Af-Raq ~ Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria: How We Got Here & Why Australia Fights

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) spent almost 13 years deployed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, for the official purposes of defeating Islamist terrorists and assisting local Afghani and Iraqi efforts at democratic state building, which included training their military and security forces.

Since 2001, Australia's armed forces have fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (what I term "Af-raq Wars") alongside its closest allies and friends, the United States, Britain, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, as well as various NATO partners.

In these numerically small, if at times intense, conflicts, Australia lost over 40 killed and over 260 wounded, while spending billions of dollars, in wars that lasted from 2001 until very recently.

Now, Australia is deploying a task group to Iraq.


Iraq, Syria & How We Got Here

On the 18th of December 2011, the last US troops left Iraq. Australia had progressively withdrawn its ADF elements from Iraq in the years prior, as had the British and other allies. That was supposed to be "it" for allied expeditionary warfare in the Middle East. As former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in 2011, the proponent of any future deployment of land forces to Asia or the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined”.

Yet here we are in 2014, with a renewed deployment of Australian forces to Iraq in support of an Iraqi Government that Australia had spent years assisting with not just our own armed forces but with Australian trainers of Iraq's armed and security forces.

The "why" for the ADF's current Iraq deployment is, prima facie, the rise of the Islamic State (IS) insurgency through Syria and now into Iraq. The Sunni jihadi IS movement occupies an ever larger part of Syria and now Iraq with every passing day, as it seeks to establish its "caliphate" and to kill or at least expel any Kurds, Shia, Christians, Yazidis or less zealous Sunnis that it finds in its way. (IS' fighting strength now also includes a large but imprecise number of nominal Australian citizens whose post-war residential intentions occupy the thoughts of Australia's security services). Despite the decade-plus efforts of the allied coalition in Iraq, what remains of that country now resembles a cross between the former Ottoman vilayets and a 'Mad Max' world albeit augmented by digital technologies. Some Sunni Arabs - who had historically lost most to the Ottomans' brutalisation and who had never had a protector of the sort the Shia had in the Shah's Iran – now flock to IS for protection, as well as to create a "caliphate" that would realise the salafist dream.

For most of 2014, while Syria fell further apart, the US, still recovering from the Iraq war it ended in 2011, hedged its position on what, if anything, was to be done about the Syrian civil war and the IS insurgency that it has given rise to.

The US – and much of the West – did not approve of what Syria's President Assad (an Iranian proxy, like his father before him) was doing in Syria. However insofar as Assad was fighting a Sunni insurgency with more than a layer of salafist jihadism, Syria was not a fight that readily offered a team for the West to back. Moreover, no one wanted another Iraq-style intervention, least of all President Obama who had campaigned on his early opposition to the Iraq War and his promise to never allow such a war to occur while he was in office. Intervention in Syria by the Western powers, led by the US, offered only possible downsides and, indeed, potential 'blowback'.

The "Free Syria Army" proffered by many concerned onlookers (and a host of Sunni Arab states) as a middle way for respectable Western assistance to ensure a favourable outcome in Syria by backing a non-Assad party, was, as Obama put it, a "fantasy" which had no real hope of toppling Assad. (While Obama's position has changed dramatically on the FSA, it is unclear why a militia that was a fantasy in August is now a valued ally in September. As Obama observed of the FSA "There’s not as much capacity as you would hope." Given that the US and coalition partners like Australia and the UK spent the better part of a decade training the Iraqi Army, only to see it melt away, one must wonder what realistic hope there is for the FSA's fighting efficiency.)

Given the rise of IS, it was incomprehensible that someone usually as deliberate as President Obama could say "we don't have a strategy yet" in early September about an IS threat arising from the Syrian civil war that had been the subject of enormous news and presumably internal government discussions for many years. Obama was also being unfair to himself – he did have a strategy. Obama's strategy was a classic Western one of "offshore balancing": the US would keep a watching brief on Syria but otherwise leave IS to Iran, the regional hegemon, and Iran's local proxies in the form of the Assad regime (supported by Iranian-backed Hezbollah) and the Iraqi Government (also supported and advised by Iran).

The Obama strategy for Syria was, therefore, classic realpolitik of a kind instantly recognisable to generations past: the West would live with, indeed support, an Iranian "Shiastan" that at least contained IS. Therefore, the West's strategy was effectively in the hands of the Iranian regime and more particularly in the hands of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Qasem Soleimani, who had been running Iran's 'advisory' missions in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. That Syria strategy, workable until now, foundered upon the failure of the Iraqi Army to halt the spread of ISIS' advance through Iraq and to Baghdad's approaches.

Fast forward to today, President Obama, now apprised of the real threat of IS, and clearly lacking confidence in Iran's capacity to bolster the Iraqi Government to deal with IS, has decided to provide decisive US military assistance to Iraqi and Kurdish governments. The Obama administration's response was slow but, as events moved quickly, so too did the Obama team, which has now responded in force, for which it should be given some credit, and now allied airstrikes are being made on IS targets.

So far as Australia is concerned, the Abbott Government remains, in public at least, determined to mount new operations in the Iraq theatre only, which already include Australian aircraft transporting arms and supplies to the Kurds fighting IS. The Australian contribution of Special Forces and Super Hornets is for striking targets in Iraq only (while perhaps Syria though this mission is only conjecture at this stage). The Labor opposition has been supportive of an Australian contribution at least so far as Iraq's security needs are concerned.

Nonetheless, the original sin of the 2003 Iraq war looms large over the war against IS, not least because IS' support base is among the very Sunnis who lost most from the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and whose fears of loss drive many Sunnis to support IS. It is difficult to see how IS could have arisen in an Iraq ruled by Saddam, not merely because Saddam's regime gave a certain preference to Sunnis but, also, Saddam did not tolerate theocrats of any kind, especially those purporting to challenge the Baathist regime.

[At the same time, the toppling of Saddam has offered the US and its allies the opportunity to help create an independent Kurdish state, which would likely be another Israel, albeit one abutting Iran, Iraq, Turkey and just south of Russia and its near abroad. Given the few real benefits from the fall of Saddam, the opportunity presented by Kurdistan should not be ignored. But that is a subject for another time.]

None of the current events in Iraq and Syria can be discussed, especially from an Australian perspective, without some reflection on the post-2001 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, aka the Af-raq Wars.


The Lessons of Recent Not So Splendid Little Wars

The profound lack of allied success in Afghanistan would, ordinarily, deter any further interventions in the Islamic world. Indeed, the Afghanistan war, despite the superficialities of Karzai's departure, seems destined to end in a kind of slow failure that has no Kurdish silver lining. It is difficult to imagine a scenario where most of Afghanistan does not, in the medium term, again return to Taliban control, with only perhaps Kabul (and perhaps Herat and its surrounds) to remain, as they did under Soviet puppet Najibullah regime, the last remaining bastions of foreign occupiers and their proxies. As was the case in 2001, the least worst Afghan future is an Afghanistan that has a Pashtu plurality kept at bay by a Western and Iranian-sponsored 'coalition of the others'.

It is tempting for Australians, especially given current events in Iraq and Syria, as well as the ongoing problems of Afghanistan, to see the Af-raq Wars as utter folly, poorly executed and almost immoral debacles. It is also tempting for some Australians, especially those of a Green and/or Left perspective, to think that a new military effort in Iraq is at best unwise, or more accurately a refusal by Australia to repent of the sins of the last decade, and to embrace a foreign policy that is more 'lawfare' than warfare.

On one view, many Australians would conclude that our 13 years of fighting the "Af-raq Wars" was, in short, a tragic waste of Australian lives and money. On any view, these wars achieved none of their stated results to any extent that could be termed "victory". Given that the US and its allies fought the Af-raq wars without clear objectives, without any real planning and forethought, without sufficient resourcing of the war effort, and, in particular, without anything like the drive and resolution necessary, such a conclusion would otherwise be justified. Such a paltry return on a decade's military investment would usually weigh against Australia ever deploying again in expeditionary wars and, instead, would augur a return to securing only our own island continent, a "Fortress Australia".

Further, the last 13 years' wars were fought in a manner heretical to what may be called, in shorthand, the "Western Way of War": whereby advanced polities use the full weight of their power to destroy - promptly and decisively - an adversary. This way of war involves mobilising the nation's resources for the war effort and directing them speedily and in overwhelming force to compel an enemy's capitulation.

It is no accident that the last wars Australia (and our Anglophone) allies unmistakably won were the two World Wars, the Falklands War and the 1991 Gulf War. In these wars – both total and limited - the respective allied leaderships accepted that these conflicts required the decisive use of force to attain clearly defined objectives, which in turn necessitated the practice of the Western Way of War: deliberate planning, the proper resourcing of the war effort, the building of military coalitions, and, most importantly, the speedy and relentless use of overwhelming force at decisive places and times. To risk descending into military jargon, these wars were notable for their selection and maintenance of aims, as well as their relentless retention of the initiative. Effecting these successful wars was a democratic political class who, put simply, could think strategically and "got" war, either from their deep intellectual training and long professional experience or, more simply, because of the personal vicissitudes of a real life lived in interesting times (... worldviews not formed by years of lobbying, political staffing or base electioneering.)

Instead of Western nations playing to their strengths and pursuing war-making in accordance with proven experience, Australia and her allies instead spent 13 years in bloody but meandering and ultimately hopeless Afghan and Iraq wars. When the Western coalition was faced with a strategic choice between (1) either a minimalist "offshore balancing" strategy of supporting chosen allies/proxies and occasionally intervening to support them (aka backing a hegemon) or (2) following the Western Way of War and using its own overwhelming force, the Western allies chose, disastrously, a third option of making war indecisively in very distant Islamic territories, where local and foreign insurgents and their allies would always retain both the more zealous interest and the strategic patience to wait out - if not exhaust - polities like ours.

The half-hearted war effort of Australia and her allies was made worse by possibly the least wise and least experienced political leaders of the West's recent history, as well as an allied military leadership that failed across coalition nations to advise their national political leaders, with required candours, that their goals and dreams were patently unrealistic.

The degree of Australian and allied confusion of what to do in the Af-raq theatres of war was best reflected by Western militaries' fostering the growth of, and then accepting, the very fashionable "Counter-Insurgency" (COIN) doctrine. While superficially attractive as a 21st century form of Lawrence Arabia's native romanticism, COIN was the very form of intra-societal warfare to which 21st century, affluent, English-speaking societies were - and are - least adept at engaging in. As a war-fighting doctrine for a democratic and technologically obsessed first world country like Australia, COIN has about as much practical application as Maoist people's war or Putin 'special war'.


Why Australia (nonetheless) Fights

However, despite the almost breathtakingly incompetent prosecution of the Af-raq wars, and while Australia has suffered deaths, wounded and expended large amounts of money fighting them, it would be wrong to see these wars only as military disasters, when Australia has derived some real benefits from its recent wars. Yes, these disastrous post-2001 conflicts yielded good results. And these recent wars explain also, why Australia (nonetheless) fights in coalition wars and why Australia will, in future, again ally itself with the US in similar contingencies to the current Iraq deployment.

First, Australia, by virtue of its geopolitical realities, needs strong allies and as a result of the Af-raq wars, Australia's military alliances with the US and its other allies have never been closer than they are now. It must be recalled that Australia's involvement in the "Af-raq" wars was never - ever - only about killing jihadists, destroying their bases of terrorist support, finding WMD or bringing the blessings of liberal democracy to huddled masses yearning to be free. To be sure, these were Australian Government objectives, pursued sincerely even if most unwisely. However, at the same time, each of the Howard, Rudd, Gillard and Abbott governments affirmed that Australian forces were deployed to support key allies (especially the US), and to prop up NATO (aka "No Action Talk Only"). In essence, Australians fought in far off places to ensure the vitality of alliances that matter to the security of Australia's own neighbourhood. Australia has always done this and Australia will always do this.

As anyone familiar with Australian military history knows, our armed forces have been used since colonial times to support, first, the Pax Britannica and, now, the Pax Americana, both of which superpower hegemonies are demonstrably in Australia's interests. Hegemony maintenance, like any maintenance, involves expense, risk, and, regrettably, it costs blood and treasure. However, as geopolitics and fallen human nature will always produce hegemons and hegemonic alliances, it is in Australia's interest as a sovereign constitutional democracy to ally ourselves with 'great and powerful friends' like the UK and the US that share Australia's interests and our values. Alliances, like any friendship, require work, especially messy and costly work like wars.

Moreover, Australia is an enormous island continent of only 23 million people located in a perpetually troubled region. As the famous British strategist Sir Eyre Crowe said in 1907 of British policy applies also to Australia in 2014: the "immutable conditions of [our] geographical situation" determine our national strategy. The very facts of our massive island, our wealthy but still small population, and our turbulent neighbourhood demand not just a potent ADF but also that Australia has the closest possible military relationship with the dominant friendly sea and air powers.

Those who question, naively, the morality of Australia supporting a continued American military primacy should be made to nominate their preferred alternative hegemon. China or Russia anyone?

Second, while the "Af-raq" wars were, as noted, plagued by strategic and operational flaws, these wars provided the ADF with invaluable war experience. Let there be no misunderstanding: the ADF is raised, equipped and maintained for war. Preparing for and fighting wars is the ADF's raison d'être. The ADF is composed entirely of volunteers, each of who knows he or she may be sent in harm’s way. War is a deadly trade - but like any trade, a skilled unpractised is a skill that will soon atrophy.

The Af-raq Wars have been excellent experience for the ADF, even if political correctness prevents this from ever being acknowledged openly by the service chiefs. The recent wars have been valuable experience which would have otherwise been denied to a provincial, stay-at-home ADF. One need not dwell for long on the history of, say, Rome, Spain and Britain – or indeed the modern United States - to see that regular war experience maintained the fighting skills, efficiencies and resilience of their fleets and armies. One need not dwell, either, on the fragile state of the ADF in the run-up to the East Timor intervention in 1999, where the bitter fruits of post-Vietnam military isolationism was an ADF reliant on improvisation and foreign assistance to conduct an operation only 700km from Darwin. If, as the conquistador Hernan Cortes warned, "valour loves not idleness", neither do less romantic but vital necessities like strategic depth and operational readiness appreciate decades of parsimonious Defence budgets, inadequate training and a denuding of the very Reserves that are drawn on in wartime. Indeed, the ADF's shallow bench meant that both regular and reserve personnel often had multiple Afghan and Iraq deployments in harm's way, the baneful results of which are only now becoming clear in the large numbers of veterans with wounds not just physical but mental as well.

Stating that Af-raq wars were good experience does not, in any way, ignore the moral requirement for satisfying “Just War” criteria. Nor does it ignore or explain away the very real cost to Australia of the deaths and wounds inflicted on our brave troops. However, one’s just war criteria is rather narrow if the killing and capturing of jihadists (whether of the Al Qaeda, Taliban or IS variety), sworn to destroy 'infidels' such as Australians, is considered illicit. The only real question arising from Af-raq is whether, in fact, Australia could have done more as part of the allied coalition, especially when compared to the enormous effort made by Canada in Afghanistan.

On a more human level, the last 13 years’ continuous operations has ensured the ADF now has many battle-hardened junior and middle-ranking leaders who will be tomorrow's senior commanders and NCOs. More importantly, on a cultural level, the last 13 years' continuous operations have trained these leaders to be impatient with red-tape, inertia and mediocrity. As the Israeli legend General Moshe Dayan said of military leadership, in words that should be engraved in large, bold type at all military headquarters, "We must prepare ourselves morally and physically to endure a protracted struggle, not to draw up a timetable for the achievement of 'rest and peace'". Indeed.

In sum, while the Af-raq wars were on one view "Operation Infinite Cluster", there were significant benefits for Australia and its armed forces from what may, at this time, only be seen as not just stupid but immoral wars. Reasonable Australians aware of our true strategic position should acknowledge not just the Af-raq wars' blunders and conceits, but, also, the benefits that have also accrued to Australia from our military perseverance. We have developed even more intimate alliances with the US and other allies, as well as exposed our armed forces to the realities of modern warfare and our service members to war experiences that, while inevitably hazardous, will only benefit the Australian profession of arms. Given the neighbourhood in which Australia lives, these are strategic gains of significant importance.


Australia's Renewed Iraq War

At root of Australia's involvement in the Af-raq wars - and now the renewed Iraq war against IS - is that, put succinctly, what was true of Thucydides' Athenians is also true of 21st century Australians: we are motivated by self-interest, security and honour in our statecraft. All three motives drive us to have armed forces and security alliances that can preserve our national sovereignty and freedom.

The world 'as it is' will always impose contrary and sometimes hostile disciplines upon us.

The world "as it is" will always have greater, medium and lesser powers with differing and conflicting interests.

The combustible interplay of Australia's inescapable realities will always result in rivalries, conflicts, upheavals, wars and insurgencies, which Australia cannot wish away but must be prepared to deal with, if necessarily forcefully.

Accordingly, the real nature of our strategic position means that Australia will always require military alliances with great and friendly powers, and we will always require an ADF that is prepared and ready for modern war to defend Australia and its interests. And if our participation in the disastrous Af-raq wars has paradoxically made Australia more secure by virtue of ever closer great power alliances and by ensuring an ADF that is even more experienced and potent, then, no matter how well camouflaged these blessings conferred on us by the Af-raq wars are, we should not just note them but, indeed, be thankful for them.

These realities of our strategic position and our military requirements are why we now, also, contribute to a renewed US-led expeditionary war against IS in Iraq (and perhaps Syria). No nation, even an island continent like Australia, is really an island. And in the great game of realpolitik, there is no benefit to Australia in seeing the Middle East's fragile arrangements come asunder because of IS' march and there is no harm done by – and indeed many benefits arise from – Australia supporting our US ally in stopping IS. Additionally, and not unimportantly, using military force to defeat IS is the right and responsible thing to do.

Finally, Australia is a very rich and strong nation but we live in a neighbourhood where we need our great and powerful friends. We are also a nation that honours its word and which stands by its friends. And when push comes to shove, real friends help their friends, whether in Afghanistan or in Iraq... or in places closer to home. It has been ever thus and will be ever thus.