Jeff Edwards is a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, and an Anti-Submarine Warfare Specialist. He is currently working as a civilian expert consultant to the Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Command, the Navy's think tank for high-tech undersea warfare. His naval career spanned more than two decades and half the globe -- from chasing Soviet nuclear attack submarines during the Cold War, to launching cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf.
He puts his extensive experience as a Surface
Warfare specialist to work in his new novel,
TORPEDO.
In a plot that could easily be ripped from
today's headlines, TORPEDO combines an accident
at a nuclear power plant, an illegal arms
deal, and a biological warfare attack, to
ignite a crisis that could draw Western Europe,
the Middle East, and the United States into
all-out war. TORPEDO mixes the elements of
a classic sea chase novel with state-of-the-art
technology to create a cutting-edge Surface
Warfare Thriller.
TORPEDO is the winner of the 2005 Admiral Nimitz Award for Outstanding Naval Fiction.
Sound Off! Got an opinion about this article? Make your voice heard on the Jeff Edwards discussion forum.
Jeff Edwards contact info:
TheDeckPlate Website
Email Jeff Edwards
Jeff Edwards Books:
Torpedo: A Surface Warfare Thriller
Jeff Edwards Archives
Military Opinions Index
|
|
|
|
|
Your Two Cents
Submit your stories, news items, or a benefits update -- and help Military.com bring the best, most important stories to your fellow servicemembers, veterans, and family members. Contribute here
|
|
|
August 12, 2005
[Have an opinion on this article? Go to the Discussion
Forum to sound off.]
As I've said in earlier columns, I have no particular skill for predicting the future. I discover the future the same way as most other mortals: one second at a time. But I can predict certain things with uncanny accuracy.
For instance, if I send my teenaged son to clean the front bathroom, I know exactly how events are going to transpire. He'll grunt, stomp around a little (just in case I don't realize that cleaning the bathroom is a serious imposition), and eventually gather up a random selection of rags and cleaning products and head down the hall toward the bathroom. He'll spend a few minutes generating industrious-sounding noises, and then things will get quiet.
At this point, my psychic abilities kick into overdrive, and I can predict exactly what he will say next. In fact, I know what we're both going to say, nearly word-for-word.
“Dad, can you come check the bathtub?”
“What's wrong with the bathtub?”
“Nothing. I mean I cleaned it.”
“Good. Why do I need to check it?”
"To see if it's clean enough.”
Look at it. Does it look clean?”
Him: “How do you tell?”
“What color is it supposed to be?”
“White.”
“Is it white?”
"Uhhhhh… not really.”
“Is it clean?”
“I guess not.”
This pronouncement is followed by a sigh that rattles the windows. He spends another two minutes making industrious-sounding noises, and then…
“Dad, can you come check the bathtub?”
“What's wrong with the bathtub?”
And the cycle begins again.
It would be much easier for me to simply check the bathtub myself. I could save myself a great deal of frustration. For that matter, I could clean the bathtub myself. It takes all of five minutes to do a thorough job. But I bite my tongue, and remind myself that this isn't about the bathroom, it's about preparing our son for life.
When he finally emerges from the bathroom, looking bedraggled and generally put upon, we have to have the talk . The contents of that conversation are as predictable as the tub dialogue. I'll spare you the interplay and cut to the central issue: the job is done when it's finished. The job is done when it's right.
You can apply the same standard to anything. Suppose you hire someone to repaint your house. When is the job done? When he gets tired? When he runs out of paint? When he discovers that painting a house is harder than it looks? No, the job is done when the house is painted and the cleanup is finished. It's that simple.
Would you settle for anything less? Would you accept half a root canal from your dentist? How about half a haircut, or most of a car wash? Of course not. Anyone can look at a half-painted house and see that there is still work to be done.
That leaves me wondering how people can get so wrapped up over the lack of a formal Exit Strategy for Iraq. I've heard it at least a hundred times over the past two years: “America got into Iraq without a plan for getting out.”
This line of thought began to surface almost immediately following the onset of military action in March of 2003. U.S. forces had been in Iraq for less than two weeks when the word ‘ Quagmire ' began appearing in the media. The Vietnam comparisons were cropping up even before that, shortly followed by those two deadly words – Exit Strategy.
The implication attached to those words is clear. No government should ever enter a military conflict without a comprehensive blueprint for getting out. Buried in that idea lies the assumption that the master plan ought to include a detailed timeline. The sheer orderliness of the concept is so seductive that Senators, journalists, and private citizens are drawn to it in droves.
If we were talking about an undertaking with a high degree of predictability, that might be a reasonable demand. But fighting a war is not like building a house. You can not plan for every contingency, for the simple reason that you can't even identify every contingency. In any competition, your adversary will do his or her best to hit you from an entirely unexpected angle. This is a truism in everything from chess to tennis, but it's doubly true in warfare.
In ‘ The Art of War,' Sun Tzu had this to say: “ All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
Even a cursory examination of insurgent tactics in Iraq shows that our enemies are in a constant state of evolution. The attacks our military personnel face today are much different that the attacks of a year ago. Our adversaries change and adapt, just as we do. This has always been true. In light of that knowledge, the very idea of mapping an entire military conflict from start to finish seems naive at best, and ludicrous at worst.
To build a detailed Exit Strategy in advance, military and political leaders would literally have to know the unknowable. For similar reasons, it's impossible to build a meaningful timeline. We can gauge the readiness of the Iraqi Government and security forces. We can make intelligent estimates as to the end strength and activity of the insurgents. But we can't predict when they will strike, or how long they will keep up the fight.
A true Exit Strategy would either have to perfectly predict the plans of the insurgents, or ignore their plans entirely. The first is impossible, and the second is suicidal.
Even if we could create a comprehensive Exit Strategy and timeline, we could never make them public. As soon as we set an ironclad date for withdrawal of forces, we have communicated the limits of our endurance to our enemies. We've given them a date to mark on their calendar -- hold out until this date, and you win.
Imagine how well that idea would work for law enforcement. “ Attention Bank Robbers! This is Special Agent Peterson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We intend to pursue you until two-thirty p.m., next Tuesday afternoon. If you have not surrendered or been captured by that date, we will cease all attempts to apprehend you! ”
We don't need an Exit Strategy in Iraq for the same reason that firefighters don't need one to tackle a burning building. They go home when the fire is out. They don't roll up the hoses until the job is done.
We need a plan of action, not an Exit Strategy. We need a strategy for achieving the objective. Luckily, we've got one. We've had it since March 19, 2003. Assist the Iraqi people in forming stable and secure self-government.
On July 21, 2005, a scant few weeks ago, Congress reiterated that strategy when it voted against early withdrawal from Iraq. Attached as an amendment to the Department of State appropriations bill, the resolution stated that the U.S. should not leave Iraq until national security and foreign policy goals relating to a free and stable Iraq have been achieved.
That's pretty cut and dried. The house is painted when it's painted. The fire is out when it's out. The bathtub is clean when it's clean. The job is finished when the objectives have been met. Anything else is either a blind guess, or a call to leave the job half complete.
© 2005 Jeff Edwards. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.
|
