"war 'ought' to be instrumental, in the sense that it ought to be waged in order to achieve some goal, never for its own sake; and also in the sense that strategy and tactics ought to be directed towards just one end, namely towards victory."
- Carl von Clausewitz

Because there is no active anti-war movement in the United States today, there is also a lack of political debate about our state of war. Even the debate about the AUMF is bizarre in that there is no discussion about the morality of the war, or even if the strategy is working.
Historically, winning or losing wars was taken so seriously that the fates of governments sometimes depended on individual battles.
But today few seem to care if we are winning, or what the outcome will be. There isn't even any attempt to find agreement of what victory would look like, thereby guaranteeing that the war can continue indefinitely because there is no specific goals to achieve.

The purpose of all wars, is peace.
- Saint Augustine

Al-Qaeda

In the summer of 2013, President Obama assured us that “core al-Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated”. Furthermore, around the same time he was outlining goals for defeating ISIL, he was telling us that the model he would use would be his military strategy in Yemen against al-Qaeda.

This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.

Yesterday, the exact opposite thing happened in Yemen.

The United States is evacuating its remaining military personnel from Yemen because of the deteriorating security situation, US officials have confirmed.
On Saturday, Yemeni officials said about 100 US troops were leaving an air base near a southern city that was stormed by al-Qaeda fighters on Friday.

In case that wasn't clear enough - we are being chased out of Yemen by al-Qaeda.
That's quite a feat for a group "on its heels".

There is simply no way that anyone could spin this into something less than a tactical victory for al-Qaeda.
This also comes the day after Daesh launched a bloody attack in Yemen.

Yemen isn't the only place that al-Qaeda has made inroads recently.
The Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, was an effective, but limited militant group that was also fighting Daesh in the Syrian civil war in the summer of 2014.
Then President Obama decided to bomb al-Nusra against the objections of his intelligence agencies and everything changed.
The first thing that happened was al-Nusra and Daesh agreed to a truce.
Then they attacked and destroyed the U.S.-backed Syrian Revolutionary Front
A few months later they attacked and destroyed the U.S.-backed group Harakat al-Hazm.
Six months ago al-Nusra was cooperating with these moderate rebel groups against Daesh. Then we bombed al-Nusra. Now we have almost no allies left in Northern Syria.

Without a doubt, we've killed lots of al-Qaeda militants, but that's not how success in wars are measured.
If just killing bad guys meant victory, like in a first-person-shooter game, then we would have won in Vietnam, because we killed millions of people there.
So is our strategy creating bad guys faster than we can kill them? Probably yes.
We are 13 years into this global war on terror. Are terrorist groups stronger or weaker on a whole? By many measures they are stronger than ever.
What's more, almost every nation we've went into to fight terrorism has collapsed into chaos, which is the perfect environment for more terrorism.

So how can anyone look at this and not conclude that we are doing it wrong?

Daesh

On September 3rd of last year, President Obama outlined some broad goals to achieve against Daesh.

"If we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL's sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem," Mr. Obama said.

Those goals are about as vague as possible, but even under the most generous definitions we are not meeting them.
One month after Obama's statement here Daesh militants seized the town of Derna in Libya. A few months later Daesh took over the major city of Sirte.
Then this past week Daesh militants launched an attack in Tunisia after training for it in Libya. Thus Libya has become a springboard for terrorist attacks in foreign countries in much the same way Afghanistan was in 2001. Daesh in Libya is now considered a threat to all of its neighboring countries. The State Department is alarmed. It estimates there are thousands of Daesh militants roaming free in Libya.
As of now, President Obama has not presented a strategy for combatting the rise of Daesh in north Africa and its expanding sphere of influence throughout the muslim world.

Expanding is the opposite of shrinking, and its impossible to destroy a group that is operating in areas where you aren't.

Granted, we have killed a lot of bad guys, if that means anything.
We've also made it very hard for Daesh to move troops around Syria and Iraq, which has enabled Kurdish and Shia forces to take back 25% of Iraq that Daesh once held.
On the other hand, Daesh has expanded in Syria at the same time, where we've almost run out of allies.

The real test about whether our strategy is working in Iraq is the current titantic Battle of Tikrit.
Just last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi proudly declared that victory was near and “achieved totally by Iraqi hands.” ISIS militants were stealing cars to flee the battle, a story that I fell for.

It turns out that the Iraqi politicians were blowing smoke, and the Shia militias have not yet reached the center of the city. In fact the battle appears to be more of a siege than anything else.
It turns out that the offensive stalled and the Shia forces are losing about 60 men a day for the past three weeks, and lost around 1,000 men just in the opening round of fighting. Even during this pause in the offensive Daesh snipers are killing hundreds of Shia militiamen.
The Shia forces have called for reinforcements despite outnumbering Daesh by around 20 to 1.
The sudden deterioration of the situation in Tikrit has led to one Shia militia chief to call the Iraqi Army "weaklings" for wanting American help.

The Battle of Tikrit has been going on for nearly a month. If it takes Baghdad much longer to win in Tikrit, despite having overwhelming numbers, then the chances of them ever taking back Mosul are minimal. And victory by Baghdad in Anbar province is completely out of the question without Sunni help.
In fact, there is an outside chance that Baghdad could actually lose at Tikrit, which would be devastating. The reason this is a concern is because Baghdad is trying to win this war with unpaid militiamen.
If you remember your history of the War of 1812, you'll know that extended military campaigns with non-regular army units usually don't go well. The clock is ticking for Baghdad.

Of course the entire course of the war in Iraq would immediately change for the better if there was some political reconciliation with the Sunni population by the Baghdad government, then Daesh would suddenly be surrounded by enemies.
President Obama recognized early on that reconciliation between the Sunnis and Shias was absolutely necessary to end this conflict, but even Iraq’s vice-president Iyad Allawi admits that there has been no political progress. Washington has finally begun worrying that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi isn't serious about a political solution.
Meanwhile, Shia militiamen are burning Sunni homes around Tikrit.