Andrew Sullivan: America sets the agenda for wars of the future

The Sunday Times ^ | April 13, 2003 | Andrew Sullivan

[MadIvan]

In some ways a pro-war columnist should have nothing much to say this week. Once you saw the images of liberation last Wednesday, what more could anyone add? Several images stood out: the children being led out of a gruesome prison; the statue of Saddam being dragged through the streets; the piles of Vanity Fairs in Tariq Aziz’s now-looted home. It’s really something to think of a man prepping his son for Harvard while presiding over a system that tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands and harboured chemicals designed to kill millions more.

Amid all the reporting, many anecdotes also leapt out. Here’s one from The New York Times: “A burly 39-year-old man named Qifa, assigned to keep watch on an American reporter, paused outside the inferno that had been the HQ of Iraq’s National Olympic Committee to ask the reporter to grip his hand. The building, used to torture and kill opponents of Mr Hussein, had been one of the most widely feared places in Iraq. ‘Touch me, touch me, tell me that this is real, tell me that the nightmare is really over,’ the man said, tears running down his face.”

Yes, this is real. And the tears are real as well. In our discussions of geopolitics and military strategy, we need to remember those tears. The BBC and others will do all they can to minimise this victory, but they can’t take that moment away from the Iraqi people, or from those of us who stood with them, while millions marched to keep the dictator in place.

Americans have also learnt something about themselves from this war. Immediately after Vietnam, any foreign expedition, let alone invasion, seemed unthinkable. Now it has been thought, and fought and won many times. From Grenada to Haiti and Bosnia and Kosovo has been a long journey. But under this president, the resolve has strengthened.

The concept is not some new American empire. America does not have imperialism in its DNA. In fact, it has anti-imperialism in its DNA. But it has also come to understand that the West is under threat, that that threat comes primarily from a highly unstable part of the world, and that with immense power comes immense responsibility. What this war has done is show that Americans are capable of exercising that responsibility in ways not seen before.

This war entailed the full-scale invasion of a country the size of France, guarded by a band of totalitarian thugs, in a region seething with anti-American hostility. Critics complained that it took too long, but no military campaign has ever achieved so much so quickly.

Look what didn’t happen. There was no attack on Israel; Iran didn’t intervene; Turkey didn’t invade; chemical and biological weapons were not used. These weren’t accidents. They were a function of an intelligent and flexible war plan that combined special forces, air power, high-tech weaponry, local fighters and old-fashioned infantry in a military-technological nexus the like of which has never been seen before.

More significantly, it was achieved with American combat fatalities (excluding accidents and friendly fire) of 50-60 men. The US lost three times that number each day in Vietnam at the height of the war. The number of Iraqi military casualties is unknown, but it must be in the thousands. The American public also didn’t panic at casualties, and, say the polls, were prepared for a longer war with thousands of Americans dead.

The war unveiled another innovation. The regime was destroyed while the infrastructure was kept relatively intact. The US and Britain have destroyed fascist states by war before — Japan and Germany. But it cost hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese lives.

Yes, in this war there were tragic civilian casualties. But the most significant factor was how few civilians died — fewer than in a few weeks of Saddam’s murderous rule. This war was so precise that it inverted the usual pacifist worry. Saddam and sanctions killed millions of civilians. This war killed hundreds of civilians. In this case, war spared human life.

This was the real shock and awe, and it is being absorbed by every dictator on the planet. Warfare is different now. America’s technological edge needs only two things to make it lethal: political will and public support.

Those two things, as long as this president remains in power, are now in place. Bush’s approval ratings are close to 80%. Most Americans needed no legal case to see the connection between Iraq and 9/11. They knew their vulnerability; and they knew Saddam’s malevolence and his goal of getting the most destructive weapons known to man. Case closed. The anti-war movement never gained traction. This matters. The only thing that can stop American power now is American resistance.

All Chirac, Schröder and Putin achieved with their United Nations obstructionism was proof that the US didn’t need them. Great going, guys! Tony Blair and the State Department will try hard to get Washington (and America) to forget this but they are fighting logic and momentum and memory.

No, this doesn’t mean immediate invasions of Syria or North Korea, or indeed any military action in the foreseeable future. In all likelihood, the US will be too preoccupied building a civil state in Iraq, stabilising Afghanistan and hunting Al-Qaeda to intervene anywhere else. But Washington could if it wanted to. And for that reason alone, the importance of this war should not be underestimated.

America is in this battle for real. What you have seen is not only the belated conclusion of an old war; it has demonstrated the capacity for a new war — more precise, more ferocious and more mobile than ever before. Afraid? Don’t be. But every would-be Saddam now is.

[not-an-ostrich]

If the French newspaper reporter has photos of the children coming out of the prison I want to see them. Anyone able to access the French newspaper publishing the story?

[blam]

"All Chirac, Schröder and Putin achieved with their United Nations obstructionism was proof that the US didn’t need them. Great going, guys! Tony Blair and the State Department will try hard to get Washington (and America) to forget this but they are fighting logic and momentum and memory. "

Exactly!!

[Dark Wing]

An Andrew Sullivan ping!

[schmelvin]

Re: Photos of the imprisoned children

This excellent FR thread, entitled "When the Dungeon Doors Swing Open..." has several links, including one to the French newspaper article about the released children:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/889383/posts

I'm also adding this: A URL to a site that's documented the horrific abuses the Iraqi people have long suffered. Click on "Childhood", and you will find individual photos of some of these children (the look in their eyes just makes me want to cry. No child should ever have so much pain and sadness reflected in their eyes). Click on "Torture" only if you have a very strong stomach.

http://iraqcenter.com/english/photos.html

(I'm sorry I don't know how to post a link.)

[Pokey78]

Thanks!

Andrew ping.

[MHGinTN]

Here ya go

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

Excellent article with a whole lot of wisdom in its content.

[F-117A]

When the Dungeon Doors Swing Open...

[AmishDude]

with immense power comes immense responsibility

Somebody just received his Spiderman DVD.

[schmelvin]

Thanks! What would I do without my fellow FReepers?!

[WOSG]

Gee, I think your thinking about the Roman empire is quite shallow. ... Lots more to do with terrible leadership and emperors for about 100 years (350Ad -450AD) and an inability to handle the Goths and Attila the Hun and other emerging threats.

Nothing to do with size of empire, although Constantine's needs to split empire's administration did lead to 2 competing 'empires' that failed to help eachother out at critical times.

SO, IMHO, the best analogy would be if NATO (US and EUrope) split up common actions and at the same time had a failure to address an up and coming empire empire (viz. China).

lastly, Rome failed to properly attend to military and defense needs (Gibbon blamed effete Christianity for that). Their 700 year old empire was built on military supremacy, and they lost it to the Goths. In 410AD when germanic tribes invaded, the Italian provinces could raise barely a fraction of the troops they could raise when hannibal invaded 500 years earlier!! In the end, Rome fell due to military defeats pure and simple.

[ggekko]

What has become apparent in this war is that the contest between a 1970s military force and and a 21st century force with real time battle management capabilitities is as unequal as horse calvary bridade versus a mechanized armored division. The speed and lethality of our forces are unprecedented in World History.

There is a cautionary lesson to be learned from the Roman Empire,however. The Roman Legions and their battle concept were never seriously challenged by a rival battle organization concept. Rome fell because of internal protectionism and confiscatory taxation gradually destroyed the economic vitality of the empire. Our ability to fund cutting edge defense research depends upon the US maintaining economic predominance. Absent this status the cost of maintaining a high tech military will become intolerable.

[lainde]

Sullivan ping! Thanks Pokey!

[ontos-on]

Your post is so confused, critique is not worthwhile. If you have a point, try to think it through and express it better. First and foremost, if you really know nothing about the Roman Empire and its fall, do not try to make forced world-historical analogies based on your confused understanding of "an interesting point just turned up".

[Mia T]

This was the real shock and awe, and it is being absorbed by every dictator on the planet. Warfare is different now. America's technological edge needs only two things to make it lethal: political will and public support.

Those two things, as long as this president remains in power, are now in place. Bush's approval ratings are close to 80%. Most Americans needed no legal case to see the connection between Iraq and 9/11. They knew their vulnerability; and they knew Saddam's malevolence and his goal of getting the most destructive weapons known to man. Case closed. The anti-war movement never gained traction. This matters. The only thing that can stop American power now is American resistance.

Andrew Sullivan: America sets the agenda for wars of the future

To be more explicit:
The only thing that can stop American power now is American resistance… or a Democratic president.

Either they are obsolete… or civilization is Q ERTY8 ^BUMP!

url-linked images of shame
copyright Mia T 2003.

Q ERTY9

BUSH: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather."

President's Remarks view

This country has many challenges. We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations. (Applause.) We will confront them with focus and clarity and courage...

Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make. The technologies of war have changed; the risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means -- sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military -- and we will prevail. (Applause.)

 

State of the Union Address by President George W. Bush

 

 

[Mia T]

bump!

[Kenno]

The Empire was still expanding rapidly and efficiently when it began to crumble.

Actually, the Roman Empire ceased expanding after the disastrous battle of the Teutoberg Forest in 7 AD. Emperor Augustus did send an army to do a punitive raid afterward, but the Romans never again were an expansionist nation. In the late 3rd century, the Goths attacked the Roman province of Dacia (Romania) but were eventually driven off; in the late 4th century they defeated Rome decisively at Adrianople (now in European Turkey) and the decline of Rome continued apace after that. So your claim is off by 3 or 4 centuries.

[section9]

Actually, the Roman Empire ceased expanding after the disastrous battle of the Teutoberg Forest in 7 AD. Emperor Augustus did send an army to do a punitive raid afterward, but the Romans never again were an expansionist nation.

Most historians date the high watermark of Roman expansion to the Varus' defeat in the Teutoberg Forest by the Germanic tribes. IIRC, Varus lost nine legions in that engagement. Augustus is said to have wailed over the loss of so many men.

Yet I disagree. I would put Rome's high watermark at a defeat which occured in Syria much earlier. Marcus Crassus attempted to march on Parthia. Strangely enough, Crassus was able to make it across the Euphrates River, but was defeated at the battle of Carrhae. The Parthians subsequently killed Crassus. Julius Caesar was drawing up a campaign to recover the legionary Eagles of Crassus' army when he was assassinated.

Rome would never attempt to deal with the Parthians again.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Kenno]

Anyway, we both agree that the other poster didn't have a clue about the subject he was discussing.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Excellent article!

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