Can "Limited War" be an effective strategy in defeating a nation's enemies?

Depends upon the limits and the political will to win.

What do you mean by Limited War?

I think people need to take a step back from political bias and populist beliefs.

Historically speaking, limited wars are far more common and far more effective at sustaining nations. The problem is not the type of war but the execution of it.

For example, for almost the entirety of Queen Victorias rule, the UK was involved in constant limited war. It wasn't those limited wars that hurt it, but WW1.

Likewise, if people here had read their history they would know the US similarly engaged in limited wars in Central America for 4 decades after the Spanish American war. Those didn't break us.

Rome, Soviet Union, France, Spain, Ottomans, Arabs, every single nation and empire has fought extensive limited wars to their benefit.

Small wars / limited wars maintain peace ultimately. It keeps small states from becoming hotbeds of instability that spread to their neighbors and can help keep large states sure of boundaries each are willing to fight for.

The US military philosophy, until recently, is to overwhelm the enemy with enough force, technology, and miltary equipment to destroy the enemy.

I don't think limited war is an effective strategy against a truly committed opponent. They won't quit and our nation doesn't have the attention span or resources for a drawn out slog.

All of the questions raised in the Wineberger and Powell Doctrines must be answered affirmatively before committing American troops. Congress must not abrogate its duty in this and allow one fool like W to make such a heavy decision.

The Weinberger Doctrine was an outgrowth of the collective lessons learned from the Vietnam War & the desire of the U.S. government to avoid such quagmires in the future.[1]
The Weinberger Doctrine:
1. The United States should not commit forces to combat unless the vital national interests of the United States or its allies are involved.
2. U.S. troops should only be committed wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. Otherwise, troops should not be committed.
3. U.S. combat troops should be committed only with clearly defined political and military objectives and with the capacity to accomplish those objectives.
4. The relationship between the objectives and the size and composition of the forces committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.
5. U.S. troops should not be committed to battle without a "reasonable assurance" of the support of U.S. public opinion and Congress.
6. The commitment of U.S. troops should be considered only as a last resort.

The Powell Doctrine states that a list of questions all have to be answered affirmatively before military action is taken by the United States:
1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have risks & costs been fully & frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?[2]

As I recall the 9-11 dead victims' families received $1,000,000 each (less any life insurance held!). How much did dead rescue workers' families receive? Dead cleanup workers' families? Dead military personnel's families?

I recall that my family would have received $10,000, if I had been killed in combat in Vietnam in 1968. How much is the current amount? $40,000 or $50,000?

Bush didn't listen to General Shinseki or General White. He retired Shinseki and fired General White. He didn't consult his father either (when asked, he said that he consulted a "Higher Father"). In other words, Bush had a conversation with God - sounds too much like Bin Laden's modus operandi.

Hopefully, we will elect better presidents and Members of Congress in the future. In the original 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) only 1 of 535 Members of Congress had the guts to vote "No," Barbara Lee of CA. A number of others joined her in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, but to no avail as the stage had already been set by the first Resolution.

One might also review Ron Paul's "35 Questions" that he delivered to Congress in 2002 before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq:
Congressman Ron Paul
U.S. House of Representatives
September 10, 2002

QUESTIONS THAT WON'T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ
Soon we hope to have hearings on the pending war with Iraq. I am concerned there are some questions that won’t be asked- and maybe will not even be allowed to be asked. Here are some questions I would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war.
1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?
2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate- which just confirms that there is no real threat?
3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?
4. Is it not true that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?
5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?
6. Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq’s links to terrorism?
7. Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place?
8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed al-Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our "allies," the Kurds?
9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who escaped appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies?
10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences; and that according to a recent UN report the al-Qaeda "is, by all accounts, alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it chooses"?
11. Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States- and who may again attack the United States- and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States?
12. Would an attack on Iraq not just confirm the Arab world's worst suspicions about the US, and isn't this what bin Laden wanted?
13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air force, and now has an army 1/5 the size of twelve years ago, which even then proved totally inept at defending the country?
14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is exclusively that of the Congress? Should presidents, contrary to the Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public opinion? Are presidents permitted to rely on the UN for permission to go to war?
15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq?
16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died?
17. Are we prepared for possibly thousands of American casualties in a war against a country that does not have the capacity to attack the United States?
18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a 100 billion dollar war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build democracy" there?
19. Iraq’s alleged violations of UN resolutions are given as reason to initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of UN Resolutions have been ignored by various countries without penalty?
20. Did former President Bush not cite the UN Resolution of 1990 as the reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new attack assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad?
21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations?
22. If we claim membership in the international community and conform to its rules only when it pleases us, does this not serve to undermine our position, directing animosity toward us by both friend and foe?
23. How can our declared goal of bringing democracy to Iraq be believable when we prop up dictators throughout the Middle East and support military tyrants like Musharaf in Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically-elected president?
24. Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the U.S. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992- including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village?
25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein’s rise to power by supporting and encouraging his invasion of Iran? Is it honest to criticize Saddam now for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported?
26. Is it not true that preventive war is synonymous with an act of aggression, and has never been considered a moral or legitimate US policy?
27. Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq?
28. Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won’t have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals?
29. What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted?
30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense?
31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?
32. Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war?
33. Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared war and- not coincidentally- we have not since then had a clear-cut victory?
34. Is it not true that Pakistan, especially through its intelligence services, was an active supporter and key organizer of the Taliban?
35. Why don't those who want war bring a formal declaration of war resolution to the floor of Congress?

Congressman Paul's only real error was in his $200 Billion cost estimate - the actual cost is in the $Trillions and still rising.

Our actions in Iraq have instigated the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the abandonment of one or two million Iraqi homes, essentially destroyed a country (including the loss of 7,000 years of antiquity in the National Museum), and finally created a failed state and haven for Al-Qaeda and ISIS. We can't even keep our own borders - how did we think we could keep Iraq's borders, six or seven thousand miles away?

Bush even disallowed giving troops in Afghanistan what they asked for in their quest to get Bin Laden and decimate Al-Qaeda, and then pulled troops out of Afghanistan to attack Iraq! The positive death knell for any slim hope of a possibility in Iraq came when Bush replaced General Garner with Jerry Bremer. General Garner was given charge as things were falling apart in the weeks following the taking of Baghdad.

The CIA had dropped thousands of leaflets to the Iraqi military telling them to go home and stand down to wait for further instructions. The Iraqi military did as instructed, and the US suffered relatively few casualties in taking Baghdad. However, Saddam had more policemen in Baghdad alone than the entire US force, which was woefully undermanned for and not of a mind for such tasks as policing and stabilization. Combat troops are only a portion of a force and they are not policemen. Understandably the situation soon deteriorated, just as it does in the US or almost anywhere else without law enforcement.

Retired Marine General Jay Garner took charge, and for a few weeks he desperately tried to reorganize the dispersed Iraqi Army to provide a stabilization force to maintain Iraq. Unfortunately, Bush replaced him Jerry Bremer who undid all that General Garner had tried to do. In parting, General Garner told Bremer, "Jerry, you can disband an army overnight, but it takes years to build one." The rebuilding of the Iraqi army from scratch was like trying to rebuild the US Army with recruits from labor pick up points and starting to teach them to march. Thirteen years later we still see the repercussions of one more atrocious Bush decision.

The situation was one in which Iraq was without electricity, running water, jobs or paychecks, but weapons had been maintained. Soon local militias formed for neighborhood protection, and eventually the country was more or less in a state of civil war. Thank you Bush, et al.

Obama got elected, promising to get us out of this war that he inherited from Bush. It reminds me of Nixon getting elected, promising to get us out of Vietnam. Vietnam Peace talks started in May 1968, and Nixon took office January 1969. We had lost 28,000 of our own troops at that time and killed upwards of 1 million Vietnamese (many of whom were those we were purportedly these to help). Kissinger (working for Johnson at the this time) secretly got word to the South Vietnamese to go slow at the bargaining table, because if the Republicans got elected they would get a better deal! The South Vietnamese went slow, Nixon got elected, Kissinger went to work for Nixon, and Nixon decided that he needed to get reelected before he started to wind down combat operations.

Well, we stayed another seven years, lost 30,000 more troops, killed upwards of 1 million more Vietnamese, and thanks to Kissinger's secret bombings and assaults we also killed upwards of 1 Cambodians and Laotians. Our bombing so destabilized Cambodia as to allow the Khmer Rouge which began as a marginal revolutionary movement, to gain power and cause the deaths of upwards of 2 million more with another 2 million made into refugees (in a country of 7 million!!!). 2 million tons of bombs on Laos created much death and destruction there, including perhaps 2 million refugees. Please read more elsewhere about Kissinger, our greatest war criminal (Chile, Bangladesh, Timor, Cyprus, Washington, etc.).

How much better of a deal did we get after 7 more years (after start of Peace Talks) in Vietnam (and the loss of 30,000 more troops)??? Do you remember all of the people trying to jump onto helicopters from the top of the US Embassy before the NVA tanks rolled into Saigon???

Sadly, Powell fell on his sword for Bush. Would Wineberger have done better? Hopefully, we will get better than the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, and Bremer. I will never forget watching Rice still holding the party line, six months after Bush had left office - she was arguing with media about the necessity of attacking Iraq compared to the necessity of attacking Nazi Germany: she stated, "It was certainly necessary to attack Iraq. After all, Saddam Hussein presented a greater threat to the United States of America than did Nazi Germany!"

If an engagement is unimportant enough that we can afford to limit it, we shouldn't be sending our forces there in the first place. War should ALWAYS be all-or-nothing.

No, it is never smart to go into a fight with your hands tied. If we do not intend on winning the war keep Americans out of it.

If you get in a fight, are you gonna bust his ass so that he knows he's been defeated or just give him a couple light swats and hope he will go sit down and shut up? Did you ever see Mohammed Ali go into a fight saying that he would smack the guy every couple rounds and hope he would just give up?

As most students of military history will tell you, this doesn't have a yes or no answer. The answer is, it depends. Not all situations will call for a commitment of our entire military resources and strength. And let's be honest here. Our "entire military resources" include our nuclear arsenal. Can anyone think of a recent situation in which it would have been a good idea to start lobbing nukes at the enemy?

Part of the difficulty we've had in the past has to do with the lack of clearcut goals and objectives; not the method used to attain them. In the case of Korea, we entered the war with a goal, but the entry of China into the war made that goal unobtainable. In Vietnam, we failed to understand either the side we were supporting or the enemy we were fighting when we entered the conflict. That is, we sided with people who were pretty much guaranteed to lose in the long run without a permanent US presence. We entered Iraq with the notion that all we had to do was get rid of Hussain and the people would welcome us as liberators, turn their country into a representative democracy, and we could sell their oil to pay for it all. The one thing that is clear from all this is that if we're not directly attacked, we need vigorous debate before entering any conflict, and if we are directly attacked, we need to decide what we want to do, what it will take to do it, and whether we're ready to pay the price.

Our current debate is how to deal with Daesh. They're, for the most part, "true believers", which means that the only way to victory is to exterminate them all. The difficult part is deciding the best way to accomplish that goal, but most will agree that it should be done by a coalition that includes a heck of a lot of forces from the countries in that region; those who have the most to lose from a Daesh victory. It should not include ground forces from Western nations, for very good strategic reasons: Part of the eschatology espoused by Daesh is the idea that their scriptures predict an end-times war with the West in which they win. Without Western troops in the fight, it doesn't fit their theology and their troops will find it much harder to maintain a religious frenzy in the conflict. Our place is to provide air support and bombardments, tech support, intelligence and training. I realize that for many of us in the ground combat branches, it just feels wrong to sit it out, but it's much better if we don't let the enemy decide how the war should proceed. Without Western ground troops, their leaders can't rally them into a war for "the end times".