Planning for the Aftermath: The Most Difficult Part of Regime Change Operations

August 29, 2022
By Alan Cunningham


By 2014, the Global War on Terrorism had gone into full swing. The United States had formally entered and intervened in the Syrian Civil War by launching an air campaign and had established a Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR). U.S. soldiers were stationed in Afghanistan, despite being declared formally over, and ISIS had claimed a substantial portion of Iraq under their control. Terrorism was (and still is to a large degree) one of the greatest threats the world as a whole faced in terms of national security and foreign policy.

In 2014, Max Boot, a Conservative journalist and historian, wrote an article for Foreign Affairs focusing on Counterinsurgency (COIN). Boot’s most insightful point is in his discussion of planning for what comes after a regime change operation occurs, describing how it is the most difficult part of such a military endeavor to pull off.

I agree with Boot that the aftermath of a military operation, in terms of U.S. operations, is forgotten, mismanaged, or nowhere near fully thought out by the time the initial combat operations are completed. As Boot mentions, this can be seen in various world events, notably with the Treaty of Versailles resulting in the sowing of the seeds of World War II, the lack of forethought in determining the outcome of the Korean War, and the blinded and deliberately manufactured entry into Iraq in 2003.

Due to the U.S.A’s history of being poor at having a solid plan for the aftermath of a military operation, this is the most insightful lesson from Boot’s article.

Planning for the afterword of a combat operation is essential. While winning the war is half the battle, ensuring a stable democracy is in place and that the civilians of that country have access to proper social services and the ability to freely decide what kind of country and government they wish to become is important. However, this is far easier said than done, as we have seen in Iraq and Vietnam that animosities between groups arise and result in tensions along ethnic and religious lines in addition to political ones. The best way to illuminate how disastrously a country can become without a solid, clear, and concise aftermath plan can be seen with Iraq.

The Aftermath of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq

In the lead up to the conflict, there was much discussion about which battle plan the U.S. government was going to accept and follow, be it the “Generated Start” or the “Running Start” options; Gordon and Trainor’s seminal book on the conflict Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq documents heavily, easily over 100 pages, the entire planning process, from the morning of September 11th to the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square in April of 2003. In all of this, no one was discussing the aftermath of what to do with Iraq or how to go about making it into a viable democracy with a clear and strong leadership.

While the Bush administration tried to say that they had a clear aftermath after taking Baghdad, many military officials who were closely involved have said otherwise. As Thomas Ricks notes in his book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg (former director of communications and computers for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later Chief Operating Officer for the Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA)) said, “There was no real plan [meaning what to do after toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime]. The though was, you didn’t need it. The assumption was that everything would be fine after the war, that they’d be happy they got rid of Saddam”. A Marine by the name of Nicholas Reynolds, a Colonel and official Corps historian, also told Ricks, “Nowhere in Centcom [sic]…has there been a plan for Phase IV that was like the plan for Phase III, let alone all of the preparations that accompanied it…”.

The only time a workable plan for Phase IV (the plan meant to rebuild Iraq and bring peace to the country) was even mentioned was in the immediate aftermath of 2003. Using the recollections of Colonel Alan King, the head of civil affairs for the 3rd Infantry Division, “On the night of April 8, Col. Sterling, the chief of staff of the 3rd ID, came to me and said, ‘I just got off the phone with the corps chief of staff, and I asked him for the reconstruction plan, and he said there isn’t one. So you’ve got twenty-four hours to come up with one”. Despite the administration’s multiple reassurances that a reconstruction plan would be available when the time was right, it ended up being developed in the middle of occupied Baghdad.

The result of this was the complete disintegration of order within the country, exacerbated by the CPA’s barring of any high to mid-level Ba’athist figures from government work in the new regime and the lack of broad, coordinated effort against an insurgency (the barring of former Ba’athist members too assisted in the creation of the insurgency). Despite the U.S. having begun this intervention nearly twenty years ago, Iraq is still incredibly volatile and is short of being a recognizable democracy.

Why Regime Change Failed in Iraq

The lack of a viable and effective Phase IV has led to much tension in the country and resulted in many deaths of Iraqis, Americans, and others involved in the coalition forces. This is why having a pre-made reconstruction plan is a necessity for any operation, before a government begins their military invasion. The need for decision-makers to realize that military operations must have a practical, already devised, rebuilding plan in place for utilization after major combat operations have ended is extremely vital to the success of any operation. Having input from academics with firsthand and historical knowledge of the country’s economic, social, political, military, and public works centers, input from business experts in re-developing destroyed financial markets and utilizing the country’s best assets to its advantage, and taking the advice of citizens of the country, the broad public, in devising a new form of government and an entirely new system of government is extremely necessary to the success of such an operation. However, the biggest challenge in doing this is having the right people in power.

With Iraq, those at the top of the planning (Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowtiz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) were not thinking in terms of a reconstruction plan, only devising ways to ensure that Saddam was toppled and that the U.S. had control of the country. As General Anthony Zinni, the former Commander in Chief (CINC) of United States Central Command (CENTCOM – the command directly responsible for devising both the invasion, occupation, and rebuilding plans for Iraq), stated, “I think – and this is just my opinion – that the neocons [Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Armitage] didn’t really give a shit what happened in Iraq and the aftermath…I don’t think they thought it would be this bad. But they said…We’ve taken out Saddam. We’ve asserted our strength in the Middle East”. Having those in power who are thinking in a forward mindset and caring about long-term and strong solutions is the biggest help to ensuring that a viable reconstruction plan is in the works and is developed before a military operation is complete.

Some of this surely must be blamed on the perception by senior commanders that this would be a short conflict and would be an easy mission to undertake. It’s the common assumption that has often been encapsulated by commanders saying to those under their authority, “You’ll be home by Christmas”. As well, some officers likely were also anticipating this to be a short war based upon past and previous experiences in Iraq; most of those commanders who led divisional and combatant commands (Generals Jim Mattis, David Petraeus, Peter Schoomaker) had been involved in the 1991 Gulf War serving as Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels and saw firsthand how seemingly easy that victory was, the entire operation taking only six months.

Conclusion

The majority were not thinking in a long term mindset, instead being purely focused on taking Baghdad and Iraq and removing Saddam from power; no one, save for a few field grade officers and those truly experienced general officers who were shut out from the development process, was thinking about an insurgency or how to effectively fight one. Most likely, many of those in command were simply not thinking in a long-term mindset and were not considering that an insurgency would be as large of a problem as it had become. As well, some, certainly those in charge of the Defense Department and within the U.S. Intelligence Community, were blinded by their own personal desire to settle old scores and purely concerned with the desire to gain additional money and power through an invasion of Iraq.

If anything, the 2003 invasion of Iraq is a lesson for future policymakers, military officers, and civilians alike to avoid reckless or ill-thought out foreign policy and military endeavors and work to press for a more complete and well-formed answer from elected officials. While Americans have struggled in the past with learning lessons from foreign engagements and military disasters, like Vietnam and Korea, optimistically the next generation of Americans and Europeans can be able to learn from past regime change and stability operations and be able to effectively, justly, and democratically carry out such missions.




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Alan Cunningham is a graduate of Norwich University's Master of Arts in International Relations program. He is currently working as an AP U.S. History Teacher in San Antonio, but intends to join the U.S. Navy as an Officer in the Summer of 2022. He has been accepted to a PhD in History program with the University of Birmingham in the UK. He has been published in the Jurist, the U.S. Army War College's War Room, Security Magazine, and the Asia-Pacific Security Magazine, in addition to many others.