8 August 2006

 

War is the continuation of politics by other means. Societies are political entities.

Societies create armed forces as tools to implement their political objectives – offensive

and defensive. Simply, an army is a policy tool, not a policy maker.

 

Killing an army, uniformed or not, does not destroy the politics or the processes through

which policy is created. Failure to destroy, or to cause the general collapse of the

opponent's society is the failure of the political goals for which the war was fought.

 

Wars are won only by inducing inconvenience to an enemy (American Revolution, War

of 1812, Vietnam, etc.) or by destroying the enemy (Civil War, WWII). Creating a cease

fire every other week, worrying about disarming – rather than utterly destroying – a foe,

concerning oneself with “hearts and minds,” is working the inconvenience side of the

equation.

 

Limited war, from Korea to Vietnam (French and American experiences) to Iraq, never

has worked for modern countries. A non-Western, non-civilized country cannot be

inconvenienced to the levels that can a modern industrial society with smaller families,

more distractions and a Western liberal outlook on life and its value.

 

If the enemy cannot be inconvenienced to the point of withdrawing from the battle, either

that enemy must be destroyed or collapsed – or we do not believe in our policy goals to

the extent that we should be willing to go to war, even in defense of those policies. No

third option exists.

 

If we do not believe in our policy goals, the sacrifice of the lives of our soldiers is

immoral. If we do believe in our policy goals then the enemy societies must be collapsed

– they must be defeated, not just have their policy tools, their military forces, run off an inconvenient battlefield to lick their wounds and rearm.

 

WWI is an excellent example. The German army never was defeated on the field of

battle, its cities and towns were not occupied. They thought they had acceded to Wilson's

14 points and were angered and frustrated to learn that they inadvertently had surrendered

to the Allies. The general German misperception that they had not been defeated - and the

fact that the German society in truth had not - led to the resumption of hostilities a

generation later.

 

In WWII Allied leaders understood this lesson. The result was absolutely no question that

the enemy polities and societies had been destroyed and caused to collapse. The countries

were occupied. The military tool was destroyed, yes, but the war was won- and its

political goals achieved - through the general destruction of the enemy societies in

Cologne, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. And many more civilians lost their lives in the Tokyo firebombings than in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

 

No one worried about the Japanese Street or the German Street. Our worry about the

Arab Street just shows our lack of seriousness – or a general lack of confidence in

Western Civilization by our yammering classes – in both parties.

 

If enemy civilians are more important than those risking their lives to implement our

policies - in this case defend ourselves against their suicidal tyranny - then it becomes difficult to make the case that we believe in our policies.

 

Which brings us to weapons of war. Precisions Guided Munitions (smart bombs) are

police weapons, not weapons of war. In fact, once they have been used on selected high-

value targets which can slow the execution of the war, such as anti-air batteries, PGMs in fact

hamper the prosecution of war. Once those high-value targets have been destroyed,

PGMs must go back into the depot and weapons of war brought out.

 

Civilians are killed by weapons of war. Civilian deaths are and must be seen as

unavoidable for the simple fact that the goals of the enemy society can only be defeated

by defeating their society – not just its armed policy tool.

 

This means not just that civilians can die, it means they must know they will die, must

understand that their deaths will not be avoided to the detriment of legitimate military

operations. This knowledge must be real enough to cause them to change their policies –

which is the whole point of the war in the first place.

 

In order to win a war, enemy civilians must occupy a lower rung of importance than the

goal of the war. Otherwise we tell our soldiers - and theirs - that their civilians are more

important than our soldiers. Civilian deaths, though not sought after, must be accepted if

doing so means we are making our policy tool – our military forces – more effective in

accomplishing the political goals which we are trying to achieve through their use.

 

In fact, no great effort must be made to avoid civilian casualties. If civilians are in the

battlespace their loss may be unfortunate, but not as unfortunate as losing the war.

 

As long as our enemy knows we will avoid legitimate military targets, putting our forces

more at risk, in order to avoid civilian casualties, war cannot be won. It really is that

simple.

 

If we collapse their society, destroy their polity, we win. If not, we lose.

 

We are not in a police action – we are in a war. The lives of the soldiers of my country

are more important than the lives of enemy civilians. Targeting the enemy tools of

warfare cannot win a war. Only targeting the enemy society and polity can.

 

We can kill the enemy society without incurring any casualties whatsoever – which is the moral way to fight a war. Causing those brave enough and committed enough to our values

to die when we can do otherwise is immoral.

 

Truman understood that sacrificing unnecessarily perhaps half-a-million Americans in

order to achieve the political aims of WWII was an immoral and inefficient way to win a

war that was projected to last at least another two years. The realization caused him to

use nuclear weapons – and avoid those tremendous costs in lives lost.

 

The strategy worked, the Japanese society was crushed, and Japan has been a democratic

polity and an economic and military partner for 60 years.

 

No valid reason exists not to use nuclear weapons on our enemies, particularly Riyadh

and, if it gets much closer to the nuclear club, Iran.

 

From a military standpoint the only thing that matters is the size of the bang that destroys

the foe. From a political standpoint, winning the war against this evil will require the

general destruction and collapse of the societies that breed it, much as killing NAZIsm

required the destruction of the society that bred it, and killing Imperial Japan required the

collapse of the society that created it.

 

It is unserious to speak of societies or civilians in guiltless terms – to assume that any society is a flock of lambs not responsible for their government. All societies are responsible for their

government, and all societies can overthrow their governments. Colonists threw out the

British Empire. Peasants overthrew Russia. The Chinese harshness at Tianenman Square

was because Chinese leaders understood this fact.

 

Either we begin to take this war seriously and win it or it will become too inconvenient

for a modern liberal democracy and we will lose it, with disastrous consequences for

democracy, liberty, freedom and the world.

 

Why we are willing, evidently, to wait on the detonation of an Iranian bomb before we

use the weapons at our disposal is unknown and will be dealt with very harshly by future

historians – if the West survives.

 

And there is no reason – historical, divine, or other -- to assume that the West, its

liberties, freedoms, science, technology, advancements across the breadth of human

effort, must survive.

 

There is no way America and the EU are going to pony up literally millions of soldiers to

invade and crush this evil ideology using the tactics of WWII minus the understanding

that the goal is more important than civilian casualties. WWII would not have been won

under those rules.

 

Killing the German society and the Japanese society freed hundreds of millions of people

from tyranny and subjugation. Killing such a tyrannical, evil enemy is necessary. How

that enemy feels about us is immaterial.

 

If we believe in our youth and our future, our casualties must be minimized.

If we believe in ourselves and in our traditions, this war must be won.