Military Review English Edition March-April 2016 | Page 11

WINNING WARS

to network these provinces into a new and radical
Islamic nation-state with global ambitions for conquest is evident in the materials discovered in many of
these locations, which emphasize in detail the required
principles for administering such a state, discussing
everything from the management of public utilities
and wealth distribution to organization of the training
within its various camps and villages.
Ominously, those materials also emphasize the continuing need for recruitment of foreign fighters in an
effort to add to the approximately thirty thousand now
engaged in their expansionist campaign of holy war (jihad). Those currently fighting under the IS banner have
come from approximately eighty different countries—
already a formidable coalition. However, in an effort to
diversify and expand this force, IS has launched additional recruitment efforts in Indonesia, the Philippines,
European Union states, and the Southern Caucasus.
IS recruitment has even begun to creep into the very
tough, security-minded state of India.
Concurrently, IS has built relationships with
like-minded jihadists across the globe, directing
indiscriminate, vicious, and barbaric attacks in
Saudi Arabia, France, the United States, Russia,
Libya, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Afghanistan,
Turkey, Kuwait, and Bangladesh. IS leaders also
firmly believe that the Internet is a virtual province,
and they dominate it.
With the above developments in mind, I strongly
believe (as do many others) that this threat has metastasized far beyond a localized problem of a few thousand in only a few countries in the Middle East. It has
become instead a global cancer affecting and influencing the fate and well-being of hundreds of millions of
people around the world. For example, events such as
the continuing forced migration of millions of refugees
from the Middl e East into the heart of Europe brought
on by conflict with IS should clearly demonstrate
in and of itself that the actions of IS present a clear
mid- and long-term threat to the cultural and political
existence of the West.

A Habituated State of Ennui in the
Government
Recently, I testified to the Senate Armed Services
Committee in support of Sen. John McCain’s efforts to
review the Goldwater-Nichols Act thirty years after it
MILITARY REVIEW  March-April 2016

was enacted by Congress.1 Historically, the GoldwaterNichols Act helped overcome deeply embedded
individual Armed Forces parochialism by forcing the
Department of Defense and the military services to
work together jointly under threat of sanction and
penalty of law. However, much has changed since the
passage of this act that calls into the question of its
effectiveness and relevance to the current security
situation. Important questions about our military services and their Title 10 responsibilities, the size of the
Pentagon’s bureaucracy, and whether our combatant
commands under Goldwater-Nichols mandates had
lost sight of their true reasons for existing all came up
during testimony and the question-and-answer session
that followed. However, what was most disturbing to
me about the testimony given and the ensuing discussion was what we did not talk about. We did not
discuss winning—or more candidly—why it appears
that we can no longer win. To be even more precise,
one blunt and vital question did not get asked: Can we
win wars anymore?
On assessing such a question, let us just stick with
IS, our latest and currently our most blatant inyour-face enemy. Though history tells us that there
will be many other enemies in the years ahead, for
now, let us focus on just one and on the prospects of
beating this enemy.

Islamic State as a Case Study in
Whether the United States Can Still
Win Wars
Contrary to the pessimistic view of some pundits
in academia, the government, and the media, IS is
beatable. In terms of a one-for-one military matchup in armed combat, we have consistently proven
that they can be beaten tactically. However, history, as well as our own painful experience with war,
should demonstrate that just tactical victories on the
ground are clearly not enough to win wars. The key
to success is having the moral and political will to
do everything necessary to beat them. But, thus far,
to truly win, to steal the willingness away from the
opposition and create a real sense of a victor and a
vanquished—a clear winner and a loser—requires a
sustained whole-of-government effort well beyond
what we have been allowed to do in any conflict in
which we have engaged in recent times. Strategic
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