The statistical arrows are pointing up. The data clearly show that Iraqi security forces will soon be capable of defending their country with increasingly less support from the Coalition. By election time over 107 battalions of Iraqi Army and police will be in the field. Fully a third will be capable of operating with only minimal support from U.S. advisors. Equipment is pouring in to provide weapons, body armor, radios, and even enough tanks and armored personnel carriers to equip an armored division.
Ministries are in place in Baghdad to provide strategic direction. Logistics, as well as command and control infrastructures, are beginning to appear. The face of the soldier on patrol in hot spots such as Baghdad, Fallujah, and western Anbar Province is increasingly that of an Iraqi.
We should applaud and take comfort from the materiel and structural progress made so far. After a painfully slow start the Coalition command is beginning to create an Iraqi security apparatus that is assuming the trappings of a conventional national army. Yet throughout the defense community one senses an atmosphere of uncertainty about conditions in Iraq. If the numbers are so good, why the skepticism among those who profess to know war best?
Skepticism comes buried deep in our experiential baggage. We remember the McNamara-era whiz kids whose statistics conclusively proved that the war would be won by 1972. Apparently no one bothered to tell the North Vietnamese. The experience in Vietnam has made us suspicious of relying on numbers alone to tell the score. The nineteenth-century German military philosopher and theorist Karl von Clausewitz was the first to conclude in his classic work, On War, that "war is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." Our instincts tell us that willpower, not manpower, will determine who wins and who loses. Clausewitz gives us a compendium of the timeless intangibles that collectively define the fighting strength of contending sides: tenacity, courage, cohesion, skill, leadership, trust, selflessness, and a willingness to sacrifice and die for a cause.
Fighting in such an unfamiliar region against an alien, enigmatic, and culturally unfamiliar enemy makes any attempt to measure willpower very difficult indeed. But if we believe that Clausewitz is right, we should at least try to use his rulebook to determine who's winning the war of wills. Let's measure the score so far.
The Americans
Much is made in the media today about the declining confidence of the American population for continuing the war. But let's put this into perspective for a moment. In 1993 America was anxious to pull out of Somalia after the death of 18 Rangers in Mogadishu. Had you asked the man on the street then if he would support the deaths of nearly 2,000 Americans in Iraq after three years of war he would have said "Absolutely not." But 9/11 changed everything. Fear of terrorism at home has kept American resolve remarkably steadfast. Our population will continue to at least tolerate losses as long as they perceive that the lives of soldiers and Marines are being spent to make progress in the Middle East (and by inference keep radical Islamists from our shores).
We hear a great deal about declining morale within the Army and Marine Corps. Again, what's remarkable about this war is how well, not how poorly, the fighting strength is being maintained given the extraordinarily small size of the ground forces available for fighting a protracted war against such an intractable enemy so far from home. To be sure, America does fight its wars on the clock and the clock is ticking. Impatience is both a societal strength as well as a weakness. But until the ground forces are well into a third or even fourth full-scale rotation it seems unlikely that the will of either the population or the ground forces of the United States will influence the end state of the war significantly.
The Enemy
Clausewitz reminds us again and again that war is a two-sided contest and that both sides fight to win. The great unknown measurement of willpower is that of the other side. But there are some indicators that suggest that we are not facing a clone of the Viet Cong or NVA. No great Iraqi fighting leader or charismatic figurehead on the order of Ho Chi Minh has emerged. We are seeing serious pushback from the Iraqi people toward an enemy who has too many foreigners and former Baathist thugs in its ranks. The will of the fanatical few is very strong but the will of the many in the ranks is uncertain and certainly not growing in collective fanaticism and zeal.
If the enemy could effectively mount a serious resistance to the Coalition rather than murdering their own people they most certainly would. The fact that they can't explains why, after nearly three years, the insurgency is finding it difficult to field anything other than killing squads and suicide bombers. Resistance is becoming better planned and organized at the top to be sure, but execution is being done by an ill-trained and poorly tempered lot of mindless young amateurs. Willpower is strongest in al Anbar province where Sunni fanaticism abounds and where contact with Syrian collaborators is most easily achieved. But in other provinces the will to carry on has diminished to the point where security has become an issue of law and order rather than war.
Don't misunderstand. This is not an inconsequential enemy. But he lacks virtually all of the essential elements necessary to sustain moral fighting power for the long term. He's not a pushover but he will never possess the characteristics of a first class fighter or the character of a warrior capable of winning the war of wills.
The Iraqis
An American ground force that is seriously stretched but not likely to break and an enemy who lacks the will to gain moral ascendancy anytime soon suggests that the Iraqis, the government, army, and people can win in the long term. There would be comfort in this surmise if only we could be sure of the fighting will of the good guys. To a large extent the Iraqi population has taken a wait-and-see position. Recent polls suggest strongly that Iraqis are favorably disposed to being defended by their own army and police. But they still are not convinced that these forces are up to the job.
Thus it would appear that the most sensitive and strategically significant willpower score must be tallied from the Iraqi security forces. If they can muster the will to fight, the end state will be positive. If they come up short, then superior American will, enemy morale shortcomings, and Iraqi tolerance will count for little. How are they doing? The news for the Iraqi army is generally positive.
Lessons learned from the fiasco during the first battle of Fallujah in April 2003 have taught the need to shape allegiances by separating Iraqi units from clan, tribe, and family. Unfortunately, this young army has had to learn to fight in the most costly manner: by fighting. The good news is that combat is often the most reliable crucible for discovering the best leaders. Evidence from the field suggests that real fighters are replacing many of those combat leaders who the Americans find inept. While there are many recruits who do not fit the model of a professional soldier, many more come into the force both skilled at the tactical level and motivated by something other than a paycheck. In spite of constant threats it is heartening to see that there is always a line at the recruiting station consisting of young men anxious to replace those who fail to exhibit the right stuff.
Anyone familiar with prior counterinsurgency efforts such as Malaya, El Salvador, and the Philippines realizes the importance of building a police force capable of translating military victories in the field into stable streets and secure populations. It seems that much more emphasis needs to be placed on what may well be the more critical force for achieving long-term security in Iraq. Collapse of the police force in Mosul in April 2003 showed that the police then lacked the backbone to stand up to the insurgents. There is a fear among many in the Coalition that old Saddam-era habits of corruption, nepotism, and collusion may creep into the new police, making them substantially less able to win the war of wills in the streets. If there is a moral center of gravity in Iraq it may well rest with the police. If the Iraqi government can take firm charge and correct police shortcomings, then Iraqi society and the army will be up to the task of supporting and winning the war of wills. Only time will tell.
MajGen Scales retired from the Army as Commandant of the Army War College. He is the author of Yellow Smoke: The Future of Landpower for America's Military. Currently he is president of Colgen, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in landpower issues.