Analyzing the Enemy, Research Paper Example

The Importance of Regional/Area/Cultural Expertise in Analyzing the Enemy

When Sun Tzu stated “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril”[1]some 2,500 years ago, he was addressing a predominantly Chinese audience where both the opponents came from similar background, language and culture. Western military strategists use this often repeated quote without really internalizing the true import of Sun Tzu’s aphorism – that the saying works provided one ‘knows the enemy’ in his own cultural setting. This paper argues that without regional/area/cultural expertise, any analysis of the ‘enemy’ is bound to be faulty leading to failures and embarrassment which a nation can ill afford.

A glaring example of non-application of regional expertise was the Vietnam War. America conducted the war in Vietnam based on American ideas of what constituted the ‘enemy’. The North Vietnamese were thought to possess “minds equivalent to the shriveled leg of a polio victim and their power of reason…only slightly beyond the level of an American six year old”[2]. Others called them ‘yellow dwarves’, ‘infestations, ‘termites’, ‘gooks’, ‘slants’, and ‘dinks’ who would simply cave in to superior U.S. military might[3]. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara “strongly believed in the bombing of North Vietnam as a way of influencing the “will” of the North to continue supporting the insurgency”[4]. Had the American military strategists employed genuine regional expertise, they might have come to a different conclusion and possibly might have staved off the humiliating defeat that the country suffered in the Vietnam War. Western regional experts think through their own western experience and western values which have little in common especially when dealing with Eastern cultures. The Iraq adventure is a case in point. American strategists did not fathom the level of animosity that exists between the Shias and the Sunnis whose irreconcilable differences are rooted in an ancient past.  Indeed Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary Defense had testified that there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq and thus a small American force could keep peace in postwar Iraq[5]. There was a mistaken belief in the administration, egged by propaganda from Iraqi dissidents that the Iraqis would embrace democracy with open arms.American planners did not take proper cognizance of sociological, cultural and religious dynamics of the region despite the fact that neoconservative thinker like the late Samuel Huntington had warned with reference to Mideast cultures that “cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones”[6]. In stark contrast was the British victory in the Malayan Campaign (1948 to 1960), in which the British combined the intelligence gathered by the Malaysian special police[7] with a politico-military strategy that defeated the communist insurgency in Malaysia. In this case, utilization of regional expertise contributed largely to the British success.

It therefore can be concluded that comprehensive analyses of an adversary requirees a professional group of regional experts well versed in the cultural nuances of the adversary. America’s experience in Vietnam and Iraq shows that ignoring regional expertise and inputs can lead to false conclusions that can only result in disasters. The British Malayan experience shows that effective utilization of regional expertise can lead to victory.  Such regional expertise becomes even more effective if the experts come from the same ethnicity as the adversary and have had lived in the same environment for a considerable period of time.

End Notes

[1] Samuel B. Griffith, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 84.

[2] Beau Grosscup, Strategic Error: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment, (London: Zed Books, 2006), 92.

[3] Ibid.

[4] William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part IV: July 1965-January 1968, Part 4, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 222.

[5] Eric Schmitt, “Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force’s Size”, Global Policy Forum February 28, 2003,  http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/167/35435.html(accessedMarch 2, 2010), ¶ 9.

[6] Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs, (1993): 5.

[7] Comber, Leon, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies & Monash Asia Institute, Malaya’s Secret Police, 1945-60: The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency, (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008), xix.

Bibliography

Comber, Leon, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and Monash Asia Institute. Malaya’s Secret Police, 1945-60: The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008.

Gibbons, William Conrad. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part IV:July 1965-January 1968, Part 4. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Griffith, Samuel B. Sun Tzu:The Art of War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.

Grosscup, Beau. Strategic Error: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment. London: Zed Books, 2006.

Huntington, Samuel. “The Clash of Civilizations.” Foreign Affairs, 1993: 1-25.

Schmitt, Eric. “Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force’s Size.” Global Policy Forum. February 28, 2003. http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/167/35435.html (accessed March 2, 2010).