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Posted on 04/15/2003 7:03:08 AM PDT by alnitak
The widespread shock and horror at the US-British attack on Iraq derive above all from a stunning and almost universal lack of historical perspective. So do the hopes and expectations of many that the US ultimately will quail at the price in blood, treasure, and reputation of a series of pre-emptive wars against the world's rogue states.
The record suggests otherwise. The US secured its continental position in wars against the British Empire and Mexico. But the country's formative conflict was the "second American revolution" of 1861-65, which destroyed slavery. The civil war cost 600,000 dead - the largest and deadliest war between industrial societies before 1914. The winning side fought for an objective more total than any in the western world since the Wars of Religion: destruction of the enemy state and "reconstruction" of its society.
Even after 1917, America remained the least military and most self- absorbed of the major industrial societies. But the rise of Adolf Hitler and Imperial Japan changed that. Hitler's conquest of France made peacetime conscription, rearmament, and aid to Britain politically acceptable. And Japan's killing of 2,408 soldiers, sailors, and civilians in a surprise attack on US soil created modern America.
Pearl Harbor committed the US to a fight to the finish. It also revived American total war - destruction followed by reconstruction. After the Italians, Germans, and Japanese had tasted the relentless overwhelming force and demand for "unconditional surrender" that Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, and William Tecumseh Sherman applied to the Confederacy, the US faced the Soviet Union.
The US aim after 1941 was to eliminate the threat of future Hitlers and Pearl Harbors. To achieve that goal in the world of the 1940s and 1950s demanded forward defence positions beyond seas that could no longer ensure US security; sizeable standing forces instead of the customary dwarf-army; and huge social engineering projects to transform the German and Japanese warrior peoples into peace-loving citizens of democracies.
The existence of the Soviet superpower forced the US to limit its two big wars of containment - Korea and Vietnam. The Vietnamese Communists also helped to constrain US power by astutely avoiding provocations similar to Hitler's attack on Poland. And Hanoi was fortunate in drawing as adversary Lyndon Baines Johnson, the least resolute war president in US history.
The warriors of militant Islam have been less astute and less fortunate. In killing more Americans - almost all of them civilians - than died at Pearl Harbor, they once again unleashed American total war. Indeed it is hard to imagine a provocation better fitted than September 11, 2001 to achieve the precise opposite of its authors' goal - universal jihad leading to Islamist world domination.
The US-licensed cinéma vérité of satellite television, the legalistic mis- givings of allies and former allies, and self-imposed humanitarian restraint have so far limited the exercise of US military means. But it is the threat to America that will ultimately determine US war aims. After the experience of September 11, the globalisation of weapons of mass destruction makes a thermonuclear arsenal in the hands of Stalin and his stolid successors seem in hindsight a modest danger indeed.
The US also possesses a far wider range of military means than in the cold war era. No Soviet tank armies pin US land and air power in northwest Europe. Nor has the relative economic decline foreseen with relish by European and Japanese pundits in the 1980s occurred. Instead, Europe and Japan have proved too rigid to lead in technological innovation, and are entering a phase of absolute population decline while America is still growing.
American innovation has produced military systems and a global reach far beyond those of any other power, or coalition. And the US president, despite a sometimes sketchy command of English grammar, has proved remarkably undeterred by objective obstacles, conventional wisdom, and diplomatic taboo. George W. Bush has not shrunk from demanding the unconditional surrender of the Taliban and Ba'ath party dictatorships. And he appears intent on improving the international deportment of a number of other regimes, or overthrowing them altogether.
A further devastating attack on the US, failure in America's apparently quixotic enterprise of founding democracy in Iraq, or some passing inspiration of the diminutive nuclear-armed psychopath in Pyongyang may interrupt Mr Bush's run of success. But at present both the president and his "global war on terrorism" enjoy unstinting support from those Americans who are neither intellectuals nor film stars.
Europeans may wish to believe that a small coterie of "neo-conservative" maniacs has hijacked US policy. They may assume that the natural order of things as they perceive it - the restraint of American power through European wisdom - will sooner or later triumph. But such expectations are delusional. Those who find militant Islam terrifying have clearly never seen a militant democracy.
The writer is Stevenson Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. He served in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade
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Second least. Clinton beats him, hands down. He never would have taken on Afghanistan or Iraq. He is a coward, as measured by the way he treats others, especially women. Clinton reminds me of the Iraqis who used women as a shield to protect themselves.
Clinton doesn't count in this context, since he was not really a 'wartime' president -- or at least, nobody thought we were at war at the time. 9/11 gave us the necessary hindsight to help us realize our mistake, but Clinton was already out of office by then.
Good line.
Awesome.
"I would not wish to fight the United States — either militarily, politically, or culturally. For every threat, our history teaches us that Americans offer not just a rejoinder, but the specter of a devastating answer of a magnitude almost inconceivable to those now chanting and threatening in the streets of the Middle East.
Do they have any idea of what sort of dangerous people we really are? Do they understand the history of the names of those ships now off their coasts, like the USS Peleliu or Enterprise, or the pedigree of the 82nd or 101st Airborne?
Victor Davis Hanson
Perhaps those shrinking violets should interview older Germans and Japanese. The simple fact is that, as strong as our response has been to date in Afghanistan and Iraq, it pales before what this country could unleash if provoked (and I'm NOT even including nukes).
Those opposed to us should know that we are not even that ticked off - yet. We don't really have blood in our eye - yet. And those people had better pray that we never reach such a condition, because then they will see Hell on Earth (prior to dying, along with lots of their comrades). You see, if properly motivated (as we were in WW2) this country will mobilize. In WW2 we had 130 million people and had armed forces of 12 million. Now, we have nearly 300 million people, which translates to armed forces of maybe 28 million - and that doesn't account for the fact that our agriculture, mining and manufacturing bases are all vastly more efficient than they were 60 years ago, which would free up additional millions for service. I'd like to ask those opposed to us if they'd like to face the 21st century equivalent of the force we put together in WW2? Because if we are sufficiently motivated, within a few short years we can put together a force of 200 Army divisions and 25 Marine divisions, all capable of being landed on any coastline in the world by a Navy of 40 carrier task forces and supported by an Air Force of 10,000 combat aircraft. To put all of this into context, we defeated Iraq in less than 3 weeks with about 3 divisions.
Would it cost a lot? Absolutely - multiple trillions. But Americans have shown on numerous occasions that they'd rather be a bit (or even a lot) poorer than be dead or enslaved.
I'd strongly suggest that nobody motivate us to mobilize like this.
I have to disagree. If Clinton had been caught in a large enough scandal, we would have been in downtown Baghdad years ago.
On to the topic, it is shaping up like a global war at time. The US and India seem to want to team up to contain China, the US, UK, Australia, Israel, and India (and others) to contain the Islamic fanatics, etc. with Germany, France, and Russia going the other way. Throw in the US, Australia, South Korea, and Japan into containing North Korea (as well as China mentioned earlier)
I can't put my finger on any one thing, but it feels like there is a lot of things going on, an undercurrent almost.
Not to mention that whatever nation was both stupid and crazy enough to provoke us to such extremes would be settling up the bill for us.
So with only about $6,000 dollars to go to meet this quarter's goal, I am going to post the following and hope that those who might read this thread will send a couple bucks FR's way.
2 posted on 3/6/02 7:30 AM Pacific by grammymoon:
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Worth repeating
You mean the comparison to the Civil War? I don't think the creation of a 'Global Federalized Super-State' is what the author had in mind. The basis for the comparison was the proposition that Americans are willing to expend the blood and treasure necessary to accomplish what they think is right.
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