Coalition Building Requires Skin in the Game

In his speech before the nation on the threat from the Islamic State, President Obama stressed that America would lead a coalition of nations to fight the Islamic extremist group that has taken control of broad swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory. The President defined "leadership" as providing military support in the form of air strikes; training support for the moderate Syrian opposition and Iraqi security forces; financial support for those fighting the IS and measures to stanch the flow of finances to the extremists. He pointed out that Secretary of State John Kerry was in the Middle East seeking more participants in the coalition.  And he stressed that the fight against the IS would in no way resemble the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: The United States would not deploy land forces to fight the terror group. That would be the responsibility of others in the coalition that Kerry is attempting to stitch together.

What the president did not say, because he could not know, was whether would even be possible to build a coalition of states that would conduct the ground campaign if there were no participation by American land forces. The United States built and led previous international coalitions when its own forces were committed to operations on the ground. When Secretary of State Jim Baker won the commitment of Saudi, Qatari and, yes, Syrian forces to repel Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, they deployed alongside not only those of Britain and France, but also, and most importantly, those of the United States. America had begun a major buildup on the ground in the Persian Gulf in August 1990, five months before its forces swung into action. There was no question as to who would lead the coalition that would strike back against Saddam. Thus, Operation Desert Shield not only was the precursor to Desert Storm, but also provided tangible evidence of American leadership for the great land force coalition that then moved into Iraq in February 1991 — after a month long aerial campaign — and defeated Saddam’s forces in 100 hours.

Similarly, when the George W. Bush administration launched Operation Enduring Freedom with the support of another major international coalition, it did so not only by initiating the operation with land and sea-based airstrikes, with Special Forces operating on the ground, followed by the deployment of tens of thousands of regular ground troops. The same process repeated itself in Operation Iraqi Freedom: air strikes were followed by the deployment of thousands of land forces that streamed into southern Iraq from their base camps in the lower Persian Gulf. In both cases, as in 1991, the coalition on the ground was led by American forces; there was no "leading from behind," nor were American operations restricted to those launched from the air. Having been witness to the formation of the coalition that supported Operation Enduring Freedom, and personally participated in the effort to recruit international forces for Operation Iraqi Freedom, I am convinced that America would not have obtained the active participation of those forces had it not had its own "skin in the game" in the form of major Army and Marine units.

It is one thing to offer funds or training facilities, which Saudi Arabia is apparently willing to provide. It is quite another to deploy troops. Whether the Saudis, Emiratis, Jordanians, and others will be ready to do so absent American leadership on the ground is at best an open question.

It is true that America led a coalition "from behind" in Libya. But that coalition did not commit ground troops; apart from very small numbers of European special forces, it was the Libyan rebels who provided the overwhelming majority of troops conducting operations on the ground against Muammar al-Qaddafi.  Moreover, the aftermath of that conflict hardly was a showpiece for coalition operations: Libya is now virtually a failed state. If the United States is serious about creating a coalition of forces that will defeat the Islamic State, it will have to lead if it expects others to follow. If all America is ready to offer is air power, as it did in Libya — as well as money and training — then that is all that others will be willing to provide.

Perhaps France will deploy troops to Syria, as it has done in Mali and elsewhere in Africa. Perhaps, if it does so, other states will contribute their own forces to the fight against the Islamic State. But in that case, it will be Paris, not Washington, which will be seen as the real leader in the fight against terror. As for America, that supposedly indispensable nation, it will be relegated to nothing more than a supporting actor at best, and, at worst, a politically hamstrung bystander.