How to win, or lose a war

This isn’t anything new, but somehow people seem to always forget it.

A war is not just raw untamed violence, it is the enforcement of a political decision by force.  And like any political decision, it is a multifaceted engagement between no less than two powers.

And when you’re considering a political decision such as invading another country, you must consider the goals involved.  The stated goals of the current war in Iraq are to remove Saddam Hussein and the Baath regime, and establish a free and democratic Iraq.

The ability to actually complete this goal in concept (ie establishing democracy at the end of a gun) can be debated elsewhere.  What I take issue with is the single faceted approach to warfare that the current administration has taken.

In any war, and in fact any interaction between at least two powers, there are four methods that one power can exert influence upon another power.  They’re very simple, and there is even an acronym for it: DIME.

1.  Diplomatic – This is basic dialogue and give and take.

2.  Information – The use of information to influence another power, for example, the democratizing power of the Internet gives everyone a voice in the world (me included).  Or propaganda, like what Osama Bin Laden does so well.

3.  Military – Fairly self explanatory, do what I say, or I’ll kill you and bomb your country into a parking lot and send in Marines to paint the lines.

4. Economic – Because sanctions work so well, and they actually do.

All four of these methods can be used in any interaction with other powers.  And they are used all the time even when there is no declared ‘war’.

The issue currently revolves around the inability of the United States to utilize all four aspects of influence to win the war in Iraq.  Its plain enough to see that in a stand up military fight, the US can destroy any other military power in the world, maybe even two of them.  The anti-US forces, in their many forms, have wisely chosen to forgo direct military action and utilize both asymmetric warfare in the form of roadside bombings, and more importantly to use information warfare against us.

If the US is intent on winning the war in Iraq, (which is debatable) then we need to establish programs and actions that ‘wage war’ on all fronts, including economic assistance, information warfare (which in our case, should be nothing more than telling the truth), and diplomatic measures designed to garner support both within Iraq and outside Iraq.

C. Rice (no I can’t spell her first name) wasted a perfectly good chance to establish some inkling of a relationship with Syria.  Although tragic, the bombings at the US Embassy provided an opportunity to praise the actions of the Syrian security who prevented a tragic loss of American life and establish a relationship with Syria which could lead to more stability in both Iraq and Lebanon.  There would have been no harm in acknowledging the assistance that Syria offered.

A