The author previously addressed The Evolution of Trump’s Plans to Defeat ISIS. Most notably, during the primary, and on multiple occasions throughout the general election, Donald Trump incessantly offered different iterations on how he intended to defeat ISIS. Now that he is president-elect, this post addresses some of the issues that will impact Trump’s ISIS strategy.
During a rally in Greenville, North Carolina on September 6, 2016, Trump articulated that on day one of his presidency, “I am also going to convene my top generals and give them a simple instruction: They will have 30 days to submit to the Oval Office a plan for defeating ISIS.”[1]
In an earlier statement, Trump spoke of how he would deal with ISIS. During an interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News on May 27, 2015, Trump argued, “If I run, and If I win, I don’t want the enemy to know what I’m doing. Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to tell at some point, but there is a method of defeating them quickly and effectively and having total victory.”[2]
With the countdown until he formally takes office well underway, Trump will face increasing pressure to unveil a comprehensive anti-ISIS strategy. Much of the pressure that President Trump will face are a direct result of the use of the following words: “defeating them [the Islamic State] quickly … and having total victory.”
In the end, three phases will ultimately determine the outcome of President Trump’s pending struggle with the Islamic State. The first phase—the review of Obama’s strategy—will determine the initial step in shifting away from President Obama’s oft-criticized anti-ISIS plan. In the second phase, pundits will examine “the process”—the military options the Pentagon believes could be implemented to defeat the Islamic State. The final phase examines the prospects of President Trump’s struggle with the Islamic State.
Review of President Obama’s Anti-ISIS Strategy
On day one of his presidency, there is an increasing expectation that President Trump will keep his pledge and have the military commence a review of President Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy. At issue, will it occur in the previously announced thirty days?
Presently, the new president has not indicated which individual(s) will be charged with the review. It is certainly in the interest of President Trump to resolve this issue as soon as possible. It is understood the president-elect must select a candidate to serve as Secretary of Defense. Once that selection is made, Trump should thereafter commence the process of establishing an internal ISIS Working Group (one may have and should have been created during the campaign).
On the question of which individual should head the review, the best candidate is none other than Jack Keene, the retired general and chairman of the board of the Institute for the Study of War. A vocal critic of President Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy, Keene will command respect inside the Beltway and around the world.
The purpose of the review is to address several questions: What aspects of President Obama’s strategy should remain or expanded upon? What is the status of the threat posed by the Islamic State? What are the near term and long term goals of the Trump administration quest to defeat ISIS? Will the Trump administration deploy additional combat forces to Iraq and Syria? Will President Trump authorize new rules of engagement for U.S. aircraft and ground troops operating in and outside of Iraq and Syria? Additionally, the media is questioning whether Trump will really purge Obama’s Generals? This is a political-military issue, one that will be debated during the interregnum between the close of the Obama presidency and during the opening months of the Trump administration.
Officials inside the Trump transition team have discussed the new president’s position with the media. In an instructive example, in a story in the Washington Post, “Those advising Trump on military matters contend that the current crop of uniformed military leaders need to go because they have refused to push back against an Obama White House that has pursued a military strategy against the Islamic State that is too slow, too restrictive….”[3] There is the view that a massive purge in the senior leadership of those responsible for directing the U.S.-led coalition conflict with ISIS “… might also cause a crisis in civil-military relations.”[4]
Critics miss the point and history. That is, there are changes in the senior military leadership in the wake of the review of an old strategy and the implementation of the new one. In short, once the policy review concludes and a new strategy is determined, Trump will promote another general officer to “run the show.” Other senior military changes will occur throughout the chain of command. These changes will largely go unnoticed by the media.
The Search For A Military Strategy: The Obama Way Or A Return to Tradition
After the conclusion of the review of President Obama’s strategy, the debate over Trump’s anti-ISIS plan will determine the trajectory of the way forward in the battle against the Islamic State. The Obama administration’s anti-ISIS strategy was not shaped by the traditional list of Pentagon options which was then followed by the formal presidential selection of one of those options.
Rather, President Obama immediately informed the world in June of 2014 that U.S. troops would not be returning to Iraq. Thus, a major component of the evolving military strategy was denied. Second, Obama accepted the air option but the president instituted restrictive rules of engagement that undercut the effectiveness of the campaign. Third, senior Pentagon and Central Command officials did not like the centralized White House decision-making process that eliminated early efforts by senior military and civilian officials to express their opinions in national security meetings.
Will President Trump continue the Obama model or return to the time-honored way of selecting a military strategy to defeat the enemies of the United States? Given the make-up of Trump’s early cabinet selections, particularly the selections of retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn to serve as national security adviser and Mike Pompeo, who will serve as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and similar selections of this kind likely to follow, there is little doubt the Obama model is dead. Put another way, a return to the traditional way of decision-making on military war options will likely return under the Trump administration.
Prospects
When the Trump presidency commences on January 20, 2017, the new American leader will have to confront the reality that the Islamic State Can’t Be ‘Quickly Defeated.’ What accounts for the belief the next phase in the battle with the Islamic State will be slow and arduous?
In the words of Kimberly Kagan, a proponent of the surge strategy, “We need to recognize there are limits on how fast we can accelerate”[5]a new strategy. Kagan offered this additional reason: “ISIS has a global strategy, refocusing on supporters in Europe, North Africa, South Asia, and online even as its so-called caliphate collapses.”[6] Kagan then offer this observation: “We need a global strategy to counter theirs.”[7]
There are other issues that President Trump will have to contend with. Since the Al Qaeda attack September 11, 2001, the United States has lacked a global strategy. One should not anticipate that one will emerge in the near term during the Trump administration. Instead, one should anticipate a series of hybrid strategies, plans that deal with ISIS in select states and regions of the world. In many ways, such plans will be consistent with what Obama is doing in Afghanistan and in Libya. That said, one should anticipate a greater reliance on U.S. combat troops, increase in the number of airstrikes, and an increase in the “tempo of operations” against the Islamic State and their affiliates.
The other critical issue concerns the new president. That is, there is a contradiction associated with President Trump. That contradiction is illustrated in the following quote: “Trump’s behavior towards ISIS once in office are difficult to make because he has also criticized protracted American engagement in the Middle East as wasteful and ineffective. This suggests that he would recoil from making large commitments of troops to Syria [and perhaps elsewhere in the region and around the world where ISIS exists], and instead continue existing initiatives such as air operations or training and supplying local forces.”[8]
These issues represent some of the dilemmas that President Trump will have to deal with in his administration’s battle with the Islamic State. In the end, Trump is unlikely to secure a swift defeat of ISIS.
[1] Ben Schreckinger, “Trump Would Turn to Generals for Islamic State Plan,” Politico, September 6, 2016. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-isil-isis-227807.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Josh Rogin, “Will Trump Really Purge Obama’s Generals?”, Washington Post, November 18, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/11/18/will-trump-really-purge –obamas-generals/?utm_term=.fd7f11880b41.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Sydney J. Freedberg, “Sorry, President Trump: Islamic State Can’t Be ‘Quickly Defeated,” Breakingdefense.com, November 18, 2016. http://breakingdefense.com/2016/11/sorry-president-trump-islamic-state-cant-be-quickly-defeated/.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Julianne Smith and Rachel Rizzo, with Adam Twardowski, “US Election Note: Defense Policy After 2016,” Chatham House, US and the Americas Programme, August 2016, pp. 6-7.
