thedrifter
09-10-04, 06:41 AM
09-09-2004
Guest Column: Forget the Body Count Myth
By Bruce B.G. Clarke
“For those who fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected shall never know” -- From the wall of a bunker at Khe Sanh, Vietnam
Press accounts from both Afghanistan and Iraq all along have used headlines such as “Two Soldiers Killed” or “46 Insurgents Die.” Most recently the press has touted that 1,000 American soldiers have now been killed in Iraq. Some politicians are mistakenly hooking their fortunes to such numbers.
Is the body count truly relevant? Do these numbers tell us anything about who is winning? No, of course not! They tell us that there was a fight or an ambush or that something happened on a battlefield. These numbers do not measure success or failure. They do not tell us what happened.
The Los Angeles Times reported last Dec. 2, “U.S. military officials, in their regular news briefings in Iraq, have quietly begun reporting insurgent ‘KIA,’ or killed in action, after months of declining to detail the other side’s losses. Long hesitant to release numbers, fearing comparison to the inflated body counts of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military seems to be doing so now to appear more effective.”
Has the news media changed our success criteria from a peaceful, democratic Iraq (or Afghanistan) to who can kill more of the other? I certainly hope not. If the media is successful we will fail!
Such a criteria of success, as Vietnam clearly pointed out, is not one that a winning strategy can be built around. If we learned nothing else from Vietnam, we should have learned that winning battles, by killing more of the enemy, is not necessarily the key to success.
In his masterful review of Vietnam, On Strategy retired Col. Harry Summers quoted a high-ranking North Vietnamese military official who said the fact that the North Vietnamese Army lost every battle as measured in body count was irrelevant to who won the war. And that is the relevant question: What does it mean to win?
If we are not careful, we will forget the entire objective of militaries and warfare.
Several years ago, the newspaper Army Times reported that the probability of victory in a war in Southwest Asia in the year 2001 was listed at between “51 and 85 percent” based upon the casualties that are expected to occur. Is this how we should be measuring the anticipated utility of our forces? I think not!
A classical example of where a force won the body count and lost the war is Finland in the 1939 Russo-Finnish War. The Finns won every battle and inflicted casualties at the rate of about 40 to 1, but still lost.
History reminds us the number of casualties or exchange ratios is not a measure of victory. We should also remember that winning the war and winning the peace is not the same thing.
The press should focus on the achievement of political objectives rather than body count. We won the war and now must win the peace in Iraq. The public debate should be centered around answering the question, "How do we measure success in Iraq?"
If our political objective is a peaceful and democratic Iraq, then what are the indicators that progress is being made in that direction? For example:
* Holding of fair and open elections;
* Creation of representative governmental bodies;
* Expanded educational opportunities;
* Improvement in the market economy;
* Improvement in the standard of living.
The news media must focus on what is happening and be held accountable when they publish a sensational headline versus one that truly measures progress, or the lack thereof. Body count provides neither an accurate depiction of military success or failure nor political progress – and yet we are being bombarded by it.
At the same time, we must refine our strategic thinking to include both winning the war and winning the peace. Learning how to win the peace may be the next strategic challenge for U.S. military doctrine writers.
Guest Contributor Bruce Clarke is a retired Army colonel with extensive strategic, operational and tactical experience. He commanded at every level from platoon to armored brigade. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds an M.A. degree from the University of California at Los Angeles. He is a Vietnam veteran and has advised U.S., European and Middle Eastern companies on security and technology matters. He is the recipient of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for heroism, two Presidential Unit Citations, the Combat Infantryman's Badge and a number of other commendations. He can be reached at BBGClarke@aol.com. Send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=627&rnd=264.27658535141626
Ellie
Guest Column: Forget the Body Count Myth
By Bruce B.G. Clarke
“For those who fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected shall never know” -- From the wall of a bunker at Khe Sanh, Vietnam
Press accounts from both Afghanistan and Iraq all along have used headlines such as “Two Soldiers Killed” or “46 Insurgents Die.” Most recently the press has touted that 1,000 American soldiers have now been killed in Iraq. Some politicians are mistakenly hooking their fortunes to such numbers.
Is the body count truly relevant? Do these numbers tell us anything about who is winning? No, of course not! They tell us that there was a fight or an ambush or that something happened on a battlefield. These numbers do not measure success or failure. They do not tell us what happened.
The Los Angeles Times reported last Dec. 2, “U.S. military officials, in their regular news briefings in Iraq, have quietly begun reporting insurgent ‘KIA,’ or killed in action, after months of declining to detail the other side’s losses. Long hesitant to release numbers, fearing comparison to the inflated body counts of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military seems to be doing so now to appear more effective.”
Has the news media changed our success criteria from a peaceful, democratic Iraq (or Afghanistan) to who can kill more of the other? I certainly hope not. If the media is successful we will fail!
Such a criteria of success, as Vietnam clearly pointed out, is not one that a winning strategy can be built around. If we learned nothing else from Vietnam, we should have learned that winning battles, by killing more of the enemy, is not necessarily the key to success.
In his masterful review of Vietnam, On Strategy retired Col. Harry Summers quoted a high-ranking North Vietnamese military official who said the fact that the North Vietnamese Army lost every battle as measured in body count was irrelevant to who won the war. And that is the relevant question: What does it mean to win?
If we are not careful, we will forget the entire objective of militaries and warfare.
Several years ago, the newspaper Army Times reported that the probability of victory in a war in Southwest Asia in the year 2001 was listed at between “51 and 85 percent” based upon the casualties that are expected to occur. Is this how we should be measuring the anticipated utility of our forces? I think not!
A classical example of where a force won the body count and lost the war is Finland in the 1939 Russo-Finnish War. The Finns won every battle and inflicted casualties at the rate of about 40 to 1, but still lost.
History reminds us the number of casualties or exchange ratios is not a measure of victory. We should also remember that winning the war and winning the peace is not the same thing.
The press should focus on the achievement of political objectives rather than body count. We won the war and now must win the peace in Iraq. The public debate should be centered around answering the question, "How do we measure success in Iraq?"
If our political objective is a peaceful and democratic Iraq, then what are the indicators that progress is being made in that direction? For example:
* Holding of fair and open elections;
* Creation of representative governmental bodies;
* Expanded educational opportunities;
* Improvement in the market economy;
* Improvement in the standard of living.
The news media must focus on what is happening and be held accountable when they publish a sensational headline versus one that truly measures progress, or the lack thereof. Body count provides neither an accurate depiction of military success or failure nor political progress – and yet we are being bombarded by it.
At the same time, we must refine our strategic thinking to include both winning the war and winning the peace. Learning how to win the peace may be the next strategic challenge for U.S. military doctrine writers.
Guest Contributor Bruce Clarke is a retired Army colonel with extensive strategic, operational and tactical experience. He commanded at every level from platoon to armored brigade. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds an M.A. degree from the University of California at Los Angeles. He is a Vietnam veteran and has advised U.S., European and Middle Eastern companies on security and technology matters. He is the recipient of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for heroism, two Presidential Unit Citations, the Combat Infantryman's Badge and a number of other commendations. He can be reached at BBGClarke@aol.com. Send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=627&rnd=264.27658535141626
Ellie