Some years back I quoted an old friend's song, him being a former Navy SEAL, that he'd written for the Society of Creative Anachronism. I think of it today as I read the news about the war we just entered into upon Iran. This war is apparently fought in vengeance for its murder of its own citizens who were seeking the freedom and natural rights that our Declaration of Independence holds to be the only legitimate purpose of any government.
Yet the strategy is striking. We are committing no ground forces at all, except perhaps for Special Operators whose missions are clandestine and do not involve taking and holding territory.
The idea is to give the Iranian people a chance to overthrow their own government. It's all air and naval power. If it works there won't be an occupation. There therefore won't be a quagmire; the Iranians will have to figure it out for themselves.
If it doesn't work, well, we just sail home.
I am a fighting man, A Viking fighting man,I drank and wenched to pass the time away.I lived the live I'd chooseI'd fight and never lose,I killed them all... and then I sailed away.
I can’t recall this having been tried before.
2 comments:
Maybe the Western interventions in China during the Boxer Rebellion come close? I know that involved some boots on the ground but it certainly wasn't a post-WWI/WWII style occupation.
The forces deployed during the Russian Civil War come to mind as well. Again, the available military technology necessitated boots on the ground but it wasn't an attempt to occupy Russia.
"...the Western interventions in China during the Boxer Rebellion come close?"
Close, maybe. That was the era of the Horse Marines. They were a part of the American Legion Post I belong to, China Post #1. Indeed, I think they may have founded it back when it really was in Shanghai, and not "in exile" as today.
They were land forces, but not occupation forces; they ran things akin to chevauchees (which is how we began the Iraq War, though we eventually settled into occupation).
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