Geo-Strategy #6: America's Imperial Hubris

Last week, we discussed the possibility that Trump will become president and that if he does, there will be a very strong likelihood that the United States will go to war with Iran. The question today is: Trump wants to go to war, but will the US military agree? Ultimately, it is the Pentagon that must implement this war, and if there is enough opposition from the military, it is very hard for Trump to push a war.

I want to make the argument today that the military will go along with the war, and it has to do with what happened in 2003.

The 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A New Theory of War

Let's go back to the last time that America fought a major war: the 2003 invasion of Iraq, called Operation Iraqi Freedom. At that time, President George W. Bush and his people—Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and his Deputy Paul Wolfowitz—wanted this war. They went to the Pentagon and said, "Listen, we want this war. Give us a plan."

The Pentagon generals are very experienced and conservative people. In general, when you fight a war, there are three things you must focus on.

1. Mass Forces: When you fight a war, you want to overwhelm your enemy. When we say mass forces, we basically mean infantry and armor. Most wars are fought using tanks and soldiers. The Iraqi Army at that time had about 370,000 soldiers. The general rule of thumb when you invade a country is you want to have a three-to-one advantage. The reason is that when you invade a country, you need to hold territory and resupply your soldiers. You need to advance, hold territory, resupply your troops, and have reserves. The general rule of thumb is that if your enemy has 300,000 soldiers, you need about a million.
2. Avoid Encirclement: The worst thing that can happen to your soldiers is if they become encircled by the enemy because then it becomes impossible to defend yourself.
3. Protect Supply Lines: Most of war is actually just logistics. How do you get oil, fuel, and weapons from here to there?

These are the three major principles that you must focus on when you fight a war. So when the Bush administration asked the Pentagon for a plan, the Pentagon went to the drawing board and said, "To invade Iraq properly, we need about a million soldiers."

Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Wolfowitz, said, "No. We're going to do it with less than a million soldiers. Give us a plan that requires less infantry."

The Pentagon said, "Okay, well, we shouldn't do this, but the most we can do is about 500,000."

Wolfowitz said, "Nope, go lower."

Eventually, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz said, "We want you to fight this war with 130,000 troops."

The Pentagon said to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, "This is insane. We will be outnumbered three-to-one when we fight this war. How are we going to avoid encirclement? How are we going to mass forces? How will we protect supply lines?"

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who are not professional soldiers and have never really fought a war before, were like, "Well, we have this new theory of war called Shock and Awe."

The idea of Shock and Awe is that all militaries are hierarchies. You have command and control: the head, the body, and then the arms and the legs. If we can go and cut off the head, then the entire army falls apart. We can do that because the nature of war has changed. What the US military specializes in, what gives us the advantage, are three things:

1. Air Supremacy: We control the skies because we have the greatest air force in the world.
2. Technological Omniscience: Omniscience means to know everything; we're God. The reason is, we have satellites that can see everything on the earth. We have technology that allows us to eavesdrop on all electronic communications. When you talk on the phone, we can hear exactly what you're saying. We know everything on the ground. That allows us to have the power of God.
3. Special Forces: Special forces are soldiers who go into enemy territory and are able to target and direct air power against the enemy. America has the best special forces in the world.

With these three things, we have a new doctrine of war. We can fight war in a new way that's never been fought before, but which will guarantee that the war will be quick, cheap (it won't cost that much money), and decisive (we will completely destroy our enemy).

The Pentagon was like, "You guys are insane. This is not going to work. This is a theory, guys." Whereas the ideas of massing forces, avoiding encirclement, and protecting supply lines—we've been doing this for thousands of years. This is experience. This is history. This is reality. This is just a fantasy.

But Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz insisted. They said, "You must fight this war this way." And it turned out that this plan, which most military planners thought was absurd, insane, and unrealistic, worked 100% the way it was supposed to work.

The second Gulf War in 2003 lasted exactly three weeks. Very quick. The US military, with only 130,000 troops, was able to destroy an army of 370,000 in three weeks. Second, America lost at most 200 soldiers, and most of it was due to friendly fire. It was accidental. This is insane; this has never happened before. Only 200 American soldiers died at most, whereas tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers died.

The third thing that was most impressive was something called Thunder Runs. This was just America flexing or showing off. America was so dominant that you had these American soldiers in their armored vehicles drive into Baghdad, the capital city, and just drive around and circle it. No one could stop them. They did three of these. It was purely an act of intimidation, but it was also just showing off. It's like you're in a fight and you decide, "You know what? I'm so much stronger than this guy, I'm going to do a backflip. I'm so bored by this guy, I'm going to do a backflip."

These three things showed the incredible superiority of Shock and Awe.

Was Iraq a One-Off? The Unique Conditions of 2003

How was America able to achieve all this? One example is air supremacy. One bomb, called a cluster bomb, can wipe out an entire tank division. The reason is that a cluster bomb has about 40 smaller bombs inside, and these 40 bombs are equipped with GPS. Each of these bombs can go and find a tank, latch onto it, and blow it up. This one cluster bomb, which doesn't really cost that much money, can destroy an entire tank division by itself.

The other thing is Special Forces. The theory was that if we make Special Forces the central core of our military, that would have a devastating impact. And it was true. Special Forces could drive around and look for military installations by themselves—we're talking like a few people—and then they could order in an airstrike, and the planes would blow things up.

Shock and Awe was extremely effective. But the problem is that people don't really ask: what did Saddam Hussein do wrong? Why was this so effective against him? There are actually three reasons to think that what happened in 2003 was not a revolution in military doctrine, but just a unique incident in war that doesn't really tell us that much. In other words, what happened in Iraq could not be replicated.

1. Saddam Hussein had no air defense. He didn't have weapons to counter America's air supremacy. The reason is that in 1991, Saddam Hussein fought a war against America called the first Persian Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm), and his army got destroyed by American air power. At this point, America could have chosen to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, but it didn't. Saddam Hussein learned two lessons from the Persian Gulf War. Number one: I can never beat America. There's no point in trying. If America wants to beat the crap out of me, I can't stop it. Second, he learned that America probably does not want to overthrow him because it would destabilize the country and the region, allow terrorists into the country, turn his people into terrorists, and empower Iran. So he thought, "There's no way that America would want to overthrow me. Let me just focus my resources on suppressing internal dissent." He completely forgot about America. So even when it was clear that America was about to invade, he still did not put up any air defenses because he didn't have any.
2. Iraq is a desert. That makes it ideal for Shock and Awe. Air power can go anywhere, satellites can see everything, and Special Forces can just drive around. A desert makes an ideal situation for this doctrine.
3. Surprise. No one in human history had tried to fight a war like this, so no one knew what was going to happen. For example, Special Forces were in Western Iraq blowing up missile bases because the concern was that Saddam Hussein would direct all his missiles—his Scuds—against Israel. So much damage was being inflicted in Western Iraq that Saddam Hussein became confident that the main American military was actually in Western Iraq, when in fact they were in Eastern Iraq. He diverted all his forces to Western Iraq and left Baghdad completely open to attack from the East. No one had fought a war like this before, and no one knew what to expect. But obviously, you can only do this once.

These three special conditions make us think that Shock and Awe in the 2003 Iraq war was just a one-off. It was unique. Unfortunately, the Americans don't know this. The Americans are like, "Well, all this does is prove our theory to be correct."

The Legacy of Shock and Awe: A Doctrine of Empire

After 2003, America focused its military doctrine on Shock and Awe. For example, before 2001, America had about 38,000 Special Forces. Today, it has 73,000. That's a lot, because America has a total army of 1.3 million. The budget for Special Forces—Black Ops—was about $2 billion in 2000. Today, it's about $13.7 billion. That's almost an increase of seven times, which is a lot. But this is just the public, official number. Because Special Forces are Black Ops, they can operate outside the supervision of the military. In other words, their actual budget is probably 10 times, possibly 100 times, more than the official budget.

The Problem with Special Forces

Traditionally, militaries have been very strict hierarchies, and there are good reasons for this. You have to enforce order and discipline, but you're also concerned about the military overthrowing the government. That's always been a problem throughout history, so you must maintain complete control. But when you do that, you create a lot of problems in the military; it is unable to react very quickly to hostile situations. If terrorists come and attack you, your military can't actually go and defeat them; it's too slow. Sometimes there are hostage crises. Throughout the 70s, a lot of airplanes were getting hijacked by terrorists. For these circumstances, you need Special Forces: soldiers who are outside your immediate control who can respond immediately to crises.

But in general, you don't want that many Special Forces because, again, they're outside the control of your military. They're independent, sometimes, of your military. They have a lot of space to maneuver and to be independent.

Why are Special Forces a problem? It's because the people who volunteer for Special Forces are different from you and me, to put it very lightly. For example, let's look at one of the top two special forces in the world, the SAS (British Special Air Services), one of the most elite and certainly the oldest Special Forces in the world. The other is Delta Force.

If you volunteer for the Special Air Services, their first test is this: you have to run six marathons in five days. Oh, that's just the beginning. You also have to carry a backpack of bricks while you are running. And one more thing: you're running the marathon on a mountain. So even at that first test, there have been some individuals who've gone crazy. You have to put them in a hospital because they've gone crazy. But that's just the first test. The last test is always torture. They will be tortured to see how much they can resist torture because, obviously, when you're captured, the enemy is going to torture you to get information.

There are other tests. For example, in the French special services, one test is that you will have to wear a bulletproof vest and hold a clay disc, and then your comrade will shoot a gun at you. Most people are like, "I'm not going to do this."

In other words, the people who are Special Forces are different from us physically, but they're really different from us psychologically. They have a different mentality. One Special Forces soldier was interviewed by a reporter who asked him, "Why did you choose to become Special Forces?"

His answer was, "Well, it's either I do special forces or I go rob banks. One of the two."

In other words, Special Forces are individuals who are addicted to risk and violence. And in America, there are 73,000 of them running around the world trying to protect the American Empire.

The increase in Special Forces has really changed the nature of the American military. It's good for America because now what Shock and Awe allows America to do is be everywhere at once, and you'll never see them. For example, when Gaddafi was overthrown in the 2011 Libya War, that was Special Forces. But we don't know this because the Special Forces were hiding in the background, directing air power against Gaddafi.

In other words, what Shock and Awe really is, is more than a theory of war; it's ultimately a theory of empire. America is an empire, but unfortunately, most Americans don't want to admit that because being an empire means doing bad things to innocent people. What Shock and Awe allows is for America to be an empire without the guilt of being an empire. You have Special Forces doing all the work necessary to maintain this empire without people actually knowing. So Shock and Awe is really a theory of empire as opposed to a theory of war.

Is Shock and Awe Only Designed for Destruction?

You can make the point that America, for the past 20 years, has lost all its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because it has not been able to control the insurgency. But the problem with this is that Shock and Awe is not designed to stabilize countries. Shock and Awe is meant to topple and destroy countries.

The argument can be made that the real intention of Shock and Awe is to make sure that no power in the Middle East can arise to challenge American supremacy. So yes, in Iraq, the insurgents ultimately won, but is Iraq a functional state? The answer is no. Is Libya a functional state? No, there's still a civil war going on.

It comes down to the ultimate design and intention of the empire. Is it to replace regimes or is it to destroy countries? You can make the argument that Shock and Awe is really designed to destroy countries and not to replace regimes.

One of the stated goals of the invasion of Iraq was to bring democracy to the country. But from the start, they did everything wrong. First, they didn't have enough soldiers to maintain peace, so there was a lot of looting, and the entire country broke down. Second, during the air campaign, America destroyed all the infrastructure necessary for society, including the water supply and the electricity grid. Why would you do that if your intention was to bring democracy?

Third, the very first thing the American government did when they took control over Iraq was something called de-Ba'athification, which is to say that if you used to work for the old government, you're now out of a job. The Iraqi military was disbanded. The question then is, if your ultimate objective is to bring democracy to the country, why would you destroy all political infrastructure? Why would you destroy the ability for the country to govern itself, maintain order, and feed the population?

An argument can be made that the real intention was not to bring democracy to Iraq. It was just to destroy Iraq to maintain American supremacy and to teach others a lesson: don't mess with us; we'll come and destroy you.

The Shadow of Vietnam: The Birth of Shock and Awe

Where does this come from? It comes from one of the greatest disasters for America: the Vietnam War. From 1965 until 1973, there was a civil war in Vietnam between North Vietnam, which was communist, and South Vietnam, which was basically a US-controlled puppet state. America sent soldiers from 1965 to 1973 to protect South Vietnam from insurgents and rebels. At the height of this war, three million US soldiers had to be deployed. In 1969, 500,000 US soldiers were in-country to fight.

• 58,000 US soldiers died in this war.
• At least three million Vietnamese died, two million of them innocent civilians.
• Over 300,000 US soldiers were wounded. They went home without legs, without arms, and they were traumatized.

This was an extremely controversial war in America because they were trying to fight it using standard military doctrine: mass forces. They instituted a draft, so if you were a young American, you had to go fight in Vietnam, but you didn't know why. And chances are that you would either die or lose a body part. It became extremely unpopular.

The other thing is that there were a lot of journalists in Vietnam reporting on how America was killing Vietnamese for no reason. The most famous story is the My Lai Massacre, where American soldiers went into a Vietnamese village and killed everyone there—300, 400 people. This was happening quite a lot. There was widespread anger and protest in America, which ultimately forced America to withdraw in 1973.

The US military was very angry about this war. The thing about generals is they don't like to lose wars. When they fight wars, they want to win at all costs. They felt that they were betrayed by the country. They were fighting hard to maintain the American Empire, to fight against communism, and this was bringing wealth, power, and prestige to America. But the American people, politicians, and democracy refused to make the necessary sacrifices to maintain this empire. Many American generals felt betrayed by what happened in Vietnam.

The Pentagon Papers

There's a very famous incident during this war called the Pentagon Papers. In 1971, a group of American military analysts secretly got together and tried to compose a secret history of the Vietnam War. This was meant to be classified, not read by the public. But one of them, Daniel Ellsberg, leaked it to the Washington Post and The New York Times, and they published it.

People were angry because the Pentagon Papers said three things:

1. America had been secretly fighting this war for a long time. Many presidents, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson, were expanding this war without public or congressional approval. There was a lot of deception.
2. The politicians and presidents knew this war was not winnable. The Vietnamese peasants were unbeatable. They were digging tunnels underground, and when American soldiers were coming, they would just pop out of these tunnels, shoot at them, and disappear back into the tunnels. It was as though they could swim underground. They also had an unlimited supply of weapons from their enemies. American soldiers in the jungle would drop backpacks of ammunition when they ran away, and the peasants would pick it up. The US military dropped more bombs on Vietnam than in all of World War II combined, and about 20% of these bombs didn't explode. The enemy could pick them up and transform them into landmines, which were killing more Americans than anything else. Finally, the South Vietnamese army was extremely corrupt and was selling American weapons to the rebels. If you can't see this enemy, they're everywhere, and you're supplying them yourself, how are you going to win this war?
3. America was only in this war to avoid losing face. The answer was credibility. We don't want to lose face. If we withdraw from Vietnam, if we admit that peasants in pajamas can beat us, the Soviet Union would laugh at us, China would laugh at us, the entire world would laugh at us. We don't want to be laughed at. So that's why we're staying in this war.

When the Pentagon Papers were released, everyone was angry. The anger was so tremendous that America had no choice but to withdraw. The Pentagon felt betrayed by democracy. The politicians were more concerned about winning elections than winning wars. People could protest and defy the military. The media could insult the military.

Many in the military felt that if we are to maintain the empire, we need to divorce the empire from democracy. Empire and democracy do not get along. If we want to win a war, our greatest enemy is not the enemy, but democracy in America.

And that's why you have Shock and Awe. The entire point of Shock and Awe is to minimize casualties, and if there are casualties, you can't see them because they're all blown up. And it's quick, so it's impossible for people to start to get angry. Shock and Awe means that America no longer has to make any sacrifices. You no longer need the consent of the people or even congressional approval to fight a war. You can now escape the shackles of democracy to do what you must to protect the American Empire.

Two Theories of American Empire

This is not the first theory of empire America had; it's actually the second. The first theory of empire was in 1991. At that time, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and America was the only hegemon. It presented a new theory of how America will rule the world.

1. Limited Strategic Goals: In 2003, America's strategic goals were pretty unachievable: bring democracy and peace to Iraq and the Middle East. In the first Persian Gulf War, led by George H.W. Bush, the first and only goal was to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. That's it. We're not going to go to Iraq and topple Saddam. All we want to do is remove him from Kuwait.
2. Coalition of Countries: America did so with a coalition of dozens of other countries. America played a leading role but also had to defer to its partners. For example, countries like Saudi Arabia were like, "There's no way we'll topple Saddam Hussein. We'll only stop at Kuwait." The United States deferred to its partners.
3. UN Authority: The ultimate leader was the United Nations. The United States had to make a case to the United Nations, and the UN gave its consent. The United States made the argument that this was not a US military action; it was a UN military action.

The important principle was to maintain the rules-based international order. What America said at that point was, "Yes, we are the greatest power in the world. We know the Soviet Union has collapsed and that militarily no one can challenge us. But with this power comes great responsibility. We must show humility, discipline, and restraint. Our priority will be to maintain the international rules-based order because this will bring prosperity, freedom, and stability to everyone."

This meant that if we use the military, it will only be as a last resort, for a limited strategic objective, with partners, and under the umbrella of UN authority.

Why the Shift to Shock and Awe?

Here's the question: why did America not do this anymore? Why did it switch to Shock and Awe, which is basically unlimited strategic goals, unilateral military action, and America just bullying and making the rules? Why this transition from the first theory of empire, which would allow America to rule the world forever, to the second theory, which is pissing the entire world off?

Let's use an analogy. Imagine I'm a 95-year-old billionaire with $10 billion, and my son Jack is about to inherit my empire. I tell him, "Jack, I love you. You will inherit my empire. You don't have to worry about anything because I have 100 experienced, loyal, strategic advisors who manage this empire. Every year, they make 10% for us—a billion dollars. They're going to give you $100 million every year to do whatever you want. As my dying wish, I want you to promise me that after I die, you will listen to my 100 advisors."

Jack promises. Then I die. What is the first thing Jack will do? He will fire everyone. The second thing he will do is hire all his friends. And the third thing he's going to do is something really stupid. He'll be like, "My dad only made $10 billion. Those advisors only make 10% a year. I'm going to invest in Bitcoin, AI, and the Chinese real estate market and make a hundred billion dollars." And then he loses all the money.

This happens all the time. The first theory of empire said that for America to maintain its empire, it must demonstrate humility, discipline, and restraint. Why did they get rid of this and move to Shock and Awe, which is like, "We'll do anything we want"?

Because it's fun. What is the point of having an empire if you cannot blow things up for no reason? There's no point. We have the greatest military in the world; let's just blow things up for no reason.

The people who believed in the first theory came from an older generation that fought in World War II and the Cold War. They understood what war looks like. War is really bloody and terrible, and we must do our best to avoid it. The second generation of 2003 are individuals who don't know what war is. If you look at videos from the 2003 war, it looks like a video game. You don't see what they saw in Vietnam, which was soldiers losing their arms and crying. The images from Vietnam were terrible. But the Gulf War in 2003 was just a video game of things getting blown up. You don't actually see the people dying.

The Folly of Empire: Overcommitment, Hubris, and Arrogance

There are three fundamental problems with Shock and Awe.

1. You become overcommitted. You believe that Shock and Awe allows you to be God. You can be anywhere at once, fighting all wars.
2. You lack strategic focus. You don't actually have a plan. You don't know what you want to do with this empire; you just want to maintain it.
3. Hubris. You don't think anyone can challenge you. You don't think you can lose a war.

Right now, America has this huge empire and is refusing to spend the necessary resources to protect it. For example, the US Navy in 1945 had 7,600 ships. Today, it has 475. These 475 ships must go all around the world to protect shipping lanes. The US military in 1991 had two million soldiers; today, it has 1.3 million.

America doesn't even have manufacturing capacity anymore. It doesn't have factories, which means if it fights a war, it can't fight for a very long time. For every one ship that America makes, China can make 300. America no longer has the manufacturing capacity it had during World War II.

So, why will the military agree to a stupid war in Iran? Because it's overcommitted, it has no strategy, and it's arrogant. And the military is like this because of what happened in 2003: Shock and Awe.

Unfortunately, America is headed towards disaster because the people in charge have no experience. They don't know what war is, they don't know what the horrors of war are, and they've inherited a lot of money and want to enjoy it. They want to have fun.