H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable 13-12
issforum.org
Brent Steele. Restraint in International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781108486088 (hardback, $105.00).
1 August 2022 | https://issforum.org/to/ir13-12
Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Andrew Szarejko | Production Editor: George Fujii
Contents
H-Diplo Roundtable XXI-33
Amelia Hoover Green. The Commander’s Dilemma: Violence and Restraint in Wartime. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9781501726477 (hardcover, $49.95).
23 March 2020 | https://hdiplo.org/to/RT21-33
Roundtable Editors: Thomas Maddux and Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii
Contents
My answer was a careful consideration of limited use of land-based Airpower in concert with non-military instruments of national power. If land-based air is not available, do not further stress the Navy by going with sea-based options other than perhaps TLAMs.* Although I doubt that a few TLAMs here or there would save Erbil from a concerted offensive by Erbil's enemies.
Some on this thread evince a desire for a sort of clarity that I find has little to do with the real world.
That said, let us boil it down to several, fundamental questions:
-First, should the semi-autonomous regime in Erbil be threatened what should the US Role be? Military (first choice in all cases for last 30 years), Diplomatic (usually never employed alone and usually in back seat to military/hammer solution), economic, informational [thus I have used the DIME], other (this is for the HG audience to take on), or combinations?
I think we owe the Kurds a little more than just a debt of honor; there is a blood debt there as well. The United States highly encouraged revolts in Iraq following DESERT STORM, and then seem surprised when Iraqis and Kurds took them at their word. Kurdistan was a comparative bastion of stability during the dark days of occupation following IRAQI FREEDOM, and the peshmerga were among the most effective fighters against ISIS when the Iraqi Army was busy throwing its weapons down and running away.
