I hate to say it, but I believe our country has lost the will to win the wars that are thrust upon us. One would think that the primary lesson learned from Korea and Vietnam would have been that you can’t half-heartedly fight a war if you expect to win it. Instead, you have to go all out and take whatever steps are necessary to achieve a quick and decisive victory over the enemy. But it’s quite apparent to me that that lesson never really sunk in.
Perhaps the most important principle in warfare is the effective use of overwhelming force. One of the first things every new military officer is taught during his/her training is the importance of attacking an opponent with a force that is so large and so well-equipped that ultimate victory is virtually guaranteed. The Chinese fully understood this basic principle, hence the “human waves” of infantrymen they sent into battle against us in North Korea during the Korean Conflict. But somewhere along the line our civilian leaders have adopted what I call a “calculation” strategy: Instead of sending in enough troops and equipment to quickly subdue an enemy, they try to calculate exactly what will be required to get the job done, and then send as few personnel as possible into the war zone. This is a big mistake, yet we have seen it repeated over and over in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We also tend to err way too much on the side of caution in respect to civilian casualties. It’s an awful reality that innocents become casualties during any war, and we should always do whatever we can to minimize those losses as long as doing so won’t hinder us in any way from winning the battle at hand. But in order to win in the most efficient manner possible, our forces must have the freedom to decisively engage the enemy whenever and wherever they find them. There will almost always be innocents in close proximity to enemy forces, and to avoid striking a devastating blow to those forces simply because those innocents are in harm’s way is both militarily foolish and ultimately inhumane. Why is it inhumane you say? Because the choice not to take out a vulnerable target in order to spare a few civilians will simply prolong the war and lead to many more civilian casualties in the long run.
Some would argue that since we now face many small groups of enemy combatants (AKA terrorists) who live and operate among the civilian population, we cannot and should not attack unless we can do so without causing civilian casualties. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, this type of warfare is one in which the willingness to strike enemy targets whenever and wherever we find them is even more important. In order for Al Quaida terrorists and other guerilla-type enemies to be successful, they must have the support and aid of the civilians in the area. Therefore it is very important strategically to remove the will of the civilian population to tolerate, aid and support those enemy forces. President Truman understood this principle quite clearly, and as distasteful as they were his decisions to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought WWII to a quick end, therefore saving many more civilian lives than the ones lost in those two cities.
All of this being said, I believe the single biggest obstacle standing in the way of our forces’ ability to win the wars they fight is micro-management of our military strategies and tactics by our elected leaders in Washington. No war can be fought and won from the confines of Washington, DC. In order to win a war, it most be directed and fought by the soldiers on the battlefield, and politics back home shouldn’t be a factor in the day-to-day operations of the war. That’s what Generals, Admirals and their junior officers are for. Once our politicians make the decision to send our brave men and women into battle, they need to get out of the way and let them win it.
The way I see it, as a nation we Americans have somehow lost the desire to win in war and/or fail to understand the guiding principles required in order to do so. We have lost far too many of our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, and unless we learn from our mistakes we will lose many more.
We will also ultimately lose a lot more of our civilian countrymen here at home if we fail to climb down from our collective moral high-horse and allow our military personnel to fight to win. War is a nasty business, and there is no reason or excuse for letting one drag on for years and decades. And we shouldn’t be in the business of nation-building either. We should be in the business of self-preservation. Get in, get the job done, then get out. That says it all in a nutshell.