Vietnam was
indeed a military victory, but was politically a complete rout - validating
Clausewitz and thus invalidating everything the military actually accomplished.
The War Powers
Act has historically been seen as a check on the power of the Executive, this
is completely turned around in the modern era.
Since about 1947, there has been a tacit (if not explicit) collusion
between the Congressional and Executive branches of government: the Congress
will let the President deploy troops pretty much however he wants to with only
a little public bleating, in exchange for his not demanding the War Powers Act. They both win - he gets flexibility in
policy, they don't ever have to take a public position on what he's doing.
I find this
deeply broken, and leading not only to bad public and geopolitical policy, but
bad for our soldiers.
Yes, FORCING
Congress to pass a War Powers resolution before a CiC can deploy troops abroad
would act as a check on the power of the President. But it would also require consensus, and this
means that the People would have to largely be behind it (for the cowards in
Congress to crawl out from under their rocks and actually support it in the
record). FORCING such public and shared
culpability means that if stuff goes sideways, we ALL have to recognize our
parts in the choices being made.
To the original
point, I submit that the "Lesson not learned" from Vietnam was clear;
while our military has gotten even more crazy-proficient at what they do, and
the force differential made the military victory even more foreordained, the
failure was identical in 2003-2011 as it had been in 1961-1975: if you cannot sum up the goal of
the conflict in two or three sentences (or ideally, one), you are going to be
stuck there for a long time.
Part of a War
Powers act MUST, therefore, include "Why are we fighting?" and
"What conditions must be met to bring home our troops?" Not 'most' of our troops. Not 'pretty much all' of our troops. ALL of them.
If the goal of 2003 had been "topple the Iraqi government" -
pretty much everyone would have been fine with that. In that case, our forces would have returned
in 2004. If it had been - as it turned
out to be - "Topple the Iraqi government and rebuild it as a modern
Liberal Democracy and then leave some bases in place to try to secure the
security situation in the heart of the mideast with American forces for the indefinite
future"....well, I think the public response would have been immediate,
colorful, and probably used some very old Anglo-Saxon words.
To the OP: COIN
conflicts are inevitable, with any non-peer opponent today. Dealing with them REQUIRES competent
politicians as much as generals, both at the front end and the back end. Unfortunately as skilled as our troops are,
our political leaders of both parties are far more capably incompetent.
Edit (addendum)
Yes, I'm aware
that getting a War Powers act would be harder.
That is, I think, healthier. It
should be hard for a country to go to war. REALLY hard.
Further, as much
then as we'd share the blame if things go wrong as a result of issuing such, we
ALSO would have to face the consequences of NOT doing anything which is often
much worse.
Yes, this
requires an actual 'adult' conversation about the situation (as complex as it
may be) and the ramifications of doing something vs. doing nothing, and getting
some sort of consensus out of a public more enamored with this weeks American
Idol voting than issues of substance. So
be it.
