Post your SPECIFIC alternatives to current ISIS approach here

#101
#101
Damn public - can't trust them

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/17/poll-watch-public-unease-with-isis-strategy-even-before-paris/

Among a series of issues tested in last week’s nationwide poll, Mr. Obama’s handling of the threat from ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria earned him the lowest marks from the public. Over all, just 31 percent of Americans said they approved of the president’s actions in combating the Islamic State.

The survey also found that nearly three-quarters of Americans (including 63 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of Republicans) thought things were going badly for the United States in its fight against the militants before the attacks Friday in Paris.
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#102
#102
lawgator1 said:
Troops on the ground?

How many? Where, exactly? Mission, specifically?

More drone strikes?

How many? Of whom? Names, please.

Build a coalition?

Of whom, that isn't already in it? And what is the purpose?

Harsher rhetoric?

What good does that do? ISIS will suddenly see the error of their ways?



Be specific. That is the key.
Click to expand...

There are two "new" schools of thought currently competing for attention beyond the normal stuff you list above.

First is one proposed by William Lind in 2004, called the doctrine of punitive expedition. Basically you hit back hard, protect areas of stability but leave everything else to the locals. You don't do any sort of occupational tasks, no counter insurgency, no nation building, no promoting of democracy etc. You just hit back 10x harder than they hit you, make sure any "good guys" have enough stuff to secure themselves and leave.

This link from 20 years ago is much more detailed:
PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Summer 1995


The other one is to simply force the regional countries to defeat daesh, while moderate Imams reform their religion away from jihad. This is then coupled with long term strengthening of education throughout the area. The idea is to educate enough average joes (well, haji's) so the jihadi influence of civic leaders and imams is reduced to a manageable level.

There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS

The problem with these approaches is on the one hand, we aren't comfortable with breaking things without sticking around to fix them. We also have trouble understanding things from the view of the locals and mess up when we try to identify the right people to keep in power.

On the other hand, the regional militaries aren't really in a position to be able to defeat daesh, otherwise they would have already. Plus it would take another Saddam type person to really pull that off, and we seem to have an issue putting new dictators in power. Also,educational initiatives take generations to take hold and we are very impatient. New schools don't fill the 24 hour news cycle the way bombings and welcome home ceremonies do...

I think a combination of these could be effective. But we would need to be willing to put a lot of pressure on the stable governments in the region using the entire D.I.M.E. set of tools (I'm looking at you Saudi Arabia and Jordan). It would look something like:

1. US and NATO led or backed coalition of as many ME nations as possible that slowly squeezes the life out of daesh.
2. Simultaneously, maintain a strike force in the area that is set to respond to any attacks outside of the region. Another Paris type event would mean an immediate violent response with boots on the ground for long enough to destroy a city, but not long enough for them to make a concerted effort to retaliate. Think Marines in Ramadi without the occupation afterwards..
3. ME partners work with local Imams to find and support moderate and peaceful leaders, while identifying the jihadis and removing them from power.
4. As areas are settled down, the emphasis goes to local infrastructure for life, health and safety first, followed by developing educational infrastructure and programs. All of this is done by host nation, local leadership etc. Even if we are paying the bills, we put a host nation face on every effort to get buy in.
5. The other thing is no outside contractors for host nation projects. All infrastructure construction etc, is done by host nation labor. If you find you don't have enough skilled labor, you take the time to develop it internally, but with internal people. You could take some of them to a neighboring country for training, but everything is led and done by host nation folks.

My :twocents:
 
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#104
#104
OrngeChkrboardVFL said:
I would not consider what we are doing out here, ignoring. If so, I'd be at home enjoying football and getting ready to fry a turkey with my family.

You are correct, I am low on the big picture totem pole but I'm on it and involved. You "personally" stating things is like playing whack a mole. We are whacking ISIS.

I was in Mosul, Iraq when an Iraqi we were training turned his gun on the American troops training him. I was also in the states when the Oregon and South Carolina shootings occurred. You have radicals everywhere. Being a Muslim does not make you a terrorist. I'm personally stating it.
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Your idealism will start to fade when you get higher in the chain of command.

Yep, plenty of people and countries are whacking ISIS and taking out their top leaders. We hear about a new one every week. Problem is there is another one taking his place every week.

Don't think for a second that the friendly Muslim that would "give you the shirt off his back" wont try and kill you when times change.
 
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#105
#105
Effective strategy as follows:
1.
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2.
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3.
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4.
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5.
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#106
#106
YorkVol said:
There are two "new" schools of thought currently competing for attention beyond the normal stuff you list above.

First is one proposed by William Lind in 2004, called the doctrine of punitive expedition. Basically you hit back hard, protect areas of stability but leave everything else to the locals. You don't do any sort of occupational tasks, no counter insurgency, no nation building, no promoting of democracy etc. You just hit back 10x harder than they hit you, make sure any "good guys" have enough stuff to secure themselves and leave.

This link from 20 years ago is much more detailed:
PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Summer 1995


The other one is to simply force the regional countries to defeat daesh, while moderate Imams reform their religion away from jihad. This is then coupled with long term strengthening of education throughout the area. The idea is to educate enough average joes (well, haji's) so the jihadi influence of civic leaders and imams is reduced to a manageable level.

There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS

The problem with these approaches is on the one hand, we aren't comfortable with breaking things without sticking around to fix them. We also have trouble understanding things from the view of the locals and mess up when we try to identify the right people to keep in power.

On the other hand, the regional militaries aren't really in a position to be able to defeat daesh, otherwise they would have already. Plus it would take another Saddam type person to really pull that off, and we seem to have an issue putting new dictators in power. Also,educational initiatives take generations to take hold and we are very impatient. New schools don't fill the 24 hour news cycle the way bombings and welcome home ceremonies do...

I think a combination of these could be effective. But we would need to be willing to put a lot of pressure on the stable governments in the region using the entire D.I.M.E. set of tools (I'm looking at you Saudi Arabia and Jordan). It would look something like:

1. US and NATO led or backed coalition of as many ME nations as possible that slowly squeezes the life out of daesh.
2. Simultaneously, maintain a strike force in the area that is set to respond to any attacks outside of the region. Another Paris type event would mean an immediate violent response with boots on the ground for long enough to destroy a city, but not long enough for them to make a concerted effort to retaliate. Think Marines in Ramadi without the occupation afterwards..
3. ME partners work with local Imams to find and support moderate and peaceful leaders, while identifying the jihadis and removing them from power.
4. As areas are settled down, the emphasis goes to local infrastructure for life, health and safety first, followed by developing educational infrastructure and programs. All of this is done by host nation, local leadership etc. Even if we are paying the bills, we put a host nation face on every effort to get buy in.
5. The other thing is no outside contractors for host nation projects. All infrastructure construction etc, is done by host nation labor. If you find you don't have enough skilled labor, you take the time to develop it internally, but with internal people. You could take some of them to a neighboring country for training, but everything is led and done by host nation folks.

My :twocents:
Click to expand...

Nicely done.

There is short term and long term. In the long term I look at this like the Cold War. We relentlessly pitched the idea of freedom of ideals and markets vs the evils of communism. Maybe that worked because many subjects of communism were forced in rather than bought in. However, it strikes me that by not acknowledging the radical version of Islam that fuels this and refusing to make any suggestion that it is wrong (PC reasons) we'll never make real progress in helping the moderate and/or non-violent majority of the Muslim word deal with the cancer in it's midst.

We fought an ideological war against Communism. We refuse to do so against radical Islam because we are afraid it will be viewed as intolerant.

So in the short term we could do serious damage to ISIS (and should IMHO) but it will only be short term if we don't actively engage in the ideological battle by demonstrating a better alternative and speaking of it loudly, proudly and repeatedly.
 
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#108
#108
Seal the borders. Make it real hard to enter this country, especially if you're from the Middle East. Don't like it ME? Sorry, but you need to get your **** together.

Become more energy independent. We don't need anything from the ME, no reason to be involved there with land forces.

Stop deposing strong-men that we can actually work with, even if it tastes bad. Creating power vacuums in the ME is not a good thing, especially when we remove somewhat secularized leaders. The ME's line of thought has never left the Middle Ages. They aren't ready for democracy, and that's something you can't force on a people.

Let the wealthy Arab leaders deal with it. When their wealth is threatened and they can't rely on the US Armed Forces as a mercenary force to protect their interests, perhaps they will do something about it.
 
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#110
#110
red butler said:
Reminds me of this:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vApBZlaePec[/youtube]
Click to expand...

Damn. Some serious truth right there. I especially like the "are you offering me a promotion" line..I say that weekly.

Homeland..showtime? Must watch now.
 
#111
#111
YorkVol said:
I think a combination of these could be effective. But we would need to be willing to put a lot of pressure on the stable governments in the region using the entire D.I.M.E. set of tools (I'm looking at you Saudi Arabia and Jordan). It would look something like:

1. US and NATO led or backed coalition of as many ME nations as possible that slowly squeezes the life out of daesh.
2. Simultaneously, maintain a strike force in the area that is set to respond to any attacks outside of the region. Another Paris type event would mean an immediate violent response with boots on the ground for long enough to destroy a city, but not long enough for them to make a concerted effort to retaliate. Think Marines in Ramadi without the occupation afterwards..
3. ME partners work with local Imams to find and support moderate and peaceful leaders, while identifying the jihadis and removing them from power.
4. As areas are settled down, the emphasis goes to local infrastructure for life, health and safety first, followed by developing educational infrastructure and programs. All of this is done by host nation, local leadership etc. Even if we are paying the bills, we put a host nation face on every effort to get buy in.
5. The other thing is no outside contractors for host nation projects. All infrastructure construction etc, is done by host nation labor. If you find you don't have enough skilled labor, you take the time to develop it internally, but with internal people. You could take some of them to a neighboring country for training, but everything is led and done by host nation folks.

My :twocents:
Click to expand...

Where does Russia fit into this? #1?
 
#113
#113
volinbham said:
Nicely done.

There is short term and long term. In the long term I look at this like the Cold War. We relentlessly pitched the idea of freedom of ideals and markets vs the evils of communism. Maybe that worked because many subjects of communism were forced in rather than bought in. However, it strikes me that by not acknowledging the radical version of Islam that fuels this and refusing to make any suggestion that it is wrong (PC reasons) we'll never make real progress in helping the moderate and/or non-violent majority of the Muslim word deal with the cancer in it's midst.

We fought an ideological war against Communism. We refuse to do so against radical Islam because we are afraid it will be viewed as intolerant.

So in the short term we could do serious damage to ISIS (and should IMHO) but it will only be short term if we don't actively engage in the ideological battle by demonstrating a better alternative and speaking of it loudly, proudly and repeatedly.
Click to expand...

Good points, totally agree.

If we remove the religious aspect and look at them in terms of political and civic organization (and promote a lot of information to this effect) then we can frame this in terms similar to the Cold War.

We, i.e. freedom loving people everywhere, should begin an informational campaign something along the lines:

1. We have no issue with the religion of Islam. We have millions of lawful citizens throughout the free world who are welcome and encouraged to practice the religion of their choice, be they Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindi, Zoroastrians or Pastafarians. Freedom to practice your own religion is a fundamental right that all free people support and defend.

2. We hold to the idea that government should be separate from religious organizations. Those within the free world who would use their religion to subvert the government and impact the freedom of their fellow citizens will not be tolerated. We will use every legal means to prevent that from happening.

3. We see some Islamic states that have organized in ways we don't agree with. However, as long as they leave us alone, we will live in peace. We will welcome those who are oppressed into the free world, but otherwise will live in peace with our peaceful neighbors.

4. Any state that will use it's means of influence and national power in order to deny the safety, freedom or sovereignty of anyone beyond their borders will be met with severe consequences. Anyone who chooses to use their military or non-military entities to impact the freedom of others will be stopped and the efforts of the free world will be to contain them within the borders of their own country.

Or something like that.
 
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#115
#115
YorkVol said:
Good points, totally agree.

If we remove the religious aspect and look at them in terms of political and civic organization (and promote a lot of information to this effect) then we can frame this in terms similar to the Cold War.

We, i.e. freedom loving people everywhere, should begin an informational campaign something along the lines:

1. We have no issue with the religion of Islam. We have millions of lawful citizens throughout the free world who are welcome and encouraged to practice the religion of their choice, be they Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindi, Zoroastrians or Pastafarians. Freedom to practice your own religion is a fundamental right that all free people support and defend.

2. We hold to the idea that government should be separate from religious organizations. Those within the free world who would use their religion to subvert the government and impact the freedom of their fellow citizens will not be tolerated. We will use every legal means to prevent that from happening.

3. We see some Islamic states that have organized in ways we don't agree with. However, as long as they leave us alone, we will live in peace. We will welcome those who are oppressed into the free world, but otherwise will live in peace with our peaceful neighbors.

4. Any state that will use it's means of influence and national power in order to deny the safety, freedom or sovereignty of anyone beyond their borders will be met with severe consequences. Anyone who chooses to use their military or non-military entities to impact the freedom of others will be stopped and the efforts of the free world will be to contain them within the borders of their own country.

Or something like that.
Click to expand...

I liked your fist example. In fact, both were pretty good examples. They come close to beating my nuke-pave-plant-margarita plan.
 
#117
#117
YorkVol said:
Good points, totally agree.

If we remove the religious aspect and look at them in terms of political and civic organization (and promote a lot of information to this effect) then we can frame this in terms similar to the Cold War.

We, i.e. freedom loving people everywhere, should begin an informational campaign something along the lines:

1. We have no issue with the religion of Islam. We have millions of lawful citizens throughout the free world who are welcome and encouraged to practice the religion of their choice, be they Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindi, Zoroastrians or Pastafarians. Freedom to practice your own religion is a fundamental right that all free people support and defend.

2. We hold to the idea that government should be separate from religious organizations. Those within the free world who would use their religion to subvert the government and impact the freedom of their fellow citizens will not be tolerated. We will use every legal means to prevent that from happening.

3. We see some Islamic states that have organized in ways we don't agree with. However, as long as they leave us alone, we will live in peace. We will welcome those who are oppressed into the free world, but otherwise will live in peace with our peaceful neighbors.

4. Any state that will use it's means of influence and national power in order to deny the safety, freedom or sovereignty of anyone beyond their borders will be met with severe consequences. Anyone who chooses to use their military or non-military entities to impact the freedom of others will be stopped and the efforts of the free world will be to contain them within the borders of their own country.

Or something like that.
Click to expand...

If you look at tactics like Radio Free Europe and any number of communications tools we used to get messages to individuals that countered the communist message and showed there is another way we don't do anything like that.

As I said, I tougher sell but still we could launch cultural tools much more aggressively than we've been willing to do.

It's okay for us to say we believe our way (free open society) is better. It's okay to be proud of that and attempt to persuade others of that. That is not "imposing our ideals on the world" or being arrogant or whatever.
 
#118
#118
FLVOL69 said:
Funny you should use that analogy, when we have our own version of Neville Chamberlain right here in office.
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OK, but it's still not a world war.

My point is if we declare we are going after countries that buy oil from ISIS, we might end up having to go after China or somebody that is an actual threat to the US.

Raise your hand if you think this is good for the American people.
 
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#120
#120
Go at them. Do whatever it takes to destroy them, before they destroy us. If needed, take
Law abiding citizens, and enlist them for backup. We HAVE to destroy them.
 
#122
#122
carlos86 said:
My detailed plan to fight ISIS:

1) NATO forms an Allied Expeditionary Force with 2 Allied Corps. 1 Corps = 40,000 men. The main Coalition countries would be the U.S. UK, France, Poland, Canada, Australia, Belgium, and the Kurds. The Kurds already nuber 150,000 men and woman. They are well trained and experienced. They just need weapons ammo and equipment. Insert both Corps into Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) The mission would be to conduct offensive counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations against ISIS and push them out of the city of Mosul and out of Northern Iraq.

2)Increase the number of Air to ground attack aircraft in the region. As of right now the U.S. has conducted 2,000 airstrikes against ISIS this year. That is 5 airstrikes a day. I would increase that to 54 a day. that comes out to 18,414 sorties and airstrikes a day. That number can increase or decrease as targets become available.

3)Russian and Assad get to control of Western, Eastern and Southern Syria. They have to secede Northern Syria to the Kurds (I'll get to that soon) Russia has to agree to keep Assad on a tight leash.

4) The Sykes–Picot Agreement that was signed at the end of WWI has to be corrected. The must get their Independence. Kurdistan would include All of Northern Iraq and Northern Syria.

5)ISIS is a psychological enemy too and the best way to beat them psychological enemy is to film and publish every defeat they suffer on every western cable outlet and all over twitter and facebook.
Click to expand...

Russia, NATO, and the Kurds aren't really interested in putting boots on the ground in a sustained offensive role. The Kurds have boots on the ground for defensive purposes (both immediate and broader defense of land they believe is/was rightfully there's).

The boots on the ground are going to have to be local. In other words, those who will live and work there after the fighting ends.
 
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#123
#123
YorkVol said:
There are two "new" schools of thought currently competing for attention beyond the normal stuff you list above.

First is one proposed by William Lind in 2004, called the doctrine of punitive expedition. Basically you hit back hard, protect areas of stability but leave everything else to the locals. You don't do any sort of occupational tasks, no counter insurgency, no nation building, no promoting of democracy etc. You just hit back 10x harder than they hit you, make sure any "good guys" have enough stuff to secure themselves and leave.

This link from 20 years ago is much more detailed:
PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Summer 1995


The other one is to simply force the regional countries to defeat daesh, while moderate Imams reform their religion away from jihad. This is then coupled with long term strengthening of education throughout the area. The idea is to educate enough average joes (well, haji's) so the jihadi influence of civic leaders and imams is reduced to a manageable level.

There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS

The problem with these approaches is on the one hand, we aren't comfortable with breaking things without sticking around to fix them. We also have trouble understanding things from the view of the locals and mess up when we try to identify the right people to keep in power.

On the other hand, the regional militaries aren't really in a position to be able to defeat daesh, otherwise they would have already. Plus it would take another Saddam type person to really pull that off, and we seem to have an issue putting new dictators in power. Also,educational initiatives take generations to take hold and we are very impatient. New schools don't fill the 24 hour news cycle the way bombings and welcome home ceremonies do...

I think a combination of these could be effective. But we would need to be willing to put a lot of pressure on the stable governments in the region using the entire D.I.M.E. set of tools (I'm looking at you Saudi Arabia and Jordan). It would look something like:

1. US and NATO led or backed coalition of as many ME nations as possible that slowly squeezes the life out of daesh.
2. Simultaneously, maintain a strike force in the area that is set to respond to any attacks outside of the region. Another Paris type event would mean an immediate violent response with boots on the ground for long enough to destroy a city, but not long enough for them to make a concerted effort to retaliate. Think Marines in Ramadi without the occupation afterwards..
3. ME partners work with local Imams to find and support moderate and peaceful leaders, while identifying the jihadis and removing them from power.
4. As areas are settled down, the emphasis goes to local infrastructure for life, health and safety first, followed by developing educational infrastructure and programs. All of this is done by host nation, local leadership etc. Even if we are paying the bills, we put a host nation face on every effort to get buy in.
5. The other thing is no outside contractors for host nation projects. All infrastructure construction etc, is done by host nation labor. If you find you don't have enough skilled labor, you take the time to develop it internally, but with internal people. You could take some of them to a neighboring country for training, but everything is led and done by host nation folks.

My :twocents:
Click to expand...

That's a lot easier said than done. Such a coalition would change the whole dynamic of the Middle East.
 
#124
#124
Grand Vol said:
lol, they'd love that.

But honestly, would you consider them a partner in the actions being that ISIS brought down their passenger plane?
Click to expand...

We had a Russian infantry regiment assigned to multi-division north in Bosnia and i got along well with their Intel staff. I think we could incorporate them into the CJTF.
 
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