Sunday, 01 September 2013
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The American military remains unmatched... in the sense that the only guy in town with a tennis racket isn’t going to be playing a lot of tennis matches. But the object of war... is not to destroy the enemy’s tanks... but his will. And on that front America loses, always. The ‘‘unmatched†superpower cannot impose its will on Kabul kleptocrats, Pashtun goatherds, Egyptian generals, or Benghazi militia. There is no reason to believe Syria would be an exception to this rule.
America’s inability to win ought to be a burning national question, but it’s not even being asked.’’ - Mark Steyn
Posted by: Old Grouch in
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I would argue that this has only been the case since World War II. I don't think anyone will argue that the Germans and the Japanese had the will to fight pretty much stomped out of them by 1945. Of course there were exceptions, but in the main that is exactly what happened.
The subsequent success of the Marshall Plan seems to have convinced us that we can wage just enough war to get the fighting to stop and then make friends out of our enemies with dollars. In my estimation that pretty much stopped working after Korea, and it didn't really even work there, since the country is still split in two and the north side hates our guts.
What affects the will of a people to fight back is how hard we decide to fight them. I'm still of the opinion in 2013 that I held in 1979: 20 megatons over Tehran would have changed the world.
We really need to return to the attitude of yesteryear: We don't care if you like us or not, but we demand your respect.
Steyn seems to think it's too late for that. I am not so sure.
Posted by: Nathan at 09/02/13 13:59:54 (cBrDo)
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