a death toll in the tens of millions, at minimum. This apocalyptic carnage can only be averted by looking back through history at what has worked and what hasn't worked in the
conveyor belt
of failed Washington
foreign policy
approaches which have
dominated the last 30 years. We owe it to our children to get this right but course changes must be made immediately, before it is
too late.

***

What should we do?

The current
policy
model of US
security
assistance
is broken and counterproductive. The US military is the most expensive organization in 3,000 years of human history
and has degenerated into an instrument for
selling or grifting overpriced
military
hardware to countries that struggle to use
it,
let alone maintain it. The US military mows the lawn with Lamborghinis
when Kubota tractors
are what our
allies
need.

The dozens of developing countries that suffer from narco crime, gangsterism and chaos urgently
need
real help. When troops are sent for advisory missions too many are sent and they don't stay long enough
to provide real assistance;
while
they are there they
are hamstrung by lawyers into ineffectiveness.

Building lasting capability in countries takes time. Doing a three-week exercise while delivering new gifted equipment
is a waste of energy and money
every time. Send experienced advisors to dwell long term
– for
years, not months. Give advisors a path to really learn a region and culture.

The Russians are not ignorant of history and the Wagner group has stepped into the void created by US incompetence. In the Sahel
and other parts of West Africa,
they've quickly become the power behind the throne. The
best
way to beat Wagner is to
outcompete them.
The
same principle also applies to reforming Washington more generally. Policymakers must
allow competition to flourish.

The military does not need to be so inherently governmental.
If, in
1969, during the summer of Woodstock and Apollo 11,
someone
said
that in
50 years the only way the US goverment
would be able to
get
people
into
space would be
on a SpaceX rocket, you'd be laughed out of Johnson Space Center.

Before the creation of FedEx, a politician would have proclaimed government as the only entity robust enough to deliver packages overnight globally, yet today“FedEx”
is
a
verb.
It hasn't
totally
replaced the US Postal Service, but it has
made it run more efficiently.
The same logic can be applied to the military.

The American taxpayer is paying far too much for much too little. The cozy cartel of defense contractors must be broken up, and the military made competitive again. Anti-trust enforcement and competitive tenders will stop the corruption of the thousands of lobbyists in Washington milking Congress like a cow while delivering overpriced and ineffective products.

The current status is unacceptable. The more consolidated the defense base, the more it behaves like the Pentagon bureaucracy: exactly what America cannot afford.

Our Founding Father's instincts for empowering
market capacities in
military power are explicitly articulated in
the Constitution. Before discussing“Congress shall raise a Navy” in Article 1 Section 8, it directs Congress to mandate the private sector with a letter of Marque and Reprisal – effectively a hunting license for
private
contractors
to interdict
enemy
shipping.

The litany of failures
listed
above
supplies
ample evidence
that the current military status quo is ineffective.
A“government-only” approach abroad is calamitous
and undermines US credibility and deterrence.

The foreign policy of the United States should be that our friends love us, our rivals respect us and our enemies fear us.
Instead, our friends
fear
our
self-immolation
while our rivals consume us and our enemies fire upon us without consequence.

America's private sector has always outperformed government in solving problems. It is time to unleash America's entrepreneurs in foreign policy to cut costs and restore American credibility.

Erik D Prince is a former Navy SEAL officer and the founder of private military company Blackwater. Among his current projects is the Unplugged phone, a privacy-focused smartphone. He can be followed on X at @realErikDPrince .

This article first appeared on IM-1176 and is republished with the author's kind permission. The original may be read here .