by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
The American\u00a0<\/em>(Sept-Oct 2007)<\/p>\n I<\/span>s it five or ten or fifteen \u2014 years that are necessary to win wars of counterinsurgency such as Iraq? By now, Americans are well acquainted with such warnings that patience \u2014 along with political and economic reforms, not just arms \u2014 defeats guerrillas.<\/p>\n In these messy fights, Western nations can\u2019t, for both practical and moral reasons, use the full advantages of overwhelming arms against terrorists that hide among civilians. Such conflicts are fought far from home for perceived long-term security interests, rather than the immediate survival of the United States. And when the rising cost in blood and treasure cannot be easily explained, restive voters often give up rather than insist on eventual victory. For confirmation of that fickleness, recall the summary Western withdrawals from Algeria, Vietnam, Lebanon, and Mogadishu.<\/p>\n True, in our occasional despair over the bad times in Iraq, we should remember that ultimately the United States defeated the Philippine insurrectionists (1899\u20131913), the British won in the Malaysia uprising (1948\u201360), and, by 1971, the Americans had finally, after nine years, gotten counterinsurgency right in Vietnam before funds were cut off.<\/p>\n So what factors in the 21st century now determine whether a Western nation can still succeed in wars not to their liking?<\/p>\n First, there is the degree to which terrorists can obtain weapons sophisticated enough to kill well-protected soldiers of a far more affluent society. That requisite need not mean parity with the arsenal of the more advanced nation, but rather only the ability to nullify much of its technological superiority.<\/p>\n The terrorist always scores points when his cheap, workmanlike weapons triumph over high-tech gadgetry \u2014 think of simple rocket-propelled grenade rounds blowing apart a $2 million Blackhawk helicopter, or simple, imported roadside bombs still immune to the countermeasures dreamed up by a Pentagon task force.<\/p>\n In the past, the ability of insurrectionists to get their hands on Western weaponry required physical proximity to Westerners. But now, in a globalized marketplace where profit trumps ideology and distance has collapsed, successful killers in the Middle East may need only a petro-rich patron, a mail-order catalog, and an overnight-shipping account. The Israelis learned that lesson well enough in the recent Lebanon conflict when they encountered Hezbollah militiamen wearing jeans but also outfitted with sophisticated, off-the-shelf night-vision goggles, body armor, hand-held rockets, and computer-tracking software.<\/p>\n Second is the enemy\u2019s desire and ability to kill the requisite number of Westerners in sufficiently savage fashion \u2014 hanging their corpses on a bridge or executing them on the internet \u2014 to cause large-scale demoralization on the home front. Savagery is a force multiplier: the more horrific the carnage on the suburban televisions of America, the better.<\/p>\n Losses, and the nature of how they are inflicted, are more critical even than the duration or financial cost of these new wars. Few worry that we have had American troops in the Balkans for nearly a decade \u2014 simply because they are not dying or being tortured on the internet.<\/p>\n Nihilism is likewise a terrorist plus. Traditional doctrine insists that blowing up Muslims at an Islamic funeral or beheading innocents will eventually turn the populace against such nightmarish terrorists. Perhaps. But in the short term, such grotesqueries may sooner turn off a refined Western public whose support is critical for the continuation of the war. The more likely response is no longer, \u201cWe must defeat such savage bullies,\u201d but rather, \u201cWhy would we want anything to do with a society that produces such monsters?\u201d<\/p>\n Third, there is the problem of new global communications \u2014 another advantage for insurgents who want to exhaust the West. It is often said that had the weeks in the hedgerows after D-Day (June to late July 1944) or the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 to January 1945) been televised each hour on CNN or Fox \u2014 with real-time email and cell phone communications with beleaguered soldiers in the field \u2014 we would never have won either battle. Both victories saw horrific casualties as a result of intelligence failures and sheer incompetence, but our culpable generals counted on enough of a window of public ignorance to rectify their mistakes and continue the battle.<\/p>\n None of these developments means that we won\u2019t win in Iraq, stabilize the nascent democracy there, and help bring prosperity to the heart of the Middle East. But we should accept that in a world of increasing Western material comfort, it is becoming far harder for postmodern societies like the United States and Europe to fight ever more premodern foes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson The American\u00a0(Sept-Oct 2007) Is it five or ten or fifteen \u2014 years that are necessary to win wars of counterinsurgency such as Iraq? By now, Americans are well acquainted with such warnings that patience \u2014 along with political and economic reforms, not just arms \u2014 defeats guerrillas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[754],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-V2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4777,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-to-beat-the-american-military\/","url_meta":{"origin":3536,"position":0},"title":"How to Beat the American Military?","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"When you can't face it in battle. by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers There is a growing consensus that it is near suicide to face the United States in a conventional war. Both the long history of western warfare, and a variety of recent encounters\u2014whether in the Falklands, the Gulf,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2004"","block_context":{"text":"February 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/february-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3716,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-war-of-endurance\/","url_meta":{"origin":3536,"position":1},"title":"A War of Endurance","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services As we begin a new year, with a new Congress being sworn in Thursday, it's a good time to take stock of the \"global war on terror.\" The enormous conventional military power of the United States probably ensures that we will not lose\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Janurary 2007"","block_context":{"text":"Janurary 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/janurary-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5447,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/war-on-campus\/","url_meta":{"origin":3536,"position":2},"title":"War on Campus?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Interview with Victor Davis Hanson MindingTheCampus.com John Leo, Editor of\u00a0MindingTheCampus.com, hosts Victor Davis Hanson to discuss his most recent article from the summer issue of\u00a0City Journal, \"Why Study War?\". Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a\u00a0City Journal\u00a0Contributing Editor. Leo: Welcome Dr. Hanson,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2007"","block_context":{"text":"August 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/august-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5113,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ferocious-warmakers-how-democracies-win-wars\/","url_meta":{"origin":3536,"position":3},"title":"Ferocious Warmakers: How Democracies Win Wars","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 6, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson The Claremont Institute The historian Thucydides believed that democracies were the most adept governments at war making. He believed that Classical Athens had not been defeated by Sparta, but lost its war only to the combined efforts of more or less the entire civilized world of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2002"","block_context":{"text":"February 2002","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2002\/february-2002\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4724,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-weird-war-of-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":3536,"position":4},"title":"Our Weird War of War","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Our enemies know us only too well. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The wars since September 11 have once more revealed the superiority of Western arms. Afghanistan may be 7,000 miles away, cold, high, and full of clans, warlords, and assorted folk who have historically enjoyed killing foreign\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "May 2004"","block_context":{"text":"May 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/may-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3546,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dont-bomb-bomb-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":3536,"position":5},"title":"Don’t Bomb, Bomb Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"For now, we should avoid smoking Tehran. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There\u2019s been ever more talk on Iran. President Bush \u2014 worried about both Americans being killed by Iranian mines in Iraq, and Tehran\u2019s progress toward uranium enrichment \u2014 is ratcheting up the rhetoric. But so\u00a0mirabile dictu\u00a0is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2007"","block_context":{"text":"August 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/august-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3537,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions\/3537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}