The last GOP debate and the nation's moral compass in war time

There were two very interesting questions that came up at the last GOP debate in New Hampshire, both basically revolving around the basic questions of war time ethics.

War time ethics are a seriously complicated issue, and they have been made much, much more complicated by the fact that modern warfare is dominated by 4th generation warfare, which is where the state no longer has a monopoly on the practice of war but instead non-state forces are regularly fighting and for causes beyond serving states.

As hard as it can be to believe in the wake of events like WWI and WWII, war is actually much more restrained when fought by states than when fought by non-state groups. Why? Because a state has a lot more at stake and a much greater and more diverse group of people that it has to serve and keep happy.

A group that is geared entirely around elevating a narrow cause is generally going to feel much more free to utilize whatever tactics are necessary to achieve their aims whereas a state is constrained by the need to maintain a consensus with their own people, who each have dozens of causes and issues that are important to them.

Then we have the issue of the "moral level" of warfare. As America's greatest military mind, Colonel John Boyd (no relation ;) ) noted, there are three levels of warfare:

The physical, the mental, and the moral. The physical is the least powerful, yet probably the one most heavily emphasized by the American military. With the physical realm of warfare we're generally talking about the ability to physically destroy things.

Next is the mental, where you get into strategy, operations, and tactics. Superior strategy will defeat superior physical forces, as the early years of the Civil War clearly demonstrated before the Union finally found some leadership that press their advantages to defeat General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia.

Finally we find the moral. People have to have something to fight for or they won't endure the awful process of warfare.

For instance, in WWI the Germans had the best army and the best generals, but they got themselves beat because they grievously lost the propaganda war by playing the aggressor, invading neutral Belgium, and executing Belgians who resisted their march through the country. Germany ended up making too many enemies for their superior military to defeat.

They encountered a similar issue against the Soviet Union in WWII as their policy of enslaving the Slavic peoples had the effect of uniting all of Eastern Europe and the entire Russian population behind a Soviet government that also wasn't particularly popular and leading to their inevitable defeat when they couldn't match the mobilization or the intensity of the Russian war effort.

William S. Lind invented this handy graph that I've mentioned before which is fantastic for detailing whether a particular issue in warfare will bring victory by checking whether it hits the check marks in the right grid boxes:

Now, let's talk about some of the issues raised in the GOP debate about particular issues in the war effort against terrorism and Islamic radicals such as ISIS:

On torture

Too often the question of whether the US should employ torture is couched as a "do you keep the country safe or do you utilize every means necessary?" issue. It is not, if we utilize the grid above we realize that torture can easily cause you to lose at the moral level.

For instance with torture: It totally disheartens Americans to hear that their military, which we prefer to think of as being our best and national heroes, are employing tactics that we would associate with villains. The blow to moral at home is a grievous one.

Secondly, it charges up America's enemies and helps create more. If you think radical Islamists have success decrying America as "the great Satan" because of our support for Israel how much more true is this if we are torturing Muslims?

The issue of torture in the "war on terror" is pretty cut and dry. It may be helpful here and there for collecting key information but small, physical or mental victories matter a great deal less than maintaining a moral victory by which we can bring order and peace and prevent terrorism from being a viable strategy.

Since the nature of these debates is often for moderators to try and play "GOTCHA!" and ask the questions of candidates that they would rather avoid, we generally get questions like this where the moderators are trying to trap Ted Cruz and undermine his effort to come across as a strong leader in a time of war:

"So Senator Cruz, you have said, quote, "torture is wrong, unambiguously, period. Civilized nations do not engage in torture." Some of the other candidates say they don't think waterboarding is torture. Mr. Trump has said, I would bring it back. Senator Cruz, is waterboarding torture?"

If you aren't familiar with the art of waterboarding, it's a method where interrogators lie someone on their back at an angle where their feet are higher than their head, put a wet rag over their face, and pour water over the rag. It simulates drowning and it triggers a panicked response from your body.

It's awful and certainly psychologically torturous to anyone forced to endure it, but it's not necessarily physically harmful.

Ted Cruz answered that waterboarding isn't, by rule, torture because it doesn't involve physical harm but he added that he would restrict it's usage to high profile major events, suggesting that in the event of an emergency he wouldn't hold himself back from protecting the country by any means necessary.

You can read the full transcript here.

Next came Trump, who affirmed waterboarding on the basis that ISIS brings a medieval level of brutality to this war, concluding:

"I would bring back waterboarding and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

Trump's aim is to get elected by deferring to the interests of Americans and no other people, which is understandable, but you can't win wars on the moral level by "bringing back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding" in an offensive war in which you are fighting on someone else's soil, trying to dictate to them what kind of state and what kind of leaders they should have.

Jeb Bush, who witnessed his brother make endless mistakes in this conflict, came next. His answer, paraphrased, was that there should be no torture, and he added that killing people with drones isn't a good way to win this war, that it's vastly preferable to capture people and imprison them.

Jeb is absolutely right. America's prosecution of the war on terror by killing people with robots and failing to even meet enemies eye to eye has been a horrendous moral defeat in the war against ISIS.

People too quickly evaluate strategies like this from the physical or mental side of things, reasoning "drones allow the military to access bad guys, hit them with precision, and avoid risking any American lives."

Sure they do, but they also turn the US into this horrifying and evil place where the citizens and even soldiers sit comfortably in front of their screens with doritos and beer in hand while they kill Muslims with the push of a button.

If you want to find allies and bring stability to the region you can't do it in that fashion.

Finally we got an answer from Marco Rubio, arguably the current frontrunner, who's answer can be summed up as: Anti-terrorism isn't the same as law enforcement and different rules apply (implying that torture or waterboarding might be acceptable) and that candidates shouldn't be asked to talk openly about anti-terrorism tactics.

Here I'd suggest that America would have considerably more success controlling 4th generation opponents if they handled things like police would, with an eye towards serving the people and bringing law and order, then by doing things that have the effect of making ISIS a preferable option to many Muslims than US hegemony.

On women in the draft

Later in the debate, this amazing question came up from the press:

"Just this week military leaders of the Army and Marine Corps said that they believed young women, just as young men are required to do, should sign up for Selective Service in case the Draft is reinstated.
Many of you have young daughters. Senator Rubio, should young women be required to sign up for Selective Service in case of a national emergency?"

This should have been the easiest question to answer in the entire debate. Some possible answers that would have addressed this issue succinctly and effectively:

"Hell nah! Have you lost your mind?"

"What??? Why would we do that??? Are we about to be invaded by a massive army of Martians? Why in the world would we need to force women to fight????"

"Well, many parents and young women are worried about what will happen to them at our Universities these days and the issue of sexual assault, so yeah, it makes perfect sense to ask them to sign up to potentially fight enemies who routinely rape women and sell young girls into sex slavery."

Marco Rubio got the first crack at this question and his answer could be summed up as him arguing that this was a good idea because the US needs to rebuild the military because it's become much smaller than it used to be...

First of all...the US military is plenty large. Unless Rubio is planning to go to war with China or Russia there's no need to increase the number of people in the military. Wait...Rubio isn't planning to go to war with China or Russia is he?

Secondly, the idea that forcing America's 18 year old girls to sign up to potentially be drafted into the military is not going to make the US Army a more effective fighting force. This should be obvious to everyone.

The blow to morale at home would be tremendous, the blow to the morale of US soldiers who would then go into every conflict worrying about whether the young girl next to them might be captured or raped would be tremendous, and the blow to the morale of the nation if they saw stories coming back from the front about the hell endured by our daughters in a war would be totally crippling.

Jeb got the next crack at this question. He fumbled it, essentially, and made notes that he wants to increase the role of women in the military (why????) but seemed confused over the issue of drafting them and argued that the US didn't need to draft anyone into the army. I don't think Jeb would ask our nation's daughters to register for the draft, but as his custom he flubbed an opportunity to stand out in the debate by saying so.

Ben Carson offered some rambling answer about his solution to help veterans and increase the chances of America being able to rely on volunteers so that no one will have to be drafted. This answer was frankly quite stupid because A) The US has no shortage of soldiers for any of the tasks they are likely to face and B) He also missed the opportunity to stand up and defend women in this country.

Finally Chris Christie came up...

Chris Christie's best chance in this election is portraying himself as the law and order candidate who is best equipped to keep this country safe based on his experience as a governor and as an attorney general during the Bush presidency in the war on terror.

Chris Christie gave this answer:

"Part of that also needs to be part of a greater effort in this country, and so there's no reason why one -- young women should be discriminated against from registering for the selective service. The fact is, we need to be a party and a people that makes sure that our women in this country understand anything they can dream, anything that they want to aspire to, they can do. That's the way we raised our daughters and that's what we should aspire to as president for all of the women in our country."

I didn't watch much of the debate, or read through every exchange, but I doubt that anyone said something stupider than this.

You can't be the law and order candidate for this country who will make Americans feel safe if your solution is to ask 18 year old girls to register for a draft that could send them off to fight ISIS.

I honestly believe that there might be an outright revolt in this country if the government required that our daughters might HAVE to go to war, especially against an enemy like ISIS. Especially when we aren't even talking about the US being invaded, a situation where all citizens might reasonably be expected to do all they can to resist the enemy.

None of the other candidates spoke on this issue in the debate, although Cruz later tweeted that he would never ask young women in our country to register for the draft. He said the proposal was "nuts." He's right, of course, and if I were him I'd try to make this issue the dominant story heading into the New Hampshire primary tonight.

I love Rubio and Christie's potential capacity for building voter coalitions that can win a general election, but men with such horrifyingly weak perceptions of how to wage war and how to protect this nation are poor candidates for Commander in Chief.