Reality Bites

Max Boot waxes historical:

There is a lesson to be learned here by advocates of an American troop drawdown. Even if the drawdown were to be only partial, it could easily get out of hand by creating the perception that we’re on the way out and can be attacked with impunity. As Napoleon said, “In war, moral considerations account for three-quarters, the actual balance of forces only for the other quarter.” If we set a withdrawal timetable, the moral balance will tip against us even faster than the actual balance of forces—with deadly consequences.

Mona at Unqualified Offerings notes the potentially salient point that Napoleon lost the war. Moral factors, it turns out, couldn't compensate for the fact that Russia is very big, extremely cold in the wintertime, and pretty far from France. The Emperor could, presumably, console himself with the thought that his forces weren't so much defeated on the battlefield as that their supply-lines became untenable, but these kind of hair-splitting distinctions are of limited comfort when you're in retreat.

Boot, though, takes the analogy in another direction, citing the O'Pollahan op-ed from yesterday and hailing it as "pretty significant coming from two Democratic analysts" when it was more like drearily predictable.

Comments

I've always heard this Napolean quote interpreted as referring to the intangible factors in battle---leadership, moral, training, etc.---and not to a nation's policy decisions.

Posted by Alan | July 31, 2007 4:55 PM

I just used that Napoleon quote a couple of days ago, so let me point out that military men use "moral" as the equivalent of "morale," not as the equivalent of "ethical."

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 31, 2007 5:01 PM

Napolean was not using this quote in reference to the Russian campaign of 1812. You are stretching in this analogy. He is refering to the role of morale in an army.

Posted by danceswithgoats | July 31, 2007 5:03 PM

Regarding O'Hanlon, from the The Politico:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/5174_Page2.html"

BTW, Steve Sailer: nice to see you're back to blogging after the camping trip. Maybe next time you'll take the family to a campground with a WiFi network?

Posted by Fred | July 31, 2007 5:06 PM

As long as the US has unquestioned air superiority over Iraq (in other words, for the forseeable future), there will be an option to retaliate even if ground forces are leaving. Napoleon did not have an air force.

Posted by Dan | July 31, 2007 5:09 PM

HTML screw up by me above. Here's the relevant paragraph from the Politico post:

O’Hanlon was unruffled. “I welcome the firestorm,” he said by e-mail. “Hopefully more facts will get into the debate. I know we don't have any monopoly on reaching bottom-line policy judgments. I just hope I don't get [people] calling me a propagandist for the administration. Fight with facts, not innuendo, I say!”

Posted by Fred | July 31, 2007 5:11 PM

The idea that Iraqis would attack US military forces with impunity only during a withdrawal begs the questions: Then what have they been doing for four years that is different? Have they been holding back? Since the Iraqi leaders and the Iraqi people want the US military out, why would they attack them for leaving?

This is the old 'there's no substitute for victory' argument with a 'moral' twist, and quoting Napoleon (considering his unsuccessful invasions of Russia and Egypt) doesn't make it so. Can't the warmongers refer to something a bit more recent and more pertinent, like Vietnam perhaps?

Posted by Don Bacon | July 31, 2007 5:20 PM

WWND [What Would Napoleon Do]? Probably charge the Sunni Triangle on horseback after a sustained catapault barrage.

Posted by Gregorio | July 31, 2007 5:22 PM

Slightly OT, but it wasn't just "General Winter" that defeated Napoleon. Check this out:

"Napoleon's army in fact suffered as much damage from the heat of the Russian summer as from the harsh realities of winter. Tens of thousands of cavalry and artillery horses died before Napoleon even reached Moscow; tens of thousands of men dropped out of the ranks through sickness and heat exhaustion - the hot weather of July and August was as much to blame in increasing the severity of France's defeat, as the frosts of November and December."

Posted by Geaghan | July 31, 2007 5:27 PM

Sorry, I meant "trebuchet."

Posted by Gregorio | July 31, 2007 5:30 PM

Okay, I'll join Fred in keeping O'Hanlon alive. Isn't he just precious? What WILL he come up with next? Here's a reprint of my post down below.

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Michael O'Hanlon trusts his old friend General Petraeus but he knows that those pesky Dems will expect impartiality (he rates them higher than I do) and so he favors a new Iraq Study Group.

HH: Do you trust him to give a complete, fair and accurate assessment of conditions on the ground when he makes his September report?

MO’H: Oh, yeah, Petraeus is outstanding, and so is Ambassador Crocker, and they will…you know, and General Odierno’s quite capable as well. They will give us good information. However, I will nod my cap, or tip my cap just a little bit to Democrats on this point. They have said well, you know, we don’t necessarily trust them. I think these are people of great integrity and great ability, however their job is to try to find a way to succeed. And that’s good for our country, but it also means that they’re going to be looking for the bright spots. I still think they are about the three best people we could ask to speak on this of everybody I can think of, but . . .

. . .I would favor the more independent eyes, and I’d favor, for example, an Iraqi Study Group II that might include Tony Zinni, the retired general, or Sam Nunn, the retired Senator, and have them look at the information as well to complement what Petraeus and Crocker will do.

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/

Let's study this thing some more. There must be something we can do, after all we're a great power.

Posted by Don Bacon | July 31, 2007 5:33 PM

Boot, though, takes the analogy in another direction, citing the O'Pollahan op-ed from yesterday and hailing it as "pretty significant coming from two Democratic analysts" when it was more like drearily predictable.

Sigh...MY, you really need to check your facts. Following your link, both GG and TP were unable to unearth a pro-Iraq War quote from "O'Pollahan" from any time past early 2004. So glowing praise of the invasion, when even Dems were on the bandwagon, followed by nary a scant of sychophantry past that point, makes it "drearily predictable" that they would praise the surge now? Preposterous. I'm no fan of this whole affair, but I'd rather leave slipshod mischaracterization of those with opposing viewpoints to the other side.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | July 31, 2007 5:36 PM

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! "

Posted by Peter K. | July 31, 2007 5:41 PM

Napolean left his army behind to die in Egypt.

Our troops will fly out of Iraq on a fleet of military jets that are currently consuming 15% of America's domestic oil production each year.

No quite the same thing.

Posted by alphie | July 31, 2007 5:41 PM

1812 is definitely an example to be accounted for.

Napoleon knew perfectly well that retreat can damage morale and the latter contributed to the debacle. So why did he order the retreat? Because he had too. Soldiers without food have low morale, retreat or no retreat.

A conclusion one can draw is that retreat provides extra dangers, delaying retreat until it cannot be avoided may lead to an utter disaster.

Another analogy is that the military machine of the Napoleonic Empire was unmatched --- in certain kinds of warfare. The first limit was sea war with Britain, the second limit was guerilla war in Spain, the third, continental winter war in Russia.

Our military is also unmatched -- in certain kinds of warfare. Guerilla war is one of the limits.

Posted by piotr | July 31, 2007 5:43 PM

Epicure, you really need to check your facts. See O'Hanlon's public statements endorsing and urging the surge, from December 2006 through February 2007, from Greenwald.

Posted by putnam | July 31, 2007 5:52 PM

Gregorio,

Your latest attempt to feign erudition is belied by your association of a second anachronistic weapon with Napoleon. Have you no sense of humility?

Posted by Juan | July 31, 2007 6:03 PM

Despite some well-known losses, Napoleon is still considered a military genius by just about everybody who's ever studied the subject. It's the people quoting Napoleon who are morons.

Napoleon was discussing tactical considerations during a conventional battle, with two armies facing one another across no-man's land. He wasn't discussing strategic decisions in a counterinsurgency campaign. In a pitched battle, you win not so much by killing the enemy, as by killing and frightening them enough that they run away or surrender. It's sometimes described as an army's morale breaking.

Do we think that as the US is pulling out of Iraq, US troops will refuse to patrol or run away when they make contact with the enemy? That doesn't seem likely.

Even the worst happens and US troops' morale does break, it won't be a disaster. The insurgents won't be capable of taking advantage of the situation because US air power means that they can't mass against us and fight a pitched battle against fleeing troops. And it's this far-fetched scenario that's being raised when people talk about the difficulties of "retreating under fire" or misleadingly quote Napoleon.

Posted by Ragout | July 31, 2007 6:22 PM

Why Juan, if I had my druthers, I would come at you with a halberd, but you're too busy riding shotgun with a strawman tilting at windmills as the troll bellows! &c.

PS: Your feeble attempts at erudtion are belied by your tiny wiener and sniveling snivel-holes.

Posted by Gregorio | July 31, 2007 6:53 PM

Re EpicureanQuaker's comment "Following your link, both GG and TP were unable to unearth a pro-Iraq War quote from "O'Pollahan" from any time past early 2004. "
---------
SO WHAT?

The Neocons had already achieved their objectives in March 2003 as soon as the first US soldier stepped into Iraq. Because that committed the US government to taking out the enemy of Israel.

There was Plenty of time for Pollack to start distancing himself from responsibility for an unnecessary war which would kill thousands of US soldiers. Kenneth Pollack didn't put out his fingerpointing NY Times OpEd until June 2003.

To see why I think that June 2003 OpEd was very deceitful -- why I think that Kenneth Pollack was accusing Bush in 2003 of doing the very thing Pollack did in 2002 -- look at the comparison of Pollacks' 2002 vs 2003 writings that I posted in this thread: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/conceding_a_point.php#comments

Yes, I think Bush lied us into Iraq for a hidden agenda. But I think he also got a lot of help in 2002 from people like Pollack who supported part of that hidden agenda.

Posted by Don Williams | July 31, 2007 7:15 PM

Re Napoleon

Mr. Ysglesias comments the Napoleon lost the war. That raises the interesting question as to what would have happened at the Battle of Waterloo if Napoleon had sent in the Imperial Guard at 4:00 PM instead of some two hours later. The odds are that Wellingtons' army would have collapsed as it was barely holding on at the time because of the desertion of the Belgian troops. Had this happened, Napoleon would have won the Battle of Waterloo as only one Prussian corps was present on his right. By the time the Guard was utilized, Wellington had had time to readjust his line and it was able to repel the attack, leading to the collapse of the entire French army which retreated in great disorder. This 2 hour delay violated another of Napoleons' maxims, "I may lose a battle but I will never lose a minute."

Posted by SLC | July 31, 2007 7:17 PM

Sreve Gilliard, RIP, thought we would have real trouble withdrawing from Iraq. I can't find a link, but IIRC he also thought that internal Iraqi politics would dictate that Americans be attacked on the way out, that killing retreating Americans would puch Moqtada into control of the country. Note that Badr and JAM are battling over control of Basra.

This will happen under a Democratic President, a division or two will die on the road, amd Matt & Ezra will demand an unconditional surrender by Pres Clinton, and they will imagine the politics of abject humiliation, with beheadings and crucifixions on al Jazeera, will be good for Democrats.

Andrew Olmsted said don't worry about it, the troops will get out with minimal American casualties. Incendiary bombs and an ultimate indifference to "collateral damage"

But it doesn't matter, because we are not leaving Iraq.

Posted by bob mcmanus | July 31, 2007 9:00 PM

Re Don Williams

Our old friend Don Williams repeats the big lie from his favorite web sites, stormfront, rense, David Duke and counterpunch, namely that the Iraq adventure was about Israel. The fact is that the Iraq adventure was about oil. Iraq has the second largest known oil reserves in the world, next to Saudi Arabia. Given the rising demand for oil by China (15 years ago, China was a net exporter of oil; today it is a net importer and its imports are rising rapidly) and the possible approach of peak oil, the Bush/Cheney administration, many of whose members have a long history of being in bed with the oil companies, invaded Iraq to insure the availability of Iraqi oil under a government friendly to the US. Israel, freedom, and democracy were minor issues. If the US wanted to aid Israel, we would have invaded Syria, which has barely enough oil for its own use and hence is of little interest to Bush, Cheney, and Exxon.

Posted by SLC | July 31, 2007 9:23 PM

I was only ten years old during the 1984 Soviet invasion of Colorado but like most Americans I honor Captain Boot's brave role in repelling the communist invaders. Anything he says about military strategy should be regarded with the greatest seriousness.

Posted by Linus | July 31, 2007 9:36 PM

Epicure, you really need to check your facts. See O'Hanlon's public statements endorsing and urging the surge, from December 2006 through February 2007, from Greenwald.

I never said O'Hanlon didn't come out in favor of the surge -- however, it's scurrilous to pretend that the two of them have been cheerleaders to a fault regarding the Iraq War. Judging from the smarmy nonce flowing on TP, you'd think the two of them had taken willful dishonesty to Kristolian lows...this flippancy showed through in MY's post, which runs counter to the thoughtful, non-kneejerk nature of his overall output. Just sayin.'

@Don Williams: When exactly did I defend "O'Pallahan's" pre-war chest-thumping? I was talking about a specific point, i.e. the lazy, broad-brush attempt to paint these two as unflinching, incessant defenders of the Administration. That's simply not true. You, on the other hand, felt the need to take my narrow point of contention and use it as impetus for a flowery speech, punctuated by the masturbatory need for self-quotation. If you feel the need to act out, take it to Atrios.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | July 31, 2007 11:09 PM

I never said O'Hanlon didn't come out in favor of the surge -- however, it's scurrilous to pretend that the two of them have been cheerleaders to a fault regarding the Iraq War.

Have you read The Threatening Storm? Go back and crack that bucket of puke open again if you have I bet maybe you'll rethink that. As a matter of fact open it up and point at a paragraph at random and see if you aren't embarassed by it.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 31, 2007 11:56 PM

Max Boot is roughly my age...which is to say, below 49.

So why didn't he sign up to fight in Iraq?

I know why I didn't - my health is great, zero dependents, and I don't believe in this stupid & illegal fucking war.

Hell, if Max Boot signs up for a tour of duty (15 months) I'll buy him a platinum-plated laptop so he can blog daily from Explodo Avenue, SomeWhereOutSideTheGreenZone, Iraq and give a firsthand account of the magic of US military might & tactical warfare.

Posted by Monty | August 1, 2007 2:43 AM

Enquiring minds want to know why Boot is putting such defeatist quotes into his otherwise enthusiastic piece. After all the balance of forces (men and materiel) overwhelmingly favour the US/Govt of Iraq alliance. Only on the morale front is thre any kind of balance. US soldiers are usually determined and professional, but the Iraqi Army troops, judging from news reports, aren't. Meanwhile the insurgents can be accused of many things, but they are clearly not short of motivation, given their propensity to attack tanks with fertiliser and AK47s, and drive truck bombs into outposts.

Furthermore as our host says, Napoleon was shown to be wrong, since he was referring to classic international warfare. In war between nations especially the balance of forces is almost always decisive, and no nation should know this better than the US given that our major wars with countries almost always follow the same path - early blows taken from initially better trained and motivated enemies (CSA, Germany, Japan, North Korea) followed by their being slowly buried in an avalanche of men and materiel. Much as as Napoleon himself was eventually buried in the 1812-14 period by pretty much every other country in Europe - once more an example of someone finding out the hard way that stamping around and attacking people is an awful longterm strategy

Posted by Anon | August 1, 2007 3:10 AM

Re EpicureanQuaker's comment "You, on the other hand, felt the need to take my narrow point of contention and use it as impetus for a flowery speech, punctuated by the masturbatory need for self-quotation. "
----------
Actually, what I did was the following:
a) Point out that you are an idiot -- because you failed to recognize how Pollack led this country into the Iraq War with scary ghost stories.

Your "narrow point" of what Pollack might have been saying in 2004 is IRRELEVANT -- because we were committed to war into March 2003 based on what Pollack said in 2002.

If someone leads you off a cliff, would you say he's not at fault if --on the way down -- he said "Maybe we shouldn't have taken that last step" or "President Bush should have given us a parachute"?

b) If you looked at the thread I cited, you would have seen that I was not "self-quoting" -- I was quoting POLLACK's own statements in 2002.

That's because I believe in looking at the EVIDENCE --at the FACTS -- instead of throwing out vague, incoherent mischaracterizations unsupported by any citations or evidence. Or rational thought processes.

Posted by Don Williams | August 1, 2007 8:57 AM

Why would they attack us as we are leaving? The insurgent goal is to get us to leave and then get their own civil war on. Our departure speeds that along. There's no reason for the insurgents to interfere with our withdrawal or give us any reason to stay longer or come back.

Casulaties dropped off to almost nothing during the long withdrawal from Vietnam. Once the enemy was convinced we were going, they had little incentive to attack us, other than to remind us that they were still there. This required very little effort. Fighting the Americans would have simply used up men and equipment needed for the next round against the ARVN.

The same applies to the insurgents in Iraq. Once they are convinced the Americans are leaving, attacks on our forces will drop off sharply. Indeed, the insurgents may use the breathing space to regroup and rearm, but also to see if there is modus vivendi to be obtained. The neighboring states may actually be able to influence events toward a reasonable compromise solution, once the spectre of American Imperialism and Permanent Bases is gone.

Also, it's not like we are disarming as we go. The army and air force can bloody up the attackers pretty badly if they come under attack.

Posted by Edward Furey | August 1, 2007 12:20 PM

That quote is attributed to a letter written by Napoleon dated Aug. 27, 1808, months before he invaded Spain, years before he invaded Russia, and more than four years before he began his retreat from Moscow and the subsequent catastrophe faced by his military and country.

Posted by Joseph Hovsep | August 1, 2007 1:09 PM

I'd still agree with Napoleon's comments. People who cite him have forgotten that morale is consumed by warfare, just as people and material. And that, if one pushes the men and material too far, relying on the morale advantage, one can end up in a disasterous position like Napoleon in Russia.

Posted by Barry | August 1, 2007 1:55 PM

"If someone leads you off a cliff, would you say he's not at fault if --on the way down -- he said "Maybe we shouldn't have taken that last step" or "President Bush should have given us a parachute"?"

Posted by Don Williams

Also, if somebody leads you into disaster, their pleas of 'well, I didn't think that (insert name of guy who's life has been one long f*ck-up here) would, you know, f*ck it all up' should be answered with summary beheading. Let them scream their defenses silently, from a stake.

Posted by Barry | August 1, 2007 1:58 PM