While there are times it makes sense to broadcast a military strategy, defense analysts said Donald Trump has a point when he says that the U.S. should not be sharing its plans for retaking Mosul in Iraq.
During Sunday night’s debate, Trump repeated his refrain that neither the Pentagon, nor other administration leaders, should be sharing their plan to defeat Islamic State because they are essentially tipping the terrorist group off. Trump has so far declined to share his own plan for this reason.
“We have announcements coming out of Washington and coming out of Iraq, we will be attacking Mosul in three weeks or four weeks,” Trump said during the debate. “Why can’t they do it quietly? Why can’t they do the attack, make it a sneak attack, and after the attack is made, inform the American public that we’ve knocked out the leaders, we’ve had a tremendous success?”
Just announced that Iraq (U.S.) is preparing for battle to reclaim Mosul. Why do they have to announce this? Makes mission much harder!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016
Michael O’Hanlon, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, said it’s a “legitimate debate,” with benefits on both sides as shown by history.
In Iraq during the surge 10 years ago, the U.S. didn’t provide the enemy notice of a planned attack, thereby stripping terrorists of time to prepare and fortify themselves. In Anbar province this year, Iraqi forces were open about their plans, which led to “arguably somewhat less violent and bloody” fighting, O’Hanlon said.
In other cases, however, such as the time the U.S. retook Marjah province in Afghanistan in 2010, the U.S. telegraphed its plans ahead of time in the hope that it could scare off Taliban members. It meant ending the fighting without collateral damage to innocent people, which would hurt the relationship with the locals, O’Hanlon said.
“I think this is a rich debate with evidence on both sides of the argument. So on this one at least, while Trump’s disdain for those with other views is unbecoming and unfair, his own position is not unreasonable — or at least worthy of serious consideration,” he told the Washington Examiner.
After Trump said he “can’t think of any” reasons the advance notice would be helpful, moderator Martha Raddatz pointed out that the heads up to war plans is often needed to get civilians out or to wage psychological warfare.
Chris Harmer, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, said a notification of foreign policy plans can be helpful only in those two areas if the heads-up has credibility, which is something he said the U.S. has lost since it has been saying that Iraqi forces have been close to retaking Mosul for 18 months.
“The U.S. has lost all credibility by repeatedly saying we’re going to attack Mosul,” Harmer said. “It’s the boy who cried wolf one too many times.”
The Institute for the Study of War is a nonpartisan think tank, so Harmer was speaking about military strategy, not the debate or election specifically.
Letting enemies know what is coming can be useful for psychological warfare, essentially scaring them into no longer fighting by telling them that the U.S. is about to kill them, and can also help to protect civilians.
But in the case of driving the Islamic State out of Mosul, Harmer said the terrorists, who often commit suicide bombings, do not fear death, so a psychological warfare campaign is ineffective. And efforts to save civilians are unlikely to be successful, since the Islamic State has threatened those trying to escape with death.
Even if civilians are able to leave the city, the U.S. has made “no effort to prepare a safe haven,” and as a result, they have nowhere to go, Harmer said.
Instead, the early notice in this case has simply given the Islamic State plenty of time to prepare, he said.
“I think if and when the long-predicted, long-promised, long-signaled, U.S.-led initiative to liberate Mosul from ISIS takes place, one way or another lots of civilians are getting killed there,” he said.
