The SysAdmin force: now more than ever

■"7 More U.S. Deaths in Iraq End a Lethal Month," by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 1 November 2005, p. A6.

■"U.N. Tells Syria To Stop Impeding Slaying Inquiry: Unanimous Council Vote; Damascus Is Warned of 'Further Action' if It Fails to Comply," by Warren Hoge, New York Times, 1 November 2005, p. A1.

■"U.N. Demands Syria Cooperate In Hariri Probe: Sanction Threat Is Omitted As Resolution Is Weakened To Gain Unanimous Vote," by Neil King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 1 November 2005, p. A14.

■"The Winding Damascus Road: Progress against Syria, in the U.N. fashion," editorial, Wall Street Journal, 1 November 2005, p. A16.

■"India's Premier Says Pakistan Must Do More To Stop Attacks," by Hari Kumar,New York Times, 1November 2005, p. A10.

Great graphic in the NYT story, showing death totals by month in Iraq.

Here's the short version: We lost about 140 in the war (March-April 2003), and then we averaged losses of less than 40 a month for the next five months (the period of the peace we blew, big time, by not making security and the reconstruction happen). Since October 2003, the 25 months that followed featured 10 with totals of roughly 80 deaths or more, a number we didn't even hit in the intense last days of the war (April). Thirteen more months featured roughly 40 or more deaths. Only 2 months had death totals in the range of the first five months of the peace.

We get the peace right in those first five months. We have enough boots on the ground and a SysAdmin force that's adequately equipped and funded and prioritized and internationalized and inter-agency-ized and guess what? If we keep the death totals under 40 a month, we're talking roughly half as few casualties as we've suffered to date, and probably a whole lot better than that because the insurgency never would have gotten off the ground (hands made busy by the economic recovery wouldn't be making bombs).

Something to think about.

Because when we fail in Iraq, there is so much more we do not do around the world.

We can't invade Syria right now if we wanted to. Don't even dream about Iran, so please, let's not even entertain the notion that we're "giving" them the bomb by our inaction. We gave them all the opportunity and time and motivation for the bomb by deciding to go after the Taliban and Saddam. They want it now, they've got it.

Being a grand strategist isn't about telling people what they want to hear. It's about helping them see the inevitable and working to shape that outcome as much as possible.

Something will need to be done about Syria, and Iran will have to be co-opted as a security pillar in the region. That and a host of other things will have to occur if we want to see the Big Bang through to serious fruition across the region, meaning we leave lasting security alliance structures in our wake.

Those alliances will require outside patronage other than our own, to include not just the EU, but India, Russia, Turkey, China, Japan and Korea. We'll need all the properly incentivized players around the table, but that won't happen so long as we can't master the SysAdmin role.

Because we'll stay stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, instead of being able to move onto to even more complicated situations in places like Pakistan and Syria, two places where the SysAdmin can be part of the solution set but the Leviathan force is unlikely to be.

That's a key point I need to emphasize more: the SysAdmin can and will go places that the Leviathan cannot, for a host of reasons (the simplest being that the SysAdmin is an invitation to network with something larger, while the Leviathan is basically a punch in the face).

Just look at fellow Core state India's problem with Pakistan, because it's not unlike our own. India can't send its version of the Leviathan there, and yet look what its SysAdmin-style assets could do in the Pakistani temblor: create good will in ways the Leviathan never could (best example is that Pakistan said yes to Indian helos but no to Indian helo pilots!).

India can never fight its way out of the terrorist threat stemming from within Pakistan's borders, it can only negate that threat over time by networking itself, security-wise, with Pakistan. That's SysAdmin work, not Leviathan.

More and more in the future, we're going to find ourselves realizing that: the only answer here is the SysAdmin force.

And that is going to remain especially true so long as we keep buying for the Leviathan and underfunding the SysAdmin force. Unwittingly, that's what all the China hawk crowd does, day in and day out: it robs Peter (GWOT's SysAdmin force) to pay Paul (the Leviathan's dreams of future great power war).

I ask you plainly: who is the idealist looking ahead? The guy who sees the inevitability of the SysAdmin force and the A-to-Z Core-wide rule set on processing politically bankrupt states in the Gap? Or the "realists" who pine for war with China over Taiwan?

Which pathway seems more likely? Which arguments seem more insane? Which route gets you more American deaths?

Think about it.