Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
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Posted on 01/10/2005 7:38:43 AM PST by quidnunc
It is still suicidal to meet the United States in a conventional war — at least for any enemy that has not fully adopted Western arms, discipline, logistics, and military organization. The recent abrupt collapse of both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein’s regime amply proves the folly of fighting America in direct conflicts. The military dynamism that enables the United States to intervene militarily in the Middle East — in a manner in which even the richest Middle Eastern countries could not intervene in North America — is not an accident of geography or a reflection of genes, but a result of culture. Our classical Western approaches to politics, religion, and economics — including consensual government, free markets, secularism, a strong middle class, and individual freedom — eventually translate on the battlefield into better-equipped, motivated, disciplined, and supported soldiers.
To an American television audience, al-Qaida videos of pajama-clad killers in ski masks beheading captives look scary, of course. But a platoon of Rangers would slaughter hundreds of them in seconds if they ever approached Americans openly on the field of conventional battle or even for brief moments of clear firing. In Mogadishu, Somalia, everything boded ill for a few trapped Americans — outnumbered, far from home, facing local hostility in urban warfare — and yet the real lesson was not that a few Americans were tragically killed, but that the modern successors to Xenophon’s Ten Thousand or the Redcoats at Rorke’s Drift managed to shoot their way out and kill over 1,000 in the process.
Nevertheless, the numerous setbacks of Western armies from Thermopylae to Vietnam prove that there are several ways to nullify these military advantages, both on conventional and irregular battlefields. The question is: Are such historical precedents still relevant to the modern age?
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
FYI
Some interesting reading...
OK, I've read all of Hansen's comments. Here are mine. Terrorism will continue until the people who allow these monsters to operate within their midst begin to suffer terribly from their complicity. This means that we will pussyfoot with these killers because of our own misguided sensibilities, with an inevitable escalation of the death toll per strike both here and abroad, until the terrorists commit some horrific atrocity, worse than 911, that finally compels us to drop the big one on some Moslem hate-center. Then the remaining Moslems left alive may finally get the message and begin the hard work of eliminating the fanatics and lunatics in their own back yards. Maybe.
ping
JFK_Lib - That is the core of our problem in defending our interests in the world today. Well said again Dr Hanson!
That's because much of the left really don't believe it evil. that there are people out there who really want to kill you, and any reason will do.
Why we need a military
There are large numbers of people out there who only understand one thing...I have a large stick and if you're not nice I'm going to hit you with it.
This is recognized world-wide and is why no-one intends to fight us conventionally. Terrorism, infiltrated WMD, guerilla warfare from civlian inhabited areas give us is why our toughest military fights. As usual Hanson is right on target. Unfortunately, our military force structure does not reflect strategic realities. We should emphasize well trained & equipped ground forces and put less of our reliance on high tech weapons & naval & air power of limited utility against our current & projected enemies.
Let me know if you want in or out
I waded through countless paragraphs to reach this pearl of wisdom?
I can expose myself to that kind of juvenile, jingoistic jaw-jaw 24/7, posted by the mouth-foaming element here.
His allusions to Grenada, Panama, Serbia, and Afghanistan are just as silly. Grenada and Panama are just about totally irrelevant, in Serbia we took the side of the Jihadists (surely he's not suggesting that), and in Afghanistan the natives did the heavy lifting for us.
Flame away! I'm fully aware that this johnny-come-lately is an icon to many if not most of you.
I think that the US should strike hard and fast at everyone who preaches to kill Christians and Jews. They are our enemy. In the long run we, as a country, will take less critizem from the rest of the world. Wipe them out fast and let the news media will eventually move on the the next disaster.
Unfortunately I see our options as decidedly limited:
1) We can stay (indefinitely) and suffer an ugly situation.
2) We can declare victory (after all, we will have regime change, as long as we cart Saddam's sorry ass out when we leave) and watch an ugly situation.
And, oh yes, for the future:
3) Make a note to avoid radical neocon advice like the plague.
PS Its your turn. PLEASE DEFINE WIN
Pretty much what I've been saying for some time. Agreed.
Which is precisely why Afghanistan, although vociferously opposed at the time, has not generated the organized political protest that Iraq has. In Iraq state-level support for terrorism was an open secret, but still nominally a secret (and stoutly denied on the left to this day). It is so in Iran and Syria as well. What made Iraq so significant in terms of this postmodern warfare is that plausible deniability did not shield the state from military confrontation.
Some of the protest against this change in policy stems from a perfectly legitimate concern that the U.S. may well thrash out under circumstances that do not truly warrant it. But a great deal of the protest is from those who were in one way or another dependent on the old rules to handcuff the victim from retaliation, whether out of their own similar guilt - Iran and Syria, for example - or economic self-interest - France, Germany, and Russia.
And so Bush is a bad guy for upsetting this cozy little system wherein a little of somebody else's bleeding was the acknowledged price of business as usual. Tough.
Good rant.
Welcome to FR.
5.56mm
Draw terrorist operatives out of virtually every other country in the world and concentrate them in one place.
There's some of 'em there, no doubt. Although most observers say most are Sunni insurgents. This debacle has been bin Laden's fondest dream come true. His recruits are up, ours are down. He's fat and happy and we're shedding blood not to speak of several hundred thousand dollars per minute.
Is the world a better place without Saddam Hussein in power?
Neither the world nor Iraq is a better place at the moment. There is some chance that Iraq MAY become a better place but the odds are no better than if we had just waited until he died or was assassinated.
radical neocon
I'll give you that one ... but it was my attempt to separate the most dangerous activist neocons from somewhat less dangerous academics.
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