Table Of ContentIRAQ &
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F
AMERICAN
STRATEGY
R T P B
ELATED ITLES FROM OTOMAC OOKS
Defiant Superpower: The New American Hegemony
by Donald E. Nuechterlein
Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower
by John Brady Kiesling
John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power
by John Andreas Olsen
Strategic Challenges: America’s Global Security Agenda
edited by Stephen J. Flanagan and James A. Schear
War & Destiny: How the Bush Revolution in Foreign
and Military Affairs Redefined American Power
by James Kitfield
IRAQ
&
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F
AMERICAN
STRATEGY
STEVEN METZ
POTOMAC BOOKS, INC.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Copyright © 2008 Potomac Books, Inc.
Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Metz, Steven, 1956-
Iraq and the evolution of American strategy / Steven Metz. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59797-196-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. United States—Foreign relations—Iraq. 2. Iraq—Foreign
relations—United States. 3. Iraq—Strategic aspects. 4. United
States—Military policy. 5. National security—United States. 6.
United States—Foreign relations—1989- 7. Iraq—Foreign public
opinion, American. 8. Public opinion—United States. I. Title.
E183.8.I57M48 2008
327.730567—dc22
2008009001
ISBN: 978-1-59797-196-6
(alk. paper)
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets
the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.
Potomac Books, Inc.
22841 Quicksilver Drive
Dulles, Virginia 20166
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C O N T E N T S
Foreword by Colin S. Gray vii
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xvii
1 Ascent of an Enemy 1
2 The Test of Battle 15
3 Transformation and Containment 49
4 Terrorism and Force 73
5 Decision and Triumph 101
6 Counterinsurgency 145
Conclusion 191
Notes 205
Selected Bibliography 235
Index 251
About the Author 262
F O R E W O R D
by Colin S. Gray
S
teven Metz is one of the rare people who understands the military
and its cultures, while remaining a civilian scholar of high repute.
Although he has worked for the U.S. Army for many years he has
never lost his independence of mind. Among other attributes, Dr. Metz’s
writings and behavior have shown a deep commitment to the proposition
that strategic knowledge needs to be useful in the real world. When he theo-
rizes, he does so for the clear constructive purpose of helping the realm of
strategic practice. Carl von Clausewitz’s disdain for scholars who theorize
seemingly for its own sake, and who weave ever more elaborate architec-
tures of theory, does not apply to Dr. Metz.
Unlike many of today’s strategic theorists and commentators, Steven
Metz has not staged a recent arrival in the messy and complex realm of
insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN), terrorism and counterterrorism
(CT). He made his mark as an innovative analyst and theorist of the irregu-
lar forms of violence long before it was fashionable to do so. Unfortunately,
what has happened is that the global security context and U.S. policy, grand
strategy, military strategy, operations, and tactics have caught up with him.
To people such as Steven Metz, who is truly expert in the principles, the
practice and the malpractice of COIN and CT many years prior to 9/11, it
has to be galling to observe the rediscovery of familiar nostrums by the broad
defense community.
Dr. Metz has owed his talent and experience a major book, and here
it is. This superb work attempts and achieves no less than three tasks. First, it
unravels the tangled skein of U.S.-Iraqi relations since the early 1980s. In
vii
viii ——————————————————————————––––——— F O R E W O R D
great detail, the whole background to the contemporary troubles is explained.
The book is especially revealing on the roots and continuing causes of mu-
tual misunderstanding between Americans and Iraqis. Repeatedly, Dr. Metz
advises wisely that the manifestation of culture on both sides has a great deal
to answer for. With the publication of Iraq & the Evolution of American Strategy,
there can be no excuse for anyone to remain baffled as to why and how the
tragedy occurred. It is important to note that Dr. Metz has not written an
angry book but rather a calm and balanced one. He recognizes that good
American intentions have a way of producing undesired results.
Second, the book probes and exposes the problems Americans have
with strategy. Indeed, the work is really as much about strategy making and
execution in the American political and cultural contexts as it is about the
U.S.-Iraqi nexus. The text can be read as a lengthy treatise on Americans
and strategy, an analysis illustrated profusely by Iraq as a case study. It is
somewhat ironic that America’s strategy deficit, as I have termed it elsewhere,
should be revealed today in so unmistakable a form vis-à-vis Iraq and Af-
ghanistan. The irony lies in the fact that in the contemporary United States,
“strategy has become an industry.” Dr. Metz proceeds to argue that “[a]ll
told this is truly a golden age of strategic discourse in the United States (if
not of strategy itself).” If he is correct in this claim, one would expect Ameri-
can would-be strategic behavior to generate more benign effect than has
been revealed thus far by events. Of course, it is entirely possible that al-
though there is, or may be, a large and ever-growing band of American stra-
tegic cognoscenti, the country is prevented from achieving high strategic
effectiveness by its culture. Specifically, it is not implausible to argue that
America’s public culture, strategic culture, and military institutional cultures
work to constrain strategic, and hence political, effectiveness in some classes
of conflict. The traditional American “way of war,” to risk oversimplification,
has favored regular over irregular warfare and a quest for decisive military
victory. The conduct of complex and protracted conflict, where a military
outcome appears impossible to secure, has not been the U.S. forte. As re-
cently as 2003–06, it was commonplace to hear American soldiers complain
that in Iraq they were committed to a struggle whose forms they did not
understand and for which they were not properly trained, suitably armed,
or appropriately organized. Matters have improved recently, but as the maxim
has it, time lost is irretrievable. The grasp of doctrine required for effective
COIN and CT behavior that is now widespread in America’s military institu-
tions does not enable Americans to reset the game clock back to 2003.
F O R E W O R D ——————–——————–—————–——————————— ix
Third, Dr. Metz’s book is a profound study of strategy itself. The his-
torical subject happens to be the American experience with, and in, Iraq,
but the text can be read as an extensive exploration of all aspects of the
making and execution of strategy. The concept of strategy can be as hard for
some people to understand as its attempted practice can be thwarted by a
myriad of difficulties. Strategy is far more challenging to design, adapt, and
carry into effect than is policy or operations or tactics. The latter categories
are each substantially “pure” in military content, at least they should be.
Policy sets political goals that operations and tactics should attain courtesy
of the directing genius of strategy. If policy is about political judgment, while
tactics are about fighting, and operations are concerned with the aggrega-
tion of tactical events into a campaign whole, what is strategy? Plainly, it is
neither policy nor fighting. Instead, strategy is the bridge between the two.
It is where theory and practice meet. Speculative policymaking, with prob-
ably a shifting set of political goals, has to be translated into behavior by the
military instrument via strategy. The job of the strategist is to decide on the
probable exchange rate of successful military threat and employment for
political returns. When phrased thus, it becomes rapidly apparent why strat-
egy is exceedingly difficult to do well.
History abounds with cases of countries leaping from policy decision
to active military behavior, with little, if any, attention paid to strategy. Fre-
quently it is just assumed that a heap of anticipated tactical victories will
assume an operational significance that must, miraculously almost, produce
the desired strategic result. It should be needless to add that this astrategic
approach to the use of force for policy ends is near criminally irresponsible,
even though it can succeed occasionally.
Dr. Metz’s Iraq & and the Evolution of American Strategy is a book for
which we have been waiting. This is a landmark text. Even though the strate-
gic muddle of America’s involvement in Iraq is far from over, Dr. Metz’s
history and analysis should stand the test of time.
COLIN S. GRAY
