Fighting Wars That We Can Never Win

The bombing of Berlin 1944. Wikipedia

Wars Without Victory -- Louis René Beres, US News and World Report

The United States must rethink the meaning and role of its military and security.

We lost the Vietnam War. There is little ambiguity about this judgment, nor is there any apparent consolation. Losing is assuredly worse than winning. Victory is always better than defeat.

End of story.

But what if there is no longer a determinable way to calculate victory and defeat in our current wars? What if it should turn out that both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will have been fought without ever being able to meaningfully ascertain the tangible outcomes? In such a perplexing but distinctly plausible case, America may have to face a foreseeable future of ambiguous war terminations, outcomes even more destabilizing than those that exhibit plain and obvious failure. In such a scenario, we would seemingly have to confront a dire national future, a condition of genuinely endless uncertainty, and, as an evident corollary, one of utterly protracted insecurity.

Read more ....

My Comment: In past wars and conflicts the brutality and utter destruction that wars caused .... especially on civilian populations that supported the enemy .... all but assured that wars would inevitably end .... and with a victor. But in today's wars and conflicts there is a now a different mindset .... specifically .... the West is not geared to incinerate enemy population centers, and instead our wars are now based on surgical strikes and limiting our destructive capabilities and rules of engagement to not further alienate a population that is already hostile to us. But the question then arises .... has this approach worked for us .... and more to the point .... has this approach only prolonged wars and conflicts or should we have adopted a more intensive and bloodier campaign that may in the short term result in astronomical casualties (civilian included) but a shorter conflict and war. Honestly .... I am now starting to wonder.

When I first started this blog I covered the civil war in Sri Lanka very extensively. It was a bloody conflict that was going on for decades, and everyone was in agreement that the war was probably going to go on for a few decades more that would inevitably end in a stalemate with no victor. In 2009, under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa a new approach was implemented and the Sri Lanka Armed Forces escalated the war to a brutality that shocked and stunned the world with its ferocity. In the last year of the conflict tens of thousands of Tamils were killed and their guerrilla army (the LTTE) were utterly decimated with all of their military leaders executed. But the war ended.

In the old Soviet Union the communists were involved in a long and brutal civil war .... primarily against Islamic militants in the Caucasus and central Asia .... a conflict that went on for years. But under Stalin a different approach was implemented .... an approach that resulted in millions of deaths and even more being dislocated. But the wars ended.

We in the West are not going to wage war on such a level. The last time that we waged such a conflict was probably Vietnam, and even though hundreds of thousands were killed, the U.S. still limited itself and it's allies to not invade North Vietnam with ground forces for fears that it would then just escalate into a major U.S.-Sino conflict .... and probably millions of casualties. But the North Vietnamese did not have such a mindset .... to them millions of casualties were acceptable as long as they were the victors. As for the Khmer Rouge next door in Cambodia .... exterminating millions more were justified if such actions kept them in power. In the battle of wills .... it is obvious that we never had a chance.

Lets face it .... we do not have the will or stomach to wage total war nor any interest to do so. And thank God for that. And if we should ever find ourselves waging war on such a level .... it would be because of WMDs being used against us that resulted in massive casualties .... numbering in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. In such a scenario the dogs of war will be unleashed, and the rules of engagement will be to incinerate the enemy and their civilian support structures. Personally .... I hope I am not around to see that should it ever happen.

But I live in today's world .... and in this world our unwillingness to act like barbarians makes me realize that maybe a different approach will need to be implemented. If a new approach should be implemented to wage war I would prefer the approach that President Obama applied to in Libya. Provide limited support, let our allies do a lot of dirty work, and let our rebel allies in Libya do the real real real dirty work. But while we were successful in winning that conflict .... unfortunately .... winning the peace and winning the stability in Libya has become something else.

I know that the circumstances and situations are always different for each conflict .... but we in the West must come to terms that we need a new strategy and approach when it comes to fighting wars (and winning the peace). The old models are not working, and the alternatives are just as horrendous. And as to the argument that we should avoid wars that do not involve us directly altogether .... unfortunately .... in today's global community .... conflicts in far away places cannot be isolated and pigeon holed as they were in the past. In short .... as we learned to our great sorrow and suffering in the 20th century .... those days are long over.