The anemic Israeli response to attacks on its territory by Iranian missiles is a direct result of the restraint urged on Jerusalem by Joe Biden’s administration.
Not content with ineffectual military action in our own wars, Biden has infected our proxy allies in Israel and Ukraine with this concept, ensuring that they will be involved in the kind of “forever wars” that he promised to end in 2020.
Failed Concept of ‘Limited War’
Since the Harry Truman administration, between 1945 and 1953, Democrats have largely waged war through armed signal-sending. That is why they haven’t won one. Truman began the Democratic Party concept of “limited war,” signaling to the North Koreans and Chinese of what they could get away with.
When Republican Dwight Eisenhower became president in 1953, he sent less subtle signals that, if serious negotiations did not begin, there would be severe consequences. The threat worked: an armistice was called, and the shooting war stopped.
In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson and his woeful Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resumed the failed concept of limited war when they tried to convince the North Vietnamese to come to the bargaining table by selectively bombing targets in an operation called Rolling Thunder. It didn’t take Hanoi long to figure out the game. They knew exactly how much punishment they could endure and began to play Johnson like a fiddle.
It wasn’t until Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger began serious bombing of the North and threatened worse that the Communist regime finally came to the table. South Vietnam did not collapse until a Democratic post-Watergate Congress refused to fund or support the Saigon regime.
Likewise, Jimmy Carter’s half-hearted efforts to support the Afghan resistance in the wake of the Soviet Union’s invasion were ineffective until Ronald Reagan’s administration got serious about it.
Bill Clinton’s pathetic attempt to intimidate al-Qaeda by ordering a Tomahawk missile strike on a pharmaceutical plant merely helped convince the terrorists that they were dealing with a paper tiger.
Barack Obama did not even bother to use force to send signals when the Syrians called his bluff after he drew a “line in the sand” over Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people.
Open-Ended Threats
The Clausewitzian dictum that war is politics by other means has been misinterpreted by Democratic Party presidents as an extension of American politics as we understand the art.
All too often, our enemies understand what Carl von Clausewitz was really saying. Successful war means the imposition of one’s will on the enemy by any means necessary. By signaling to the other party what we are willing to limit ourselves in doing, we give him the latitude to act within those limits.
Contrast that to the approaches of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Trump, who kept American threats open-ended, giving them much better latitude.
Biden’s Limited War Strategy
In the case of the Biden administration, the limited war disease has spread to the prosecution of the wars being fought by our proxies in Israel and Ukraine. Biden has limited the use of very capable systems provided to Kyiv so as not to overly upset Vladimir Putin for some curious reason.
By convincing Israel to limit its retaliation to Iran’s missile and drone strikes on Israeli territory, we signal to the Iranians what they can get away with in the future. Iran is using its proxies effectively while we hamstring ours. Tehran supplies and eggs on Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis with virtual impunity.
To end those wars, Israel needs to eliminate Iran’s weapons production capability and ensure that it can no longer export arms to its proxies. Biden has allowed Iran to become the insurgent sanctuary that Johnson created with his limited approach to the Vietnam War.
Trump would be well advised to encourage the Israelis to wage an unlimited war on Iran’s weapons production, ports, oil facilities, and nuclear sites. He will likely be inclined to do so because of the recently revealed Iranian plot to assassinate him in retaliation for his authorization of the killing of General Qassam Soleimani.
If the loss of their economy, oil industry, overseas military capability, and nuclear program does not deter the Iranian government from overseas troublemaking, it may give the people the will to overthrow the Ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Trump has run on a platform of keeping us out of unnecessary wars and letting allies and proxies take care of business in their own regions. Untying Israel’s hand would go a long way toward implementing a Trump Doctrine.
Gary Anderson served as the Chief of Plans (G-5) of the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force responsible for the Indo-Pacific area. He was the Director of the X Unit, which evolved into the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. When he retired, he was the Lab’s Chief of Staff.
He lectures on Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.
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