Kinetic War Breaking The Grey

Military planners call Phase Zero the critical period before a conflict slides into kinetic war. This is the key moment when strategic errors and blindness can be avoided with immediate, practical, and low-cost actions to intervene in conflicts before they explode in violence. In this final episode of our series, David depicts successes by the US Institute of Peace employing peacekeeping mediators in Iraq, and the big challenges with funding and priorities that are affecting the hope and promise of preventing kinetic wars.

David shares his observations of what war is like for individuals in combat who fight on our behalf. The people who carry what they need on their backs, coming face to face with the enemy and whose lives haven’t changed much since the Roman legions. David learned their stories by being there to listen and hear their impressions of the first major conventional battle of the US war in Afghanistan at Landing Zone Ginger on the outset of Operation Anaconda, in early March 2002. When their Sergeant Major said “you either prevail or fail”, they stepped into battle out of a feeling that they owe it to the country, an obligation as a citizen, and with respect for the idea of service to a noble ideal that is defending the nation.

A glimmer of hope for an alternative to kinetic war comes in the story of an American warfighting officer in Mahmoudiyah, Iraq -- otherwise known as “the bloody triangle”. In 2007, in this most violent region, a frightening apocalyptic contagion of suicide attacks, kidnappings, and killings had created pressure for even more violence. Instead, a unique peace was built and it held. War didn’t break out again there, as it did elsewhere in Iraq. How was this peace achieved and what are the critical lessons when, as one combat commander put it: we can’t kill our way out of this. And where does the fault lie in our failure to develop practical civilian expertise in this kind of peacebuilding? Our guest, David Wood, has the story.

So far we’ve been talking about kinetic warfare in conflicts and battles, and in this episode we hear the very personal and individual stories of the human cost in graphic and heart wrenching accounts of being wounded in battle and coming home. The story of a soldier blown up by an IED in Iraq, suffering deep burns and an amputated leg, and his return to be tended by his family who are now his caretakers. Stories of the toll these new roles take on loved ones, and their continuing effort to cope with devastating injuries. This is a must-listen episode about the tests of humanity and the heroic acts that demonstrate the immense courage and spirit of our soldiers faced with kinetic war. Please note that this episode contains depictions of violence that some people may find disturbing.

With the U.S. military leaving Afghanistan, David takes a fresh look at what went wrong. Like the military’s after action reviews, this is a first take at what we must learn to avoid failing again. After decades of front-line reporting, David talks about the U.S. strategic goal set 20 years ago that was so broad it failed to guide our subsequent actions and set priorities (more important to strangle the narcotics traffic or send girls to school?) His summary is a must-listen on clear lessons such as knowing what we’re getting into, thinking before we leap, and defining our goals precisely. This episode is an urgent and timely plea to understand that what matters most is to learn from the mistakes that have led to failure in Iraq and Afghanistan -- not to mention Vietnam.

2002, Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. Recently abandoned by U.S. forces, this sprawling former Soviet base is where David spent several months in early 2002 as the only journalist embedded inside the U.S. command. That’s when it all began to go wrong. He chronicled Operation Anaconda, the first U.S. effort to use conventional kinetic force against an enemy -- and in a country -- that was little understood. U.S. special forces and Marines had won the war, but Washington sent thousands more troops to chase the few enemy who’d fled into the mountains. That’s the iron logic of kinetic war that David calls the Zombie Fallacy: if the force you’ve sent fails to fix the problem, use even more force! Despite lessons of the past it’s an idea that just won’t die. The effort then relies on the young Americans we send into battle: David vividly describes steadfast American troops in a harrowing firefight.