The Blog

Why Casey Struck Out

1:47 PM, Feb 1, 2007 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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The Senate Armed Services Committee held hearing today on Gen. George Casey's nomination to be Army chief of staff. The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq told the committee that he had asked the president to send two additional brigades--less than half the number the president is sending--to Iraq to improve the security situation. Asked by Senator John Warner why he hadn't requested additional forces, Casey said "I did not want to bring one more American soldier into Iraq than was necessary to accomplish the mission."

This kind of logic has handicapped the American effort in Iraq for years, and was summed up by William J. Stuntz in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD in November of last year. Said Stuntz,

There is another reason economic logic does not readily apply to the fighting of wars. When running a business, one aims to invest just as much as is necessary to make the sale or manufacture the product--no less, and no more. Profit equals revenue minus cost, so minimizing cost lies at the core of wise business management.

Warfare could not be more different. Send just enough soldiers and guns and tanks to do the job, and you may soon find you have sent too few. The enemy concludes that if it can raise the marginal cost of the conflict just a bit, if casualties are a little higher or the expense a tad greater than you imagined, you'll quit the field. On the other hand, send vastly more soldiers and materiel than required to the battlefield, and the enemy soon decides that the fight is hopeless--that, as Lincoln so elegantly put it, our resources are unexhausted and, as we believe, inexhaustible.

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