[September 1, 2015] A year ago U.S. President Obama said that the United States had “no strategy” to address the threat by the Islamic State terrorist group known as ISIS or ISIL. There was immediate and merited criticism of his no strategy comments and subsequently a week later the president rolled out a “strategy” to defeat ISIS. It was criticized for being ambiguous and inadequate. It is a widespread belief that after a year that the strategy is not working.
When I commented on the strategy a year ago (see link here), I noted that the test of good strategy is one that is understood by all and, above anything else, it must work. Today, it doesn’t work for several reasons, one of which is that it relies almost entirely upon a subordinate military strategy and fails to comprehensively include economic, informational, and diplomatic components. The need for a grand strategy is clear and we don’t have one.1 Furthermore, the military strategic component fails to employ all relevant elements of military power.
Not employing full military power is a political decision of the U.S. president and is well documented to be within his right to exercise it as he sees fit. Problematic for President Obama as the Commander in Chief is that responsibility for any restrictions on the use of military force and its failure (or success) rests solely on him. Very few military experts have suggested that the strategy is working well and most admit it has failed completely to defeat or even slow down the Islamic State terrorist organization.
The Obama administration has resorted to having spokespersons defend the strategy. For example Brett McGurk, who serves as a Department of State point person, said that the U.S. is supporting a coalition-led effort on the ground to stop IS. He noted that the Iraqi government and its military had to “absorb the shock” of attacking IS fighters and they have held them at bay. In short, the U.S. strategy is to rely upon coalition forces, mostly Iraqi, to take the fight to ISIS but he admits to many shortcomings.2
Yes, there is a U.S. strategy and its goal is to “degrade and defeat” ISIS over time. Brett McGurk identified that time as about three years (the first I’ve heard a timeline). We cannot say at this point whether the strategy has totally failed, although indications are that it has, because we are only one year into a “three year” campaign. So far things are not looking good because ISIS does have a grand strategy and its stated purpose is to destroy the United States.3
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- A more complete discussion of grand strategy can be found in a 4-part series called “Leadership and Grand Strategy” found here at theLeaderMaker.com: