Kinetic War

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.

What happens when we forget about the dangers of kinetic war? David relates trigger points for World War III in the Cold War, close calls of accidental nuclear war in the 1980s, and the constant readiness to be the first to strike. Having more kinetic weapons to strike first is seen as the “escalatory logic” that promotes the destructive notion that only the attacker has the advantage. This is the “false logic” risking millions of lives and immense destruction that kinetic weapons continue to pose.

David describes the escalation of kinetic weapons back in the Cold War where fear drove a panic that no country dare be left behind or perceived as weak and vulnerable in the arms race. In his conversations with defense contractors, atomic war fighters, Pentagon policy guys, and Russian civilians, there’s a sense that despite the impending tragedy of a new world war, fear makes the most illogical choices appear sane and reasoned. With vivid and powerful stories across a spectrum of nationalities and self-interests, David explores the options of de-escalating the immense costs and pervasive panic driving kinetic war and the real cost of fear.

Caught in the horrible maelstrom of violence of Somalian and Ethiopian battles, David barely escapes becoming a victim, and wonders why anyone believed these attacks would resolve anything. The astonishing lesson from his story is that bigger kinetic weapons just increase casualties, and the urge to increase kinetic force stems from a desire to reach a point where one claim definitive victory, at a terrible cost.

From childhood suburbia to the frontlines of major wars in Africa and Middle East, David Wood describes his family background and astonishing journey of reporting America’s wars from the midst of the worst protracted battles of the 21st century. He explores the allure of war that initially inspired his reporting, and how his experiences embedded with troops demonstrated a state of war as “going kinetic” as a catastrophic escalation of killing with little resolution. In his quest for answers, David discovers real ambivalence about war from military leaders as diverse as Eisenhower and Churchill, two powerhouse leaders of the “Great War” WWII, who, in the end concluded that “after all the exertions and sacrifices of hundreds of millions of people and of the victories of the Righteous Cause, we still have not found peace or security.” Yet the efforts of the great men and women in the military continue to achieve human victories in the midst of horrendous odds. David vividly brings these stories to life with great relevance to today’s warfare.