Posted on 01/24/2007 3:34:31 PM PST by Publius
Ping.
Excellent article, ping and bookmark for later.
Thanks
Leo
ping
Definitely food for thought...
I would be more than willing to go through the rationing, the speed limit restrictions, the hard times in general if it meant that we would be rid of the Islamic threat to our way of life. Sometimes sacrifice is necessary to win a real victory. Our current warfare pattern is not a recipie for true and long-term victory.
Ping.
Unless there was another catastrophic attack on the US with a nation openly declaring war on us, these "WW2" rules would never fly.
I think that one explanation of the difference between the WWII model and that of Vietnam lies in the Korean War, only recently the recipient of the name of "War" and at the time a "conflict" or "police action." Part of the reason for this is (1) the fatigue the WWII generation felt at the successful ending of a maximum effort, and (2) the perceived lack of need for an all-out effort in a small and distant place. After a year or so of war there the latter attitude was grudgingly adjusted, but the idea was that we could support both a small-scale "police action" and European and domestic reconstruction simultaneously under an essentially peace economy.
The effects of that erroneous attitude are the principal complaints of veterans of that conflict - aging and inadequate supplies, inadequate ammunition - does this sound familiar? But quite in keeping with your thesis as I understand it was that from the home front's point of view this was war on a part-time basis.
Vietnam was very much entered and for a good number of years prosecuted on this basis. It takes a visible threat on the order of that posed by Nazi Germany to convince the population of the sacrifices necessary for total warfare. Neither Korea nor Vietnam was really convincing on that basis. With 9/11 the War On Terror was, War in Afghanistan was on a provisionary basis, but War in Iraq wasn't, or more properly was subject to vociferous criticism on that basis.
The difference is that in Afghanistan the 9/11 attackers enjoyed overt state-level support in terms of funding, logistics, and training. In Iraq that was not the case to anywhere near that level and was covert, and hence deniable, besides. The nature of the two interventions was entirely different from the point of view of the public and those differences were played upon, exaggerated, and exploited by those with a political stake in so doing.
What is most striking about this difference is that in the case of Afghanistan we had an identifiable opponent in a specific location; elsewhere in the WOT we have opponents who are not so readily identified who depend on the sanctuary provided under international law. The essence of proxy war by terror is to keep the threat under the threshold that would trigger open warfare. Bush moved that threshold down with respect to Iraq and infuriated an international diplomatic community who had come to depend on it. The effect is that now countries such as Iran and Syria are pressing to identify and re-establish that threshold. If it is formally codified in international law those who wish to exploit it may stay just under it and still conduct proxy warfare.
What that also does is to deny the attacked country the ability to mobilize the sort of all-out total-war effort to which your essay refers. It is warfare by slow asymmetrical dripping - I think "fourth-generation" is overstating the case but it certainly does represent the sort of lesson learned inadvertently by the communists in Korea and developed to fruition in Vietnam. In this respect 9/11 was a colossal blunder on the part of the terrorists because it threatened the very means of this warfare to exist unaddressed. A lot of liberals and internationalists liked the old rules because they knew where they stood (and how much they could get away with). A good deal of the shouting is to revert to those days, and I don't think given the nature of the new terror that the world can afford that luxury.
All IMHO and subject to vigorous debate as usual, of course...
If Iran were to use a Revolutionary Guards cell or a Hezbollah cell against us, they would never admit to it, much less declare war on us.
I have never seen a coherent, cogent and convincing explanation for this.
For the life of me, I can't imagine why Israel by any measure justifies being "under control" for the benefit, ostensibly, of Europeans.
Has anyone seen such a justification? Has Israel ever attacked anyone before being provoked?
An analysis based on only WW II and Vietnam (a lost campaign in the ultimately victorious conduct of WW III, a.k.a. the Cold War) is not really very enlightening.
The notion that the general populace of a great power needs to sacrifice to fight a war effectively is not born out by a longer examination of history: Rome's conquests were not accomplished by imposing hardship on the citizens of the Republic. Frederick the Great fought many wars, and only resorted to conscription during the Seven Years War when all of the other continental powers were arrayed against Prussia. He once expressed the desideratum "Ideally my people should not even know that I am at war." Britain's imperial wars in the 18th and 19th centuries were not accompanied by great sacrifice at home, nor by indefinite terms for military service.
Indeed the decisive blows in the Cold War, the arming of proxies in Afghanistan and Nicaragua, the invasion of Grenada (repealing the Brezhnev Doctrine), and defense build-up that the Soviets couldn't outrace (augmented I've heard with faking of greater accuracy than actually achieved in anti-missile tests), were all accomplished without imposing WW II-style rigors on the American people.
What is needed is not hardship, but single-mindedness and resolve, two qualities lacking thanks to the treasonous behavior of the media and the American left both in and out of public office.
As defined by the UN, Korea was a “police action” and involved a multi-lateral force. We didn't need a declaration of war because the UN was the belligerent power, and a congressional authorization of our participation was deemed sufficient.
It should be noted that when the Korean adventure went sour after China’s intervention, there were no anti-war demonstrations, although the country was angry enough to change parties in 1952. What kept the lid on dissent was the Cold War. We were in Korea for a much bigger reason.
GREAT ARTICLE! ONE OF THE BEST!!
Yes, I remember well when I was a little boy, there were constant reminders of the war.
Our the managers of our apartment complex took an empty field and turned it into "Victory Gardens," to grow food and help the war effort. We had our little plot.
When we opened tin cans, we would take off both ends, stamp them flat, and recycle them, because the steel mills needed scrap. People remembered how the Japanese had bought the scrap steel from the 3rd Avenue El when it was torn down, and were determined to make it up. My job when I was maybe six or seven was to jump up and down on soup cans and stamp them flat on the kitchen floor.
There was no bubble gum in the stores, and I remember looking forward to the end of the war so I could chew bubble gum. What a pleasure it was when I bought my first roll after V-Day!
My aunt and uncle had horses, and there was strict gas rationing, so they harnessed up the carriage to go to church on Sundays. And we used a sleigh in the winter. How's that for saving oil?
If anyone complained about these minor hardships, which were intended to give everyone a sense of sharing and helping, the other fellow would inevitably say, "What'sa matta? Doncha know there's a war on?"
However, if I remember correctly, the British used "press gangs" to conscript people during the Napoleonic wars, which were also much like a long world war.
Our "stealth victory" in World War III (the Cold War) was one of our greatest achievements, and kudos go to William Casey, who saw it was possible, and to Ronald Reagan for executing Casey's long term strategy. We were fortunate to be able to do it without firing too many shots after Vietnam.
My point was that during the lifetime of most of us, we have fought under two different paradigms when we were engaged in an actual shooting war. A shooting war appears to be our only choice right now because our enemies have no interest in negotiating or even showing some semblance of reason. The "stealth victory" strategem won't work here. Thus we have to pick a paradigm for a shooting war, and only one has a track record of success.
Bump
Most of that stuff was not necessary, at least in America, but was ordered for purposes of civilian morale. It made everyone feel they were part of the war effort, and that every bit helped.
I suppose I was brighter than the average little boy, but even then I understood that Roosevelt was manipulating emotions for propaganda purposes. And I also thought, So what? Our servicemen deserve the moral support."
My uncle, who once came in for a visit and gave me a mesh metal belt he said he had gotten off a dead Jap on the battlefield, with a dagger and sheath, went missing in action in Europe. We all had a personal stake in it and basic patriotism for our country. These little things helped.
Bump for book mark
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