Defining victory

The Civil War battle of Chickamauga occurred 147 years ago this weekend. For those unfamiliar with this two day long battle that caused 34,000 casualties, all American, the Confederate Army at Chickamauga attempted to block the Union advance toward Atlanta and to recapture the vital transportation hub of Chattanooga. Four railroads, rivers, and mountain passes all combined to make the small city with 2500 people important to both sides. Who won?

The National Park Service identifies the Confederacy as the victor. The Confederate units forced the Union Army to abandon the contested ground. That certainly is one widely held interpretation of victory.

However, determining who won the battle of Chickamauga depends upon the criteria one uses to answer that question. An alternative criterion for determining a battle’s victory is the body count. The U.S. often employed this criterion in Vietnam and the appearance of body counts in media reports of battles in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that some people, in or out of the military, continue to rely upon this criterion. At Chickamauga, Confederates casualties totaled 18,000, two thousand more than inflicted on the Union forces. Using this criterion, the Confederates lost. The Confederacy’s smaller population adds credibility to utilizing this criterion in the Civil War. Analogously, the total commitment of the Vietnamese and the more limited political will of the U.S. to accept casualties meant that relying on body counts in that conflict resulted in a false sense of who won specific battles. The pronounced tendency to exaggerate body counts as the war progressed further misled decision makers and the public.

Perhaps the most important criterion for determining the victor of a specific battle is the effect that the battle had on the war’s eventual outcome. This criterion generalizes the preceding discussion of body counts. The Confederate forces failed to pursue the fleeing Union forces and failed in their goal of retaking Chattanooga. Two months later, the Union Army drove the Confederate forces from the hills overlooking Chattanooga and launched their drive to capture Atlanta and then to divide the Confederacy by sweeping through Georgia to capture Savannah. From this perspective, the battle of Chickamauga is rightly seen as part of the larger battle to control Chattanooga, a battle that the Union won decisively and that directly contributed to the Union’s ultimate victory in the Civil War.

Applying this analysis of victory to Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that although the United States by some criteria wins the vast majority of encounters, the U.S. may still be losing both wars. The U.S. lacks the political will to accept casualties on the same scale (e.g., proportionally) as Taliban, al Qaeda, or many Iraqi insurgents. The U.S. may hold geographic areas temporarily but in both Iraq and especially in Afghanistan has not succeeded in permanently holding territory. As has become painfully and glaringly obvious in Afghanistan, combat success at the price of noncombatant casualties actually works against ultimately prevailing in the conflict.

The great German strategist Clausewitz long ago advised never embarking on a war without having a clear focus on one’s ultimate objective(s). A nation should intend every action taken in the conflict as a step toward achieving that objective. A nation should avoid actions that do not contribute to progress toward the objective. Actions that appear promising but fail to produce progress in achieving the objective are failures, regardless of body count, territory captured, etc. In other words, the U.S. may win almost every battle and still lose the war.

What, exactly, is the U.S. objective in Iraq? If the objective is to establish a Western style democracy, that goal is unachievable, if for no other reason the majority of Iraqis do not want to live in a Western style democracy. The inability to articulate a clear, achievable objective six years after invading and occupying Iraq underscores the moral error of having invaded.

What, exactly, is the U.S. objective in Afghanistan? A Western style democracy is even less achievable, less desired, than in Iraq. If the objective is to defeat the Taliban, that objective will require substantially annihilating the Taliban and its supporters because of their high level of commitment to their cause. In other words, the political will of the Taliban, as was the case among the North Vietnamese and their South Vietnamese supporters, far exceeds the political will of the U.S. to prevail. This lack of political will proved the downfall of previous Afghan invaders including the Mongols, the British, and the Soviets. If the objective is to defeat al Qaeda, then a great many U.S. actions, and the extensive resources those actions have required, do not directly contribute to achieving that objective. Without a clear objective, victory is impossible.