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Fighting to win

Trump lifts Obama-era limits on drone strikes in War on Terror



I wish I could remember the cartoonist, but back when the United States embarked upon the first Gulf War, someone drew a memorable cartoon titled "Texans at War." Next to each other on twin platforms were two presidents from Texas. Each was holding a document titled "Rules of War." In LBJ's hand was a long list of things the military would not be allowed to do in Vietnam. Don't bomb here. Don't attack there. Don't use this weapon. Don't use this tactic. Don't go here. Do do this. It was a politician's guide to limiting his own military, making victory almost impossible.
Next to LBJ, in the hands of George Bush, was a much smaller piece of paper also bearing the heading "Rules of War." But it only listed one rule: WIN. This played out very much the same way when Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush and became the commander, for better or for worse, in the War on Terror. It was a war the left never really wanted to fight, and in fact ran down at every opportunity. Over the course of this war, ostensibly for the purpose of "winning hearts and minds," Obama became less and less ferocious in pursuing our enemies. Good news: Donald Trump apparently believes the only rule war that really matters is to win:
Trump is preparing to “dismantle key Obama-era limits on drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional battlefields.” The language is a tad overblown, but the essence of the reported change is that Trump intends to delegate strike decisions to lower levels of the command chain and expand the list of potential targets from “high-level” militants to include jihadist “foot soldiers.” Crucially, the administration is not prepared to relax rules of engagement that require a “near certainty” that there will be no civilian casualties. By delegating strike decisions, the administration will be better able to quickly engage targets. By attacking even “foot soldiers,” the administration is taking an important step toward preventing the creation of jihadist safe havens and diminishing jihadist strike capability. As I’ve noted many times, when terrorists are able to create and maintain safe havens, their power to strike abroad increases immensely. That’s the lesson of al-Qaeda’s control over Afghanistan and of ISIS’s control over vast stretches of Syria and Iraq.

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This shows a healthy balance between the need to achieve strategic achievements on the battlefield and the need to avoid civilian casualties. Commanders on the battlefield know the conditions and can make the decisions that achieve both objectives. They don't need any help from politicians in Washington to know how to get this done. This decision shows that Trump is prepared to trust his commanders and not micromanage the battle. This decision also gives battlefield commanders more freedom to target "foot soldiers" within terrorist organizations, which will upset the left and those who think war should work like criminal law enforcement. But the purpose of that is to make sure it isn't safe for terrorists to regard any location as a safe haven where they can operate with impunity. If you know the Americans can capture or kill you at any time, then you don't feel that certainty that you can set up in a given area and plot terror attacks. That's the whole idea. There is always the potential for mistakes - that's the nature of war - but if you hamper your generals excessively because of the fear of mistakes, they can't do what's necessary to win. Victory is clearly Trump's desired outcome, and while it remains hard to define, at least we know he's not denying his commanders in the field the freedom to do what's necessary to achieve it.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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