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January 2007
Elsewhere on the WebVictor Davis Hanson’s Private Papers Victor Davis Hanson Archive on National Review OnlineTour Books
A War Like No Other How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War
by Victor Hanson
Amazon.com’s Best of 2001 Many theories have been offered regarding why Western culture has spread so successfully across the world, with arguments ranging from genetics to superior technology to the creation of enlightened economic, moral, and political systems. In Carnage and Culture, military historian Victor Hanson takes all of these factors into account in making a bold, and sure to be controversial, argument: Westerners are more effective killers.
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson, John Keegan Hanson, for those who somehow have missed him until now, is a professor of Classics at California State and also is a part time farmer, both of which have contributed to his writing as a military historian. As a classicist, Hanson is well versed in the sources in their original Greek, and as a farmer he understands how agriculture affected the experience of the Greeks at war.
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson
Hanson relates the life stories of his farmer neighbors, writing that their way of life will likely soon disappear, thanks in part to a federal system of agricultural subsidies that favors large-scale, industrial farm corporations over individual “yeomen.” This is a sobering and eye-opening book. by Victor Davis Hanson On first glance, The Soul of Battle appears to be three different books: biographies of two well-known generals—Sherman and Patton—and one who is virtually unknown today, the ancient Greek leader Epaminondas. Yet Victor Davis Hanson, a classics professor and author of The Western Way of War, makes a compelling connection between these three men. They were “eccentrics, considered unbalanced or worse by their own superiors” who led democratic armies on missions of freedom.
by Robert B. Strassler (Editor), Victor Davis Hanson (Introduction)
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January 3, 2007 9:39 PM
Military Solutions?Myths About the US Military The traveler to Iraq is struck not by dearth, but opulence—everything imaginable from new SUVs to Eskimo Pies. Internet Service there was far faster than from my home in rural Fresno County. So far recruitment levels are being met. No one in the military has warned that it is a bad idea to create more brigades of ground troops. Such a caveat about the current proposed expansion we would expect if we could not even meet our present manpower targets. We have a tripartite military—air, sea, and ground. While the Marines and Army have rough going in Iraq, there have been very few Air Force and Navy material or human losses. Surely our air wings and ships are not “worn out” from patrolling in Iraq. There might be thousands of trashed humvees and worn out Bradleys, but not frigates, F-16s, or carriers. This is not 1943 when the US military was fighting in Sicily, as B-17s fell from the sky, as our merchant marine was under U-boat attack. After Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, the mantra was that the Army and Marines were not getting their fair share of service in Rumsfeld’ revolution in military affairs that envisioned Special Forces on donkeys zeroing in GPS bombs from 20,000 feet onto clueless Taliban. But suddenly after a little more three years in Iraq, we are supposed to believe that a few thousand insurgents have “ruined” what until 2003 was an underused force? It would be interesting to trace the origins of this pessimism that now appears in the columns of op-ed pages: does it arise from tired and demoralized officers, or anti-war critics eager to see something again like the 1976 American military? But more importantly, few have asked more existential questions: are our ground forces better or worse prepared to fight jihadists than they were on September 11? At some point, the millions of hours of experience fighting Islamists from the Hindu Kush to Anbar Province must count for something. William Tecumseh Sherman’s frightening Army of the West that tramped through Washington DC in April 1865 made any Union force of 1861 seem pathetic by comparison—despite he tragic losses of thousands during the war. Ruined and Then There Is Ruined! In the past, there have been modern divisions of the American army that have been nearly ruined, but nothing of the sort has transpired in Iraq. Here one thinks of the 6th Marine Division that did the most gruesome fighting on Okinawa and suffered over 8,000 killed or wounded in less than 90 days—nearly half its original combat strength attrited in a single battle. After 24 hours of fighting in the first day of the Bulge, the US 28th and 106th infantry divisions ceased to exist as effective combat units, with nearly half their soldiers killed, wounded, or captured. The 7th and 2nd infantry divisions that retreated from the Yalu River under attack by hundreds of thousands of Chinese communists were nearly decimated. To say that the American military is ruined after fighting in Iraq is preposterous by both present and past standards of combat losses. So What’s Wrong? What then is the problem since we are still fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq after brilliant victories over the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? Most obvious is the inability of our conventional forces to translate amazing tactical success in Afghanistan and Iraq into rapid strategic victory, a transition of establishing a stable postbellum government that requires everything from winning hearts and minds to inspired counter-insurgency. These questions about the transition from conventional to asymmetrical warfare always have nagged—why did the armies of Sherman and Grant who crushed nearly half-a-million Confederate soldiers in a little over a year from summer 1864 to spring 1865, not secure Reconstruction in 12 miserable years of failure, in the face of a few thousands Klansmen, and assorted night riders? In the case of Iraq, when the easier conventional war ceased in victory after a few days, our generals (cf. Tommy Franks) simply retired. Political restrictions (pulling back from first Fallujah or allowing Moqtadar Sadr to be freed from his encirclement) hampered military options and projected a sense of perceived weakness. Too often retired generals simply blamed the present problem in establishing security on “too few troops”, as if Donald Rumsfeld alone had drawn up the plans of the invasion, or that an army that defeated Saddam Hussein in three weeks was inherently unable to squash an insurgency of far fewer combatants. And it is always easier to shoot a uniformed Republican Guard marksman than to pick out a terrorist from his ten brothers and sisters after his bomb attack on a US squad stringing telephone wire or painting schools. It is now a cliché that there “is no military solution” in Iraq. But, in fact, the political solution—three successful elections and a constitutional government in place—has outpaced the military effort. What we need is a massive clamp-down on militias and terrorists to give the government confidence and public support, and that can’t be accomplished when we do not crush the terrorists, whether inside Iraq or flowing in from Syria and Iran. Nothing that we see in Iraq is unique by any historical standards. Generals always rue that they have too few combat troops. Go back and read about Dwight D. Eisenhower’s complaints in late 1944, and the controversy over a “broad” and “narrow” front in approaching the Rhine. Patton raged about political constraints that stopped the 3rd Army from taking Prague, and the 1st from targeting Berlin. MacArthur was relieved over his inability to widen the war to target Chinese troop build-ups in Manchuria. Secretary of War Stanton interfered with Sherman’s administration of Savannah, despite the culmination of a brilliant March to the Sea. No need to mention Vietnam and the micromanaging of campaigns from the White House. In short, the history of American ground operations is that troops are often sent into battle complaining of too few numbers, too many political constraints, and too vague objectives. We know all that is the unfortunate price to be paid in a democracy that reluctantly musters its forces, and has too many would-be military geniuses behind the lines that hamper smooth operations at the front. It has never been an American tradition to say, “There is the enemy, go do what you wish to win,” but rather “There is the enemy, these are the parameters under which you must operate to win.” So what we do not need now is any more furor over the should’ve/could’ve/would’ve troop levels in 2003. Even when we talk of a “surge” the present disagreement is really over only about 30,000 additional troops in a coalition of nearly 180,000, that, along with Iraq Security Forces, reaches a total force of almost 500,000. Thus the better question is why haven’t a half-million Iraqi and coalition troops been able to defeat at most 20,000-30,000 insurgents, especially when over 11 million Iraqis voted for their own democratic representatives? The answer is that the restrictive rules of engagement, the open borders to Iran and Syria, and the perception of American impotence have all combined to suggest to most Iraqis that the radical beheading/IEDing/kidnapping/assassinating minority within their midst will be running things in their neighborhood once the far larger, more static, far nicer, and far more restrained coalition troops dissolve or leave. People in advance always make the necessary adjustments to popular perceptions.
At some point it would be stunning for a US military official to step forward, and assure victory. No more acrimony over what should have, could have or might have been. No more retired generals talking to reporters at midnight “off the record”, or appearing as “unnamed senior military official” in the footnotes of the latest journalistic expose about Iraq. No more complaints about had Paul Bremmer not, had Donald Rumsfeld not, had Tommy Franks not, but rather something instead like: “Here is how we are going to defeat the jihadists”. Most Americans do not want to hear any more suggestions from the Iraqi Study Group, anymore meae culpae from John Kerry or Hillary Clinton about how they were brainwashed by faulty intelligence, or any more assessments of the war from moralists and geniuses like Donald Trump and Bill Maher. Instead, we need to hear from the very top echelon of the American military, that despite all the roadblocks put in their way, and the difficulty of the present task (it isn’t easy to secure a democracy in the heart of the ancient caliphate surrounded by Khomeinist Iran, Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, and Baathist Syria), that they will defeat these insurgents—and here’s how they plan to do it. Somewhere in the US military right now is a Grant, Sherman, Patton, Ridgeway, or Abrams, who has been shouting and we haven’t been listening. Now is the time to let them come forward—as they have always arisen from obscurity in past American wars when their nation’s hour of need has come. Comments (41)Consul-At-Arms :Kip Hunsinger :Sir, What I see as broken is media coverage of our "failures" in Iraq, and restrictive ROE that does not allow soldiers to close with amd destroy the enemy in close combat. I fully grasp the nuances of COIN, or SASO, or whatever the acronym-du-jour is. Cultural awareness is important. But kindness leads to a perception of weakness, and that gets soldiers and marines killed. Dave Begley - Omaha :Sen. Chuck Hagel (Rino-NE) has been one of the main critics who has constantly complained that the military has been "ruined" by Iraq. Nice point about the Navy and Air Force. Hagel should know something about the US Air Force since one of its biggest bases is about 20 miles south of his house. The only thing I can figure about Hagel is that he listens to a small group of careerists in the military and his judgment has been totally destroyed by his own Vietnam experience. If you have the world's greatest military and your self-preservation is at stake, then use it! Here's hoping that Pres. Bush finds his own Grant and Sherman. MalB :Amen! Fred Beloit :Surely there must be, as you have eloquently pointed out, officers in the Army and Marines who would make fighting generals and colonels. But of course they cannot come forward. They must be identified, promoted and given commands by the top rank of the Army and Marines. One of the first acts of the newly named head of the Marine Corps was to tell the nation the Corps was exhausted and Marines needed at least seven months rest after a tour in Iraq. Can we look to such a commander to find and appoint fighting officers, who may have a few rough edges, as such officers often do? In the late President Ford's ceremonies, there appeared to be someone who at least looked like a fighting general. His assignment was to escort President Ford's wife through long hours of ceremony. The civilian leadership of the military needs to set the example by minimizing the importance of bureaucratic skills in the selection of combat commanders and stressing instead excellence in tactical innovation and aggressiveness. Dick Stanley :You surely are correct that we don't need any more furor over coulda, woulda, shoulda, but it looks like that's exactly what we're about to get as the Dems start committee hearings on the war. While Bush seems to dither over what to do about Iran and Syria, Iraq's version of the Laotian and Cambodian sanctuaries. It truly is time for a Grant or Sherman to arise from the Army or Marines and they certainly have gained enough experience in the past few years to generate one or more. Cobb :I think the primary problem with audacity is that this is not a war for territory. Surely there are generals who understand counter-insurgency, but that is a different kind of military mission. One must not, for example, use artillery in CI, it simply is not discriminating enough. And as we all have learned the hard way, when a city is bombarded it only takes about 12 snapshots to turn a tactical victory into a strategic defeat. Such is always the case when one battles for hearts and minds. So it seems to me that unless our aim is to conquer Iraq, then there is no place for audacity. Rather our task is less like amputation and more like extended chemotherapy. There is no way to put a rosy face on such a patient. Joe Toboni :If such a man exists, why would we want him revealing our strategy? Fred Beloit :Mr. Toboni, you bring up a point that has mystified me for a long while. Why are our strategy and tactics grist for public consumption? We are the worst country in the world, it seems, at keeping war plans secret. The phrase that comes to mind is self-destructive. KeithP :For every Grant there was a McClellan and Pope. Takes more than shouting :) This situtation calls for the same solution. Look for a couple bright and perfroming Colonels and promote 'em up, I say. Hell, Sherman was only a Colonel at First Bull Run wasn't he? W.Liese :During the last election the people of this country "voted for a change". . . .I keep hearing that over and over. Within your last four paragraphs, I think you have expressed that "change" as how the majority of voters would have wanted their vote interpreted. achesontopeka :Such a man does indeed exist, he is Lt Gen David Petraeus and he will be named by President Bush to replace Gen. casey as leader of all US forces in Iraq. President Buh has reached beyond the senior military officials to take a junior officer who can, and wants to win. It is the junior officers and field officers who nderstand how the war can be won and how it has to be fought. Papa Ray :I can and I'm sure you could name several of our Army and Marine officers that would fill the billet you speak of. The trouble is, just as it always has been, those same officers are lowly Lieutenant Colonels or Colonels. As you know they don't have a lot of say so most of the time. There is an ol' saying which I don't remember the exact words for but it is something like this. 'The imagination and inspiration of Military officers deminishes the higher in rank they achieve.' Talking out of turn or diagreeing with your superiors, even in this modern day military, doesn't do your promotion chances much good. Papa Ray reliapundit :VDH wrote: "Political restrictions (pulling back from first Fallujah or allowing Moqtadar Sadr to be freed from his encirclement) hampered military options and projected a sense of perceived weakness." This is exactly correct. And we should have mined Iraq's international borders, effectively quarantining Iraq, (as Pakistan is now doing on it's border with Afghanistan). The half-measures we have used, the half-a**ed measures I might say, make me feel as if the W in Dubya stands for wimp. In WW@, FDR and Truman did not hold back; they used every weapon in our arsenal to smash th enemy. That's why we won unconditional surrenders. Neither FDR or HST were lambasted in the MSM for their brutishness or hawkishness. WHY THE FREE RIDE? EASY: We were allied to the USSR and Uncle Joe. As soon as HST began to fight AGAINST the USSR - as soon as the Cold War began - th Press and the bureaucracy and the Academy turned on HST, and defended the USSR. They did do until Reagan got elected. And took on and defeated the USSR. (SURE: the actual fall took place in '89, but it was ALL BECAUSE OF REAGAN). OKAY... The main reason Dubya the wimp is portrayed as a bloodthirsty, lying, eavesdropping tool of Big OilpharmaHaliburton, is because the Left wants the West to be chastized by the jihadists who they see as merely retaliating for our rape of the Third World, and our "immoral" support for apartheid-like Israel (whose Lobby owns the Right). This is based on the fact that since 1989 the left is totally dominated by the Gramscian post modernists who hate modernity as much as the jihadists do. To post modern Leftists, modernity and the enlightenment and rationalism and objectivism are false bourgeois Western ideologies which are REALLY REALLY as subjective as any value system. The post modern Leftist believes that the only reason Western society is more successful and dominant than other civilizations -(like so called "primitive" ones or jihadist ones -- Third World ones) - is becasue we had more fire-power and ruthlessness in war and were able to extend and maintan hegemony over them. YUP: They believe that OUR wealth is was stolen from the Third World. They fail to see the plain fact that our wealth is created, and that the Third World is poor because they are not free, not democratized, and not industrialized. The post modern Left abhors industrialization and globalization - the very things which ACTUALLY create wealth. This combination of cultural relativism (which asserts our values are no better than the jihadists) and anti-captialism makes the post modern Left an effective Fifth Column for the enemy. Willingly or as dupes. And their control of the academy, the bureaucracy (CIA/State/Army) and the Democrat Party, and their politicking has immobilized our war effort. And made Dubya a wimp. Which is why i have been saying for a long time that we need to defeat the Left at home if we expect to be able to defeat the jihadist abroad. all the best! Buck :Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis could be just that Patton or Grant that we need. Read any interview with him and you see immediately that he "gets" it. The biggest reason we haven't smashed the insurgency and the militias yet is because we haven't been allowed to. Lack of political will is what's really "broken." It's not us on the ground. My Stryker unit was held over past our year tour to "clean up" Baghdad, but the majority of what they had us doing for four extra months was riding around and taking census counts of the city residents. I'm completely serious. Take the gloves off, and allow the Army and Marine Corps to do what they do best. Otherwise, stop wasting our time and wasting our lives for a war no one is serious about except the enemy. "Buck Sargent" Fred L :Slightly OT, but it is timely that we talk here about another "endless war" as we bury Gerald Ford. Remember, it was Lyndon Johnson who opined that Ford "played too much football without his helmet" because he would not support Johnson's War on Poverty. Now, let's all recall that the longest war in American history, the costliest war in American history, the one war that truly does NOT have an exit strategy, is Johnson's War on Poverty. In the past 40 years the American government has transferred more wealth from people who have it to people who don't, yet the poverty level remains essentially unchanged and Lyndon Johnson's war just keeps dragging on, costing us more every year. And every time someone points out that the programs are failing the liberal prescription is "more money!" Looks like Gerald Ford knew whereof he spoke. LBJ's vicious comment about Ford and football still shows the measure of that president. F rob cooper :Our enemies (outside & inside of US) are going to bitchbitchbitch about our tacticts to win this global War. We will be villified win or lose, yes? Win Be the Strong Horse
Mike K :A useful source is David Kilcullen an Australian officer. Nagl is an army colonel who has written a history of the Malaya Emergency. These people have useful things to say. I hope the army is listening. I'm pretty sure the Marines are. Dick Stanley :At some point in all this, hearts and minds or no hearts and minds, the military is going to have to realize they cannot placate the news media and get the job done. They only waste time and lives trying. Nike in NY :Mr Toboni, How about a General that sez if you are caught with anything that can be associated with making any type of bomb your are escorted to the nearest Iraq base for death by execution by gunfire. No jail/judge just video proof of what you did for the record and you may give your name home address so your "family" can pick up the body. That statement would wakeup alot of those who seep through the cracks. thegreatbeast :Mr. Hunsinger made one of the most irksome observations of our miltary problems of the war in Iraq: "and restrictive ROE that does not allow soldiers to close with amd destroy the enemy in close combat." Stephen :Let's hope someone close to the Prez reads this column and the comments. Americans are fed up with politically correct ROE's. They want to win, and we can if we take the gloves off. Screw the Fifth column MSM and go after all our enemies, including Iran and Syria. Chris Huck :Patraeus, anyone? salvage :What then is the problem since we are still fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq after brilliant victories over the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? "Brilliant"? Um history's most lethal and advanced army against stomps (to no one’s surprise) a dilapidated third world mess who was decimated 10 years early and never fully recovered and that’s “brilliant”? A bit of an overstatement don’t ya think? Victory isn’t even the right word considering both wars are still, y’know, being fought. You have noticed that right? Hmmm you do seem to miss the bloody obvious quite a bit so maybe not. What are you a historian in again? Are you sure it’s military because it sure seems like you don’t understand a lot about that sort of thing. Or is it that you’ve been so wrong about Iraq for so long that you’ve become a tad delusional? Rather than admit the reality you’ve made your own up? There is treatment for that sort of thing, you should look into it. tom swift :What impresses me about our commanders is how quick they are to retire at some point advantageous to their careers. That's the act of a good technician, not the new Achilles. Technicians cetainly have their place in modern warfare - operating, coordinating, and supplying modern hi-tech forces can't be done without supreme technicians. But there's more to warfare than that. And maybe those are the people we need. They've appeared before in American history. Can anyone see (pre-West Point) Benedict Arnold, or Stephen Decatur, or Phil Sheridan, or Tecumseh Sherman, or Bill Halsey, waiting for just the right moment to retire? ajacksonian :Much of the current situation is caused by the lack of any Foreign Policy guided by principles or by a strategy derived from such a Foreign Policy. Complaining about insurgents is one thing, and the MSM carps on that continuously. Those insurgents have funding, supplies, and outside help. That continues to flow in even if local insurgents gain money via extortion, kidnapping, threats, murder and destruction of businesses. The Cold War remnants of any Foreign Policy now are a disservice against an enemy that does not have rational viewpoints towards Nation States. All the precepts of any post-WWII policy are unable to deal with this as, if they could, we would not be in this problem *now*. By picking up ways of warfare more traditional to pre-20th century concepts and using modern technology to implement them, the very Nation State apparatus of the 20th century has broken down in the face of enemies doing that. When all the Secretaries of all the Agencies and all the Departments of the Federal Government come to Congress and testify that they are doing all they can and it is NOT enough, we come face to face with a problem that is NOT amenable to 20th century views on Nations, warfare, combat and National Sovereignty. I have yet to find anyone who can tell me what the guiding principles of US Foreign Policy actually IS today. National Leadership, by the entire Political, Economic and Media Elite have no way to define how the US should exist in this world and what the viewpoint of a Free People should actually BE. Because of that we get diminishment of National Sovereignty, no sustainment of laws to protect the Nation, a set of Military operations taking place in a larger framework but no view on what that entire framework IS and what the goals of such operations should be for the UNION, economic concepts that have not only *not* freed the world but made arming and training of terrorist cells cheaper and deadlier,and, finally, a refusal by ANYONE in the two party system to actually come forward and *not* state nostrums of the past 30 years but to say: 'This is what America must stand for to BE America. Cross this and you cross the American People.' As de Atkine so well put it: military organizations become a reflection of their Nations. In the Middle East this leads to ineffectiveness across the entire board of operations. From the US this leads to extremely, highly competent and intelligent soldiers able to perform miracles with the most advanced weapons and INTEL support of any Nation on the planet... and then forced to do extremely little *with it* because the Nation can't figure out what it is about. We are involved in one war in Iraq, but it is part of a larger campaign that no one on the political, economic or media side dares to address. The Nostrum of 'Peace in the Middle East' is meaningless until actual, real definitions of what that is as a goal are put forth. Are we so afraid as a Nation of putting forth Individual Rights and Liberty as goals that we dare not even state them to ourselves? We have forgotten how to say those words without embarrassment. How can we expect others to take *that* up if the US does not *mean* it? While the Sons and Daughters of Liberty bicker, the ugly head of Empire raises again casting its shadow over Peoples once more. And the well worn tools to fight that are not in the 20th century... still there, with dust on them. Waiting for a Free People who *want* to be Free. Thomas Watt :"To command is to wear out..." is, iirc a quote from Gen. Robert E. Lee made during the Civil War. Richard Andrew Knutson Jr. :An old saying,"You haven't won until you can put an eighteen year old private on a hilltop and control the valley." Bud Rudder :I'd like to nominate VDH as Assistant Secretary of Defense - direct aide to Bob Gates. paul pietrowski :This article ends with what amounts to a cry for help. Where are you, o Super General? We need you! It reeks of desperation. Conspicuously, the "plan for victory" ("here's how we plan to do it") is discussed as if there is - or could be - one. There isn't. And there can't. Game over. We lose. Time to go home, let the Iraqis sort it out, and get ready for the next round. skip :It is looking like Patraeus. I'm pleased with that choice. Mattis is another man I admire. I sense a change and I really, really hope that the folks in DC are finally on board with the fact that they have a regional conflict on their hands. It's what I expected and what I've always believed we needed. shaking the arab/muslim tree is exactly what the world needs. bigjimkusmc :Great bit of analysis and rperceptive track backs. I suggest reading SFTT article about revising Army and USMC to get more trigger pullers. LTC Ralph Peters apparently had no command above company level but he has a handle on what is needed. I second the stryer NCO's comments on Lt Gen Mattis as a superb choice.Unfortunately because of the emphasis on Air Force and Navy assets by the Rummy team and the long neglect and distain for all the Military concern with the Clinton administration, it is going to be extremely difficult to find another "uncle billy" Sherman, George S. Patton or "Chesty" Puller in the present inventory. Tom Grey - Liberty Dad :The Surge we need is this: more US military folk who speak passable Arabic. What too few in the military have learned is how to speak the local language. The AEI-Kagan plan for Victory is missing this -- but at least the President is focussing more on "winning".
Go Long - Go Native - Go Local. DonkeyKong :Yes VDH, you are the Thomas Freidman of military history. You stumbled on the one apples to apples historical parallel midway through your column. "why did the armies of Sherman and Grant who crushed nearly half-a-million Confederate soldiers in a little over a year from summer 1864 to spring 1865, not secure Reconstruction in 12 miserable years of failure, in the face of a few thousands Klansmen, and assorted night riders?"-VDH And why did'nt the victorious British armies of 1918 secure County Cork during the Irish War of Indepenence. Almost fifteen thousand British soldiers and police could'nt defeat five hundred IRA men. What about the French in Indochina and Algeria. Israel in Lebanon. They forced out the PLO and created Hezbollah. The Russians in Chechnya (I'm sure alot of "final solution" con's would love to "ape" the Russian tactics in Chechnya.) As far as the military being worn down. Our military is the best in the world because of technology and training. We don't dump nintey day wonders into battle. Less troops deployed means less training time. The elements in Iraq have been hard on our equipment,vehicles and airsupport. Please, so you don't slip into parody Mr. Hanson (Where oh where is Captain America......) figure out the difference between conventional warfare and insurgency warfare. It's the least you could do. Really it is. Durst :The American Will looks to be defeated. I am too young to remember the cowardly retreat from Vietnam. I have since heard of the victims of that Democratic Congress that left thousands of South Asians in the grip of that evil ideology. The murdered, re-educated, those that fled on rafts only to die. It seems to me that we are facing a similar situation. If VDH reads these comments, I would hope that he would relate the similarities. Rob :
Haven't we moved the goal posts. I can name a few real defeats, Pearl Harbor or Kasarine Pass, this is not one. We have done well. 7,000 Al Qaeda dead in Iraq. Sadam hanged. Zaqawi gone. Our problem is that the news media, wants us to fit into the Vietnam failure theme park ride again. This was their great victory over the "Man" from their youth, and they want to make it happen again. It takes time to train up a national army free of the Baath or reflood the marshes. We are being spun into defeat. By our media, by the UN, by the French. We should ask why they are so eager for our defeat. We have at least learned who our real friends are and seen India move in a very positive direction. Actual violence has decreased world wide even though the WMD threat has increased with the agressive push from Iran. The seeming collapse of political will in this country has a lot to do with the Democrats lust for power and their ability to spin our perceptions. They fear that they will be out in the cold politically if we succeed in Iraq. 9/11 was a real defeat, and these people are setting us up to have it happen again. Our real problems are closer to home than the streets of Bagdad. Anonymous :As always Dr. Hanson makes much sense and raises an interesting question in the process. He states that there is a Patton, Sherman, and an Abrams currently in our military. I have no doubt this is true. I still believe the military superior in mind when compared to the political class it serves. This is both the blessing and the curse of our beloved system. Our military is to be used by a civilian commander-in-chief. Of course that person is elected to office by the people. The same people who now must sign off on any war or conflict where boots on the ground is to be the strategy de jour. It's a vicious cycle, the people have to be led but the people must elect a leader. We are at the point now where we can fight wars without great sacrifice to those left behind. We can also fight wars with volunteer Armies, Navies, Air Forces and Marines. The whole dynamic of warfare has changed since our last great victory. Ironic is it not that our last victory was the bloodiest, longest, and most difficult for all, those fighting and those left behind, and yet today's wars seem to be the most difficult to sell to the people. How can this be? Why?
WillyShake :I wonder if the newly appointed General Petraeus is the US military official with the Dantonesque audacity that VDH is hoping for--that is to say, I wonder (& hope!) that the much esteemed general lives up to both his reputation... ...and his Greek surname (i.e. rock). TBranin :Excellent article! You, Professor Hanson, function as close to our equivalent of Churchill, circa 1940. Your relative lost on Okinawa would be proud and probably is! gs :We have always been better at winning a war than winning a peace. The conflict with Islamism does not neatly compartmentalize into military and nonmilitary phases. President Reagan confronted Communism militarily, economically, and ideologically. In contrast, his successors have seemed ill-suited to the nonmilitary dimensions of the struggle with the new adversary. Meanwhile, the importance of these nonmilitary dimensions has increased, in part because, for better or worse, we currently are unwilling to annihilate or subjugate our enemies. augustus goddard :Even if 30,000 troops were sent to Iraq, the security situation would not improve. And for one simple reason: of those 30,000 troops, at most 3000 or so would be boots on the ground. The remainder would be doing the supply/support work that saps the strength of the US military. For example, during the Vietnam War, US troops strength peaked at appoximately 600,000, but of that figure only 50,000 or so were combat troops. Comments have been archived for this page. |
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Excellent article, you make many points which I'm in agreement with. Who was it who said "There is no substitute for victory!"?
I've quoted you and linked to you here: [consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2007...]
Jan 3, 2007 11:17 PM