Non-Subscriber Extract
Mission fatigue - the future of military interventionism
By Jim Dorschner
21 May 2007
Four years after the US-led invasion of April 2003, the war in Iraq is arguably a major contributor to a shift in public and political perception away from interventionism. The continued factional violence in the country, alongside the concomitant casualties for coalition forces, has undermined support for the Iraq conflict among the US population, polity and armed forces.
Combined with other long-running peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions that have returned mixed results, a creeping 'mission fatigue' may be weakening support for such operations, with countries involved in multilateral interventions increasingly questioning their commitments. This has raised the question of whether interventionism is now less feasible than prior to 2003, and if isolationism is likely to become more influential in decisions concerning expeditionary warfare.
The deterioration of US will to sustain its interventionist role in Iraq was made apparent by US Army General (retd) Barry McCaffrey in a 26 March After Action Report (AAR) following a comprehensive fact-finding visit to Iraq, where he stated: "US domestic support for the war in Iraq has evaporated and will not return." In the AAR, he postulates: "Planning horizons should assume that there are [fewer] than 36 months remaining of substantial US troop presence in Iraq".
Among several reasons for this conclusion he cites overstretch and the fact that "some active units have served three, four or even five combat deployments. We are now routinely extending nearly all combat units in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These combat units are being returned to action in some cases with only seven to 12 months of stateside time to re-train and re-equip".
General McCaffrey is noted for his candid and sober assessments in an establishment otherwise prone to optimism, and many experts believe that military and political conditions are such that there is little chance of maintaining anything like a substantial US presence in Iraq beyond mid-2008.
The situation is as bad or worse with the UK's relatively small army. In a controversial October 2006 interview with the Daily Mail newspaper, Chief of the General Staff General Sir Richard Dannatt openly expressed considerable frustration with the mission in Iraq in comments that were widely supported by the rank and file, including the statement that the British should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems".
More to the point, in the interview he publicly articulated otherwise closely held views within the UK defence and political establishments that are nonetheless driving critical aspects of policy formulation. "The original intention [in Iraq] was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro-West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East. I do not think we are going to do that. I think we should aim for a lower ambition."
General Dannett later distanced himself somewhat from the thrust of his remarks, although in February the UK Ministry of Defence seemingly concurred in principle by announcing a major reduction of troop strength in Iraq from 7,100 to 5,500 in the next rotation scheduled for mid-2007. In fact, most observers expect a nearly complete withdrawal early in 2008 in order to concentrate on progressing the war in Afghanistan.