OPINION:
Military principles of war are actually relevant in politics. Unfortunately, the Republicans are violating three of them as they go into the crucial Georgia run-off.
The Grand Old Party is ignoring the principles of objective, economy of force and unity of effort. The good news for them is that there is still time to pull out a critical win in Georgia.
Let us begin with the mistakes. Regarding objective, the presidential election is over. The Electoral College awarded the prize to Joe Biden, but the Senate is still in play. Winning in Georgia should be the only objective at this point. As the Republican candidates in Georgia fight for their lives, Republican lawyers continue to fritter away political and financial capital trying to refight lost legal battles in other states.
During World War II, allied forces in the Pacific lost every early battle to the Japanese, but they decided to draw the line at Midway in the North Pacific and Guadalcanal in the South West. The objective was to hold the line and stop the bleeding. Those battles were not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. If the Republicans lose the Senate, it might be the equivalent of the allies losing Australia and Hawaii in 1942. It may not be fatal, but it would be disastrous.
Economy of force means that, if you try to be strong everywhere, you will probably be strong nowhere. The White House is squandering away valuable assets in several states trying to make arguments that have been rejected by judges. If, during World War II, the allies had tried to make strong early counterattacks in Europe and the Pacific simultaneously, they would have lost in both theaters.
Instead, they chose to hold in the Pacific until they built up their strength. It was frustrating in the short run, but it paid off in the end. I believe that the Democrats did some dirty things in the election, but at this point, diffuse legal challenges are the equivalent of saying that the attack on Pearl Harbor should have been negated because the Japanese cheated.
Unity of effort means that you concentrate your assets in the place where you are most likely to have success. Again — in the Pacific during World War II — the United States put its primary counteroffensive effort in the Central Pacific leaving the western portion of the theater to exercise economy of force. As the western commander, Gen. Douglas McArthur was not happy; however, unity of effort took precedence. Washington was playing the long game. The Republicans should learn from that.
If the Republicans can keep one of the two Senate seats in Georgia, they can hold the worst of the progressive agenda of the left wing of the Democratic Party at bay until a 2022 counterattack can be launched. That be a suboptimal situation, but there are no optimal choices at this point.
The military concept most relevant to the Georgia election center of gravity, and the Democratic center of gravity in Georgia is mail-in ballots which are currently unverifiable. The Georgia runoff is a federal election, and the Department of Justice has every right to scrutinize every mail-in ballot to ensure that the person who cast it is indeed a qualified Georgia voter, even if it takes months to do so. That may not have been practical in the general election, but Georgia is a single state with a finite number of qualified voters.
The administration still runs the Justice Department. A federal task force led by the FBI can and should contact the return address of each mail-in ballot and ensure that the person who cast the ballot is legitimate. In the cases where the votes are found to be fraudulent, the perpetrators should be prosecuted fully to prevent further shenanigans in the future. That is not voter suppression, but it is the federal government acting to restore public confidence in the electoral system. That would help convince Republican voters that their ballots will make a difference. Every Republican or conservative voter who stays home is effectively casting a Democratic vote.
Another thing Republicans can do between now and Jan. 5 is to muzzle nitwits such as Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell. Their efforts are distracting valuable resources away from unity of effort, objective and economy of force. If President Trump wants to have them continue to tilt at windmills after Georgia, fine; but the GOP needs to fight smarter not harder.
• Gary Anderson teaches Wargaming and Alternative Analysis at the graduate level.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.