The Last War

Toots and I were talking, as we often do, and she reminded me of a thing I often say in another context: don't get wrapped up in fighting the last war.

That aside for the moment, there are some fundamental principles involved in fighting successfully. Well-educated military types will likely have a better handle on much of this than I do. But here's something that's real important if you're gonna win a war, in addition to what I often say in another context:

Know your enemy: This is so important, and so transparent, that it's a cliche. Understanding the foe, in and of itself, will not win a war. But not understanding the foe will lose one every time. Examples are too numerous to list: everyone who's ever tried to invade Russia; Hitler's assessment of the British in 1940; every Western power that got involved in Vietnam; the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

One problem with declaring a "war" on terror and terrorists is that it's so very hard to know the foe. You are using a mechanism (a metaphor, really) that doesn't apply, because using tactics of terror isn't a war mechanism; it's a criminal mechanism. You don't fight criminals with war, you fight them with law.

Wingnut quibblers might point out that we go to war on national regimes that support terror. Fine. Finish one before you take on the next. The U.S. failure to stabilize Afghanistan before moving against Iraq in the name of the so-called war on terror was an abysmally stupid overreach, and the resurgence of terrorist activity in Western capitals is a linear result of that stupidity.

Wingnut haranguers might claim it a waste of time to apply logical principles to knowing one's enemy in this war. This foe, the argument goes, only respects strength. This foe is insane and has no regard for humanity. There are innumerable problems with these arguments, starting with the age-old issue of most warfighters thinking that the enemy is insane or irrational. That's stone arrogance, is all. Of course the foe has perfectly good reasons for fighting a war. War is horrible. If you're fighting one with your foe, then your foe has concluded that the horror of fighting a war (or committing what are pretty rightly characterized in a modern context as "barbaric acts") is, on balance, more attractive than rolling over. Your foe is not the tiniest bit irrational--your foe has you reacting to his every move, imposing huge inconveniences on your society in response to each of the creative attacks he inflicts upon you. There's not a damn thing irrational or stupid about it. But your steadfast refusal to confront that? Maybe some irrationality there, ayup.

The strength argument is also pretty self-defeating, if only because in this case, the foe is striking at the embodiment of geopolitical and military strength. Clearly one of the base problems is that the foe does not, in fact, respect strength. And bloviation about "coddling" and "therapy" is just testosterone-driven, chest-pounding idiocy, propaganda targeted at the confused and shocked. At another level--and when it's undertaken by officials of the state, like for instance Karl Rove--it's just more state-sponsored terrorism, in a different name. I mean, really...bellowing at people about their patriotism because their response to grief and shock and terror isn't as bellicose as yours? Go back to whacking girls with sticks in an effort to get them to show you their boobies. It's abundantly possible to mourn without lashing out.

One of these two principles leads to t'other. Or they're in a weird symbiotic feeding frenzy; we don't know our enemy because we're busy reacting, and we're busy reacting because we don't know our enemy. Any military type can see it, and you can bet that at least some of ours do. Either they don't know what to do about it--and there's nothing shameful about having trouble breaking out of an old paradigm--or they're not being listened to by those who make decisions about how to conduct this "war." Given the competence and professionalism that has increasingly marked our military leadership since the end of the draft (and more on that another time), it's hard to believe that the only problem is the former.

And more on the principles of war later on.