Adam Elkus has an interesting post up at Rethinking Security arguing that 'end of victory' theme, he gives examples from Anne Marie Slaughter and Andrew Bacevich, is seriously mistaken and, in fact, immoral because it opens the door for military action risking the lives of US soldiers without proper goals and strategy.
The danger in believing that victory is passe is that we might use force without the intent of winning. Once we have decided on a policy goal and have formulated a strategy to achieve it, we should intend to win. Otherwise, what was the point of deciding to use force to begin with?
While I think he's right to argue against the use of force without the will to win, I think he's missing an important point. Due to the rhetoric of their political and military leaders, Americans are used the idea that the US military can deliver total victory in any situation. The hangover from Vietnam is gone, Iraq leaves a bitter taste in ones mouth but the military's reputation among the American people is largely intact and Afghanistan has yet to have a real influece on US opinions of their armed forces. And culturally, the esteem with which society holds the military has never been higher. Thus, expectations for 'victory,' unavoidably defined expansively by the US people, are very high whenever the President commits troops. This is the reason I think the US leaders need to turn away from talking about victory over countries and regimes and focus, to use Slaughter's words on "shaping events and adapting to a continuous stream of changing challenges." Elkus notes that many Americans still identify WW2 as the pinnacle of US military success and that is precisely why the discource needs to move away from 'victory'. The frame of reference for victory is far too narrow and for most people requires a surrender and an exchange of sidearms. That just isn't going to happen and politicians need to stop encouraging the idea that it might. The first way to do this is to stop talking about victory.
Elkus is completely right that policymakers and strategists need to continue to focus on mission and strategic success (and better understand the difference between the two). But talking to the American people about military action in the future must take a more muted approach, one that emphasizes the inabillity of US military might to remake societies and enforce democracy. These things are incredibily difficult to do even with assistance from local forces and foreign allies and doing them alone looks, thankfully, largely out of the question based on the new Pentagon guidance. Victory is a word for what America will try and acheive in future military action but given public expectations of what it means, it is perhaps the wrong word.
