Punitive Expedition
I submit that it is high time we resurrected the venerable concept of the Punitive Expedition.
I once mentioned that we should begin an attack on Syria. Someone suggested that wouldn't be possible, as we'd be overstretched on patrolling and rebuilding.
I was dumbfounded, of course.
Because the whole point of a Punitive Expedition is simply to cause damage and destruction.
There is no rebuilding.
There is no patrolling.
We don't care if the current regime survives or falls.
We don't care if it creates chaos or not.
What we do care about is changing the behavior of whomever is in control, if anyone.
That means a Punitive Expedition is far stronger than a few cruise missiles. It lasts several days or weeks, and would be, say, special forces or even a brigade combat team rampaging through the countryside, daring enemy military units to approach it, as it destroys key infrastructure. Supported by airpower, precision strikes would also be made against the leadership.
Then the units come home.
And if the offending behavior doesn't cease, do it again, harder.
Repeat as necessary.
I dont know why this concept is hard to understand. But many seem to subscribe to the Powell doctrine of "you break it, you bought it."
Where did that idea come from? It seems that doctrine is just begging to play into the paradigm of "quagmire" claims -- whereas a Punitive Expedition by its very nature contains a definite Exit Strategy that the anti-war types seem so desperately to demand (ha, bet they change their tune about that quick!)
This "nation building" is really quite a strange and recent idea in military affairs. History is full of successful Punitive Expeditions, from the earliest times to, for example, Sherman's glorious March to the Sea through Georgia.
They work.
Afraid we might "rile them up"?
They're already riled!
Syria and Iran are already hostile!
Wake up and smell the Jihad.
And let slip the dogs of war.
I once mentioned that we should begin an attack on Syria. Someone suggested that wouldn't be possible, as we'd be overstretched on patrolling and rebuilding.
I was dumbfounded, of course.
Because the whole point of a Punitive Expedition is simply to cause damage and destruction.
There is no rebuilding.
There is no patrolling.
We don't care if the current regime survives or falls.
We don't care if it creates chaos or not.
What we do care about is changing the behavior of whomever is in control, if anyone.
That means a Punitive Expedition is far stronger than a few cruise missiles. It lasts several days or weeks, and would be, say, special forces or even a brigade combat team rampaging through the countryside, daring enemy military units to approach it, as it destroys key infrastructure. Supported by airpower, precision strikes would also be made against the leadership.
Then the units come home.
And if the offending behavior doesn't cease, do it again, harder.
Repeat as necessary.
I dont know why this concept is hard to understand. But many seem to subscribe to the Powell doctrine of "you break it, you bought it."
Where did that idea come from? It seems that doctrine is just begging to play into the paradigm of "quagmire" claims -- whereas a Punitive Expedition by its very nature contains a definite Exit Strategy that the anti-war types seem so desperately to demand (ha, bet they change their tune about that quick!)
This "nation building" is really quite a strange and recent idea in military affairs. History is full of successful Punitive Expeditions, from the earliest times to, for example, Sherman's glorious March to the Sea through Georgia.
They work.
Afraid we might "rile them up"?
They're already riled!
Syria and Iran are already hostile!
Wake up and smell the Jihad.
And let slip the dogs of war.
posted by RDS at 1:10 AM
1 Comments:
200 years ago, the fledgling United States engaged in several punitive expeditions against the Muslim terrorists of that age, the so-called Barbary Pirates. These 'pirates' were actually state sponsored terrorists preying on the merchant ships of any Western Nation that fell into their clutches. They captured and killed thousands of Westerners and sold them into slavery (or ransomed the wealthy). Some estimates are that up to 300,000 Europeans and Americans were enslaved during that period.
In a daring operation against the city of Derna, the American flag was raised on foreign soil for the first time by a young Marine, Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon. This action was immortalized in the Marine Corp Hymn (...the shores of Tripoli...). The fighting was fierce, the Americans and their Arab allies were outnumbered, but the discipline and firepower of the Marines carried the day. The Muslim enemy employed the same tactics we see today in Iraq, feigned surrender, ambush and retreat, taking of hostages, etc.
Other actions included the bombing of Tripoli by an American squadron of warships, that saw the heroic Stephen Decatur leading a special forces-type operation under the guns of the fort guarding Tripoli to retake and burn a ship that had been capured. During this raid, Decatur engaged in hand-to- hand combat with a much larger Muslim who had killed his brother a day earlier.
An excellent account of these expiditions, complete with back-stabbing Europeans and American appeasers in the State Department, can be found in "Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror 1801-1805" by Joseph Wheelan.
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