{"id":2075,"date":"2009-12-14T18:57:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T18:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=2075"},"modified":"2013-03-15T18:59:09","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T18:59:09","slug":"has-war-really-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/has-war-really-changed\/","title":{"rendered":"Has War Really Changed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n

Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n

Has war been reinvented in Iraq and Afghanistan?<\/p>\n

Sometimes it seems so, with the confusion that has come with the instant communication offered by the Internet, YouTube and satellite television \u2014 along with the new arts of precision destruction via high-tech weapons like drones and GPS-guided weapons.<\/p>\n

In Afghanistan and Iraq, soldiers don’t quite disappear into distant theaters abroad. Instead, they can e-mail or call their spouses from halfway across the world \u2014 often minutes before and after battle.<\/p>\n

A phony Internet rumor, like the supposed flushing of a Koran at Guantanamo Bay, can incite thousands in mere minutes.<\/p>\n

As those in the West become ever more affluent and leisured, it is harder for us to ask our children to risk the good life in often distant, controversial wars. Who wants to leave our comfy suburbs to fight in godforsaken places like the Hindu Kush or Fallujah \u2014 against those for whom violence and poverty are accustomed experiences?<\/p>\n

The West still has the technological edge in warfare. But thanks to globalization, the Internet and billions of petrodollars, terrorists can get their hands on weapons (or the instructions on how to build them) that often prove as lethal as those used by American or NATO troops.<\/p>\n

That Osama bin Laden did not have anything like the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz did not prevent him from taking down the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, many of the old rules still apply amid the modern fog of war. Human nature, after all, does not change. And since the beginning of civilization the point of war has always been for one side through the use of force to make the other accept its political will.<\/p>\n

We should remember that and get back to basics in Afghanistan. Our leaders must remind us that war always offers only two choices \u2014 bad and worse.<\/p>\n

We certainly could leave Afghanistan. That would allow the Taliban to return to power and host more radical Islamic terrorists.<\/p>\n

Or we can persist in a dirty business of trying to stabilize a consensual government that will fight terrorism. Both are dangerous enterprises: Withdrawal has long-term risks; staying may become hellish in the short-term.<\/p>\n

We should also carefully define the enemy. Who exactly are we ultimately fighting in Afghanistan? Afghans? Arabs? Radical Muslims? Terrorists? Most of the public is still unsure after eight years of war.<\/p>\n

There are certainly plenty of horrific thugs like those in the Taliban throughout the world whom we often ignore. But what made radical Afghans of vital interest to the United States was their willingness to help radical Arab Muslims kill Americans on a wide scale.<\/p>\n

What unites al Qaeda and the Taliban is a shared murderous radical Islamic ideology, one antithetical to our own. Americans should hear that without politically correct euphemisms.<\/p>\n

The president must explain what victory in Afghanistan means. Are we there until we destroy the viability of the Taliban and their terrorist allies \u2014 by fostering an elected government that will eventually secure the country? If so, we need to hear exactly that.<\/p>\n

If not, the president can instead talk of deadlines, troop withdrawals, cruise-missile attacks and Predator-drone bombings \u2014 all efforts to now and then bother, but not end, the Taliban and al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

War typically concludes when one side cannot fulfill its political objectives. Sometimes both sides quit, as in the Korean War. But usually, as in Vietnam or the Balkans, violence ceases when one side is tired of losing more than it hopes to gain \u2014 and admits defeat.<\/p>\n

If our leaders today could consult great generals like the Roman Scipio Africanus or William Tecumseh Sherman \u2014 who won what were once near-hopeless wars \u2014 they might receive the following advice:<\/p>\n