The U.S. military is seeking to craft a “new narrative” for the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in part to push back on the growing perception that President Obama does not have a strategy.Ususally you have a "concise easy to understand" articulation of what you are trying to do before - you know - before you start committing forces and that sort of thing.
Military officials on the Operation Inherent Resolve task force have recently formed a working group to formulate a "new narrative," defense officials told The Hill. Separately, the Joint Staff has drafted its own messaging document.
The steps are preliminary, and are part of a larger effort to better communicate the U.S.'s military strategy amid heavy criticism from Republican presidential candidates who say Obama is losing the battle against the terrorist group.
"To say there's no strategy is just flat out wrong," said Army Col. Christopher Garver, public affairs officer for the Combined Joint Task Force -- Operation Inherent Resolve. "If you want to have a debate about it, that's good, let's talk about it. But there is a strategy," he added.
The new working group will look at "how best to articulate what it is we're trying to do ... and do it in a concise easy to understand way," Garver said.
Something like "smashing ISIS and its fellow travelers into paste" might be a good start. Perhaps that lacks the proper "strategic vision."
Not like announcing fictional "red lines" or opening the door to the Russians to support the guy who you previously asserted needed to "go."
One place to start would be to have some idea how you want things to look when we are done with our mission. See here.
I can't believe that is really so hard to "articulate" without sounding like a Facebook breakup mantra - "It's complicated."
Graphic borrowed from here.
Capt Tempest, I hate to be skeptical about something so important and hope I am mistaken, but the overriding political strategy seems to have been to "incubate" ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) under a public pretext of "containment".
ReplyDeleteThe actual, ultimate goal (and Valerie Jarrett has never been forthcoming about it) may just be for ISIS to become the 'Republican Guard' of a New Sunni Caliphate. Finally, Pakistan will bid for a Muslim seat on the U.N. Security council, and not be denied.
The stuff about ISIL using Mahdi prophesy to recruit young bucks is baloney. The young bucks feel as immortal as most of their cohorts and are enticed (in order of significance) by the pay, esteem of membership in violent bands and opportunities for sexual gratification.
The strategy of our military leadership has understandably been to retain their seniority in a regime run by lawyers who have dared to mock and figuratively marginalize them.