Zero-Sum Victory

What We're Getting Wrong About War

Christopher D. Kolenda

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813152899
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Militärpolitik

The military expert and author of Leadership presents "the most thoughtful analysis yet of America's recent conflicts—and future challenges" (Gen. Stanley A.McChrystal). Why have the major post-9/11 US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in America's favor, capacity-building efforts, and tactical victories, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US government's fixation on zero-sum, decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why these operations failed to achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory, retired US Army colonel Christopher D.Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government's insistence on zero-sum victory. First, the US government has no way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory, and thus, selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second, the United States is slow to recognize, modify, or abandon losing strategies. Third, once the United States decides to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience, Kolenda draws thought-provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary world—insights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.

PART I

Toward a War Termination Framework

1

Further Defining War Termination

Three Successful War Termination Outcomes in Irregular War

A country goes to war to achieve certain aims. These aims could include vanquishing an existential threat, territorial conquest, regaining lost territory, regime change, retribution, coercing the adversary to change certain policies, and the like. Success, quite logically, means the durable attainment of those aims. This simple concept is at the heart of many of America’s troubles with irregular wars.

Decisive victory, gaining the enemy’s capitulation or annihilation, is the most easily understood way to succeed. Decisive military victory is central to Martel’s argument about winning. Policymakers, he argues, “should understand that using the correct combination of military instruments of power will permit them to achieve the levels of victory to which they aspire.”¹ Sometimes, decisive victory is the best path to a favorable and durable outcome. In World War II, for instance, vanquishing the Nazi regime—permanently ending its threat—was necessary. In the American Civil War, defeating the Confederate armies was the most logical way to preserve the Union and end slavery.

Successful warfighting, even to the point of defeating an opposing army, is normally not sufficient for a durable political outcome. War, in political scientist Thomas Schelling’s formulation, is violent bargaining.² Even wars that have involved the surrender of the adversary’s armed forces usually involve some form of negotiation. US general Ulysses S. Grant, for instance, feared that Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia would continue fighting, perhaps conducting a guerrilla campaign, if not offered parole and the promise of no post-war trials. The Allies in World War II feared the Germans would do the same if not offered acceptable terms. In the Pacific theater, despite being pummeled by two atomic bombs, the Japanese offered to surrender only if they could retain the emperor.

Similarly, the American Revolution aimed to coerce Great Britain into recognizing the newly formed United States as an independent country. The British fought from 1776 to 1783 in an effort to retain colonial rule. They could have carried on the struggle, even after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in October 1781, but they calculated that the probability of success at acceptable cost was too low. The British accepted American independence in the Treaty of Paris, but they extracted important concessions, too.

Winning, Schelling points out, should not have a competitive meaning. Adversaries tend to have a combination of conflicting and compatible interests. Winning in war means gaining relative to one’s aims, not in relation to the adversary. Success may be realized through bargaining and mutual accommodation and by the avoidance of mutually damaging behavior. There are, he argues, a range of variable-sum outcomes available.³ Viewing success in zero-sum terms closes off a range of possibilities for winning.

Decisive victory, while highly desirable, is thus not the only possible war termination outcome and might not be realistic or cost-effective. Even Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who many mistakenly believe is an advocate of total war, recognizes the simple fact that there can be other ways to win. In a rarely quoted passage, he notes, “it is possible to increase the likelihood of success without defeating the enemy’s forces . . . many roads lead to success [and] they do not all involve the opponent’s outright defeat.”⁴ In other words, even the old Prussian figured out that winning does not always mean zero-sum decisive victory.

Some wars, for example, end in a negotiated outcome. In this case, neither party surrenders. The combatants negotiate an agreement that ends the conflict. The Good Friday Agreement ending the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland is an example. Neither the British government nor the allied and insurgent Northern Irish parties vanquished the other or got everything they wanted in the negotiations. The British government retained control of Northern Ireland, making the negotiated outcome a win for them even if the insurgency did not surrender. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, was granted important concessions, including recognition as a political party and a role in governance. The two sides each achieved some but not all of their aims.

The Korean War (1950–1953) is another example of a negotiated settlement. The United States had positioned troops in South Korea after World War II to defend the latter’s territorial integrity. When North Korea invaded in 1950 to unify the peninsula under its leadership, the United States and its allies fought back to save South Korea. After a stunning victory at Inchon in late 1950, the United States expanded its war aims to include unification of the Korean peninsula under South Korean leadership. This led to Chinese intervention to save its North Korean ally. The war settled into a grinding stalemate near the original borders. By 1953, a negotiated settlement was reached. The United States and South Korea achieved their original aim to preserve the existence of South Korea, but not the expanded aim of unifying the peninsula under South Korean leadership. The Chinese succeeded in preserving North Korea. North Korea failed in its aim to unify the peninsula under its leadership. Thus, a war that ends in a negotiated settlement can have multiple winners even if no one capitulates.

A third option, available to an intervening power, is to end its direct combat role before the war ends. This concept is called transition. In theory, once the intervening power deems a host nation’s capability to be sufficient—or determines that further efforts are no longer needed—it can withdraw its troops. To achieve this outcome, the intervening power aims to build the capacity of the host nation until it overmatches the capability of its adversary. Once the estimated “crossover” point is reached, the intervening power can scale down its commitment and eventually withdraw altogether. President George W. Bush expressed this concept during the Iraq War: “as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.”⁵

In short, a combatant may have multiple options to achieve a favorable and durable outcome in a given conflict. Decisive victory is neither the only option nor necessarily the best one in certain circumstances. In sum, favorable war termination outcomes can include:

Decisive victory, in which the adversary capitulates and ceases military resistance. This often results in an imposed settlement to avoid further bloodshed. The win is lopsided in favor of one side, but not necessarily zero-sum.

Negotiated settlement or mixed outcome, in which neither side vanquishes the other. Parties compromise to end the war and settle remaining differences through peaceful politics. These are normally variable-sum outcomes. Success occurs if the negotiated settlement enables the combatant to achieve its main war aims.

Transition, in which the intervening power degrades the adversary while building the capacity of the host nation government and security forces. As these forces become superior to those of the enemy (thus reaching the so-called crossover point), the intervening power transfers security responsibility to the host nation and withdraws without concluding a peace agreement. An intervening power wins if its interests remain secured after withdrawal.

Clausewitz’s insight that a combatant can increase the likelihood of success without defeating the enemy’s forces is critically important. After all, seeking an unrealistic outcome could prolong a war and heighten its costs. A combatant fixated on decisive victory might become blind to opportunities to achieve its aims through other means. Alternatively, an intervening power that seeks a favorable and durable outcome through transition could meet with unexpected success that opens an opportunity for a decisive victory. Knowing when to adopt an alternative is thus a significant decision and requires a major change in strategy.

Each of these broadly defined successful outcomes in irregular war normally involves some sort of bargaining. The surrender of enemy forces tends to be predicated upon the attainment of an agreement sufficient to avoid further bloodshed. Transition relies on bargaining with the host nation, and perhaps the insurgency as well, for the protection of the intervening power’s interests. Rejecting negotiations in the mistaken belief that success may only be attained in zero-sum fashion heightens the probability of quagmires.

Likewise, it is important to note that the various outcomes may entail different levels of durability. A decisive victory that is perceived to impose unnecessarily harsh terms may sow the seeds of revanchism. A negotiated settlement approved by one governing administration could be overturned by the next administration and risk a resumption of conflict. Negotiated settlements or transitions that place the protection of a country’s interests into the hands of a host nation government could find those interests marginalized or abandoned by that actor.

These war termination considerations seem to be important enough to be considered at the start of the policy and strategy process rather than after the default (decisive victory) has been exhausted. Do not take the first step, cautions Clausewitz, before considering the last.⁶

Strategy and War Termination

Historian Lawrence Freedman describes strategy as “the best word we have for expressing attempts to think about our actions in advance, in light of our goals and capacities.”⁷ Strategy is the process of determining how to employ one’s capabilities to achieve a favorable and durable outcome in the face of cooperative and competitive actors and factors. Strategy, as Schelling notes above, exists in a dynamic environment because these actors and factors, which are beyond one’s control, affect the outcome. Historian Michael Handel observes that strategy development ought to be a rational process, evidenced by identifying political goals, analyzing the character of the conflict, developing a strategy to achieve stated aims, and then making peace when the goals have been attained or when the costs and risks have come to outweigh the value of the political object.⁸ The process is intentional—the calculated and purposeful use of force, or the potential use of force, to achieve desired political outcomes.

This is not to imply that statesmen are perfectly rational or that they do not make bad decisions. Nobel Prize-winning behavioral scientist Daniel Kahneman defines rationality as “logical coherence—reasonable or not.” Logical coherence and reasonableness together is a high standard, and, as Kahneman admits, “impossibly restrictive.”⁹ That wars can escape rationality is a central point of Clausewitz’s theory of war.¹⁰ Passions, fears, personal and bureaucratic interests, entrapment, and biases, among other challenges, can undermine decision-making.¹¹ Factors such as these lead military historians Braford Lee and Karl Walling to argue that it is the responsibility of the state leadership to make strategy “as rational an instrument of policy as the circumstances of a particular war admit.”¹²

How Do Outcomes Fit into Strategy?

Ideally, the strategy-making process should examine several paths to success. Strategy is not a crystal ball or blueprint for the future; rather, it is a choice about the most likely way to succeed in a competitive environment. As noted earlier, there are normally many roads that can lead to success. Returning to our taxonomy of war termination outcomes—decisive victory, negotiated settlement, and transition—is it possible that each option might require a different strategy?

A strategy designed to achieve a decisive victory, for instance, could focus on defeating the enemy’s military forces. This is likely to require a very high level of commitment and perhaps the prioritization of military efforts. A strategy that seeks a win through a negotiated settlement, on the other hand, might prioritize diplomacy and require lower levels of military effort that are tightly linked to negotiating leverage. A strategy seeking transition might prioritize host nation political legitimacy and capability, with security efforts focused on host nation military professionalism over enemy attrition. In each case, the use and prioritization of the military instrument can vary significantly. The same is true for other el...