Posted on 10/18/2006 4:21:56 AM PDT by Alouette
Soldiers, sailors, and airmen once determined the outcome of warfare, but no longer. Today, television producers, columnists, preachers, and politicians have the pivotal role in deciding how well the West fights. This shift has deep implications.
In a conventional conflict like World War II, fighting had two premises so basic, they went nearly unnoticed. The first: Conventional armed forces engage in an all-out fight for victory. The opposing sides deploy serried ranks of soldiers, lines of tanks, fleets of ships, and squadrons of aircraft. Millions of youth go to war as civilians endure privations. Strategy and intelligence matter, but the size of one's population, economy, and arsenal count even more. An observer can assess the progress of war by keeping tabs of such objective factors as steel output, oil stocks, ship construction, and control of land.
Second assumption: Each side's population loyally backs its national leadership. To be sure, traitors and dissidents need to be rooted out, but a wide consensus backs the rulers. This was especially noteworthy in the Soviet Union, where even Stalin's demented mass-murdering did not stop the population from giving its all for "Mother Russia."
Both aspects of this paradigm are now defunct in the West.
FIRST, BATTLING all-out for victory against conventional enemy forces has nearly disappeared, replaced by the more indirect challenge of guerrilla operations, insurgencies, intifadas, and terrorism. This new pattern applied to the French in Algeria, Americans in Vietnam, and Soviets in Afghanistan. It currently holds for Israelis versus Palestinians, coalition forces in Iraq, and in the war on terror.
This change means that what the US military calls "bean counting" - counting soldiers and weapons - is now nearly immaterial, as are diagnoses of the economy or control of territory. Lopsided wars resemble police operations more than combat in earlier eras. As in crime-fighting, the side enjoying a vast superiority in power operates under a dense array of constraints, while the weaker party freely breaks any law and taboo in its ruthless pursuit of power.
Second, the solidarity and consensus of old have unraveled. This process has been underway for just over a century now (starting with the British side of the Boer War in 1899-1902). As I wrote in 2005: "The notion of loyalty has fundamentally changed. Traditionally, a person was assumed faithful to his natal community. A Spaniard or Swede was loyal to his monarch, a Frenchman to his republic, an American to his constitution. That assumption is now obsolete, replaced by a loyalty to one's political community - socialism, liberalism, conservatism, or Islamism, to name some options. Geographical and social ties matter much less than of old."
With loyalties now in play, wars are decided more on the op-ed pages and less on the battlefield. Good arguments, eloquent rhetoric, subtle spin-doctoring, and strong poll numbers count more than taking a hill or crossing a river. Solidarity, morale, loyalty, and understanding are the new steel, rubber, oil, and ammunition. Opinion leaders are the new flag and general officers. Therefore, as I wrote in August, Western governments "need to see public relations as part of their strategy."
Even in a case like the Iranian regime's acquisition of atomic weaponry, Western public opinion is the key, not its arsenal. If united, Europeans and Americans will likely dissuade Iranians from going ahead with nuclear weapons. If disunited, Iranians will be emboldened to plunge ahead.
What Carl von Clausewitz called war's "center of gravity" has shifted from force of arms to the hearts and minds of citizens: Do Iranians accept the consequences of nuclear weapons? Do Iraqis welcome coalition troops as liberators? Do Palestinians willingly sacrifice their lives in suicide bombings? Do Europeans and Canadians want a credible military force? Do Americans see Islamism presenting a lethal danger?
Non-Western strategists recognize the primacy of politics and focus on it. A string of triumphs - Algeria in 1962, Vietnam in 1975, and Afghanistan in 1989 - all relied on eroding political will. Al-Qaida's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, recently codified this idea, observing that more than half of the Islamists' battle "is taking place in the battlefield of the media."
The West is fortunate to predominate in the military and economic arenas, but these no longer suffice. Along with its enemies, it needs to give due attention to the public relations of war.
The writer, based in Philadelphia, is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
All this wailing by the left about habeas corpus is so hypocritical.
In 1996 Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act which made it much more difficult for murder defendants to have their habeas corpus appeals heard in federal court.
Clearly habeas corpus suspension is only repugnant when a Republican does it. And I note that it's okay with leftists that murder defendants under Clinton had their habeas corpus protections curtailed, but jihadists under Bush should receive all protections possible.
No PR campaign can be effective for any organization when prominent segments of the organization are publicly undermining it. As long as the Dems and their lackeys in the press publicly undermine the WoT and the Iraq War, our enemies will hold out for the day our country finally loses its will.
Our adversaries know the history of Vietnam. Giap layed it out pretty clearly. They need but follow his path.
Must Read Bump!
As usual, the media gets it wrong. Fighting wars in the press is NOTHING new, it's been going on forever. The South almost won the Civil War with a campaign in the city papers.
Gen Giap and Ho Chi Minh are excellent examples of public relations successes. They should be, they were taught by the best, our US Army, in Japanese-occupied Asia during WWII. True that they turned on us, but that was more our lack of vision.
The real problem is George Bush, who refuses (and is possibly completely unable) to enunciate his policy to his constituency. He's possibly the worst public speaker of all our presidents.
Look at our economy, the stock market is rockin and rollin, interest rates are down, the housing market is booming, and George the Inarticulate is allowing the press to paint doom and gloom!
And that is what they doing. The lessons of Vietnam and Somolia are not lost on Bin Ladin.
seems that only when our Western public takes a BIG islamic terrorist hit will there be an effect on public relations stuff
Pipes is a smart guy. Great piece!
"If united, Europeans and Americans will likely dissuade Iranians from going ahead with nuclear weapons."
Unless Pipes means united militarily & intending to use force, I don't believe Iran will skip a beat in their quest for nukes. The pass that North Korea has received to date from the West has given Iran the green light to the A-bomb.
And there was strong sentiment against being involved in WWII. Even after Pearl Harbor, there was plenty of talk that our German friends would never do anything like that.
Germany declared war on us first, not the other way around. If Hitler had kept his mouth shut, we would not have gone into Europe, FDR's sentiments were on Germany's side, Germany won that one in the press.
Heck, the press is still on Stalin's side, even though he was one of history's horrendous killers.
The power to shape opinion in the press has been recognized long before this war.
Pipes seems to be in the ballpark, but he did not say enough about the enemy within. The leftists, communists, socialists, and marxists in the US undermined our efforts in Vietnam, and in fact caused us to lose that war. The enemy within has yet to accept responsibility for the killng fields in Thailand. They just made fun of the domino effect! But it happened as predicted. How does a country deal with the enemy within when they are so many, when they are sprinkled within the government and economy in monumental numbers?
In the good old days, a Declaration of War was also necessary. This greatly added to the "all in" mentality the author desires.
That's revisionism. The Boer War is an example of an older style war. Wars like the American Indian Wars, and the British Campaigns in Inida (and disasterously in Afganistan) that both began in the late 1600's and continued well into the 1800's. Or the long war for democratic liberty in Europe that included the Treaty of Westphalia. Or the Arab wars of conquest. All those wars where fought socialogically and literaturely as well militarily, with long stretches of languishing public support, and of low-grade guerilla warfare interspersed with a rare major head-on battle. All very long wars. Multiple generational affairs.
Maybe in half-stirred pots like that capa di Pat Buchanan ...
Where was the Declaraion of War for the Revolution? For the French and Indian Wars? For our own Inidan Wars?
Geesh, but folks have spotty historical memory!
I must add.
Pipes ignores the countries who openly or tacitly support terrorism - Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc. Conventional wars can be fought against them, & easily won.
If state support & sanctuary of terrorism were to end, I believe we would quickly win the War on Terror.
Since when did Pipes get so original and smart. This stuff was fed to him... so it seems. But very good by him
The only thing that will persuade these loons is if they wake up with a knife at their own throats and the smell of camel in the air. Or not- they would probably ask to convert so they could help out in the slaughter.
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also Keywords 2006israelwar or WOT [War on Terror]
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