by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
O<\/span>n Dec. 7, 1941 \u2014 65 years ago this week \u2014 pilots from a Japanese carrier force bombed Pearl Harbor. They killed 2,403 Americans, most of them service personnel, while destroying much of the American fleet and air forces stationed in Hawaii.<\/p>\n The next morning, an outraged United States declared war, which ended less than four years later with the destruction of most of the Japanese empire and its military.<\/p>\n Sixty years after Pearl Harbor came another surprise attack on U.S. soil, one that was, in some ways, even worse than the “Day of Infamy.”<\/p>\n Nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks \u2014 the vast majority of them civilians. Al-Qaeda’s target was not an American military base far distant from the mainland. Rather, they suicide-bombed the United States’ financial and military centers.<\/p>\n It’s been five years since Sept. 11. After such a terrible provocation, why can’t we bring the ongoing “global war on terror” \u2014 whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere \u2014 to a close as our forefathers fighting World War II could?<\/p>\n Is our generation less competent?<\/p>\n Not really. The United States routed the Taliban from Afghanistan by early December 2001. America’s first clear-cut victory against the Japanese, at Midway, came six months after Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n Do we lack the unity of the past?<\/p>\n Perhaps. But we should at least remember that after Pearl Harbor, a national furor immediately arose over the intelligence failure that had allowed an enormous Japanese fleet to approach the Hawaiian Islands undetected. Extremists went further \u2014 clamoring that the Roosevelt administration had deliberately lowered our guard as part of a conspiracy to pave the way for America’s entrance into the war.<\/p>\n A<\/span>re we in over our heads fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq?<\/p>\n Hardly. Within days after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. found itself in a three-front war against Germany, Italy and Japan \u2014 an Axis that had won a series of recent battles against the British, Chinese and Russians.<\/p>\n But there are significant differences between the “global war on terror” and World War II that do explain why victory is taking so much longer this time.<\/p>\n The most obvious is that, against Japan and Germany, we faced easily identifiable nation states with conventional militaries. Today’s terrorists blend in with civilians, and it’s hard to tie them to their patron governments or enablers in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan, who all deny any culpability. We also tread carefully in an age of ubiquitous frightening weapons, when any war at any time might without much warning bring in a nuclear, non-democratic belligerent.<\/p>\n The limitations on our war-making are just as often self-imposed. Yes, we defeated the Axis powers in less than four years, but it was at a ghastly cost. To defeat both Japan and Germany, we averaged over 8,000 Americans\u00a0lost every month of the war \u2014 compared to around 50 per month since Sept. 11.<\/p>\n So far the United States has encouraged its citizens to shop rather than sacrifice. The subtext is that we can defeat the terrorists and their autocratic sponsors with just a fraction of our available manpower \u2014 ensuring no real disruption in our lifestyles. That certainly wasn’t the case with the Depression-era generation who fought World War II.<\/p>\n And in those days,\u00a0peace and reconstruction followed rather than preceded victory. In tough-minded fashion, we offered ample aid to, and imposed democracy on, war-torn nations\u00a0only after the enemy was utterly defeated and humiliated. Today, to avoid such carnage, we try to help and reform countries before our enemies have been vanquished \u2014 putting the cart of aid before the horse of victory.<\/p>\n Our efforts today are further complicated by conflicting Internet fatwas, terrorist militias and shifting tribal alliances; in short, we are not always sure who the enemy cadre really is \u2014 or will be.<\/p>\n So paradoxes follow:<\/p>\n A stronger, far more affluent United States believes it can use less of its power against the terrorists than a much poorer America did against the formidable Japanese and Germans.<\/p>\n World War II, which saw more than 400,000 Americans killed, was not nearly as controversial or frustrating as one that has so far taken less than one-hundredth of that terrible toll.<\/p>\n And after Pearl Harbor, Americans believed they had no margin of error in an elemental war for survival. Today, we are apparently convinced that we can lose ground, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, and still not lose either the war or our civilization.<\/p>\n Of course, by 1945, Americans no longer feared another Pearl Harbor.\u00a0Yet, we, in a far stronger and larger United States, are still not sure we won’t see another Sept. 11.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services On Dec. 7, 1941 \u2014 65 years ago this week \u2014 pilots from a Japanese carrier force bombed Pearl Harbor. They killed 2,403 Americans, most of them service personnel, while destroying much of the American fleet and air forces stationed in Hawaii.<\/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":[764],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Yh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9322,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/president-obama-is-visiting-hiroshima-why-not-pearl-harbor\/","url_meta":{"origin":3737,"position":0},"title":"President Obama Is Visiting Hiroshima. Why Not Pearl Harbor?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"On the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, what lessons does the U.S. need to relearn? By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online This year marks the 75th anniversary of the December 7, 1941, Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that killed more than 2,400 Americans. President Obama is visiting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "China"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/china\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7871,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/real-reason-japanese-attacked-pearl-harbor\/","url_meta":{"origin":3737,"position":1},"title":"REAL REASON JAPANESE ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ WND The Japanese did not see their attack on Pearl Harbor as foolish at all. What in retrospect seems suicidal did not necessarily seem so at the time. In hindsight, the wiser Japanese course would have been to absorb the orphaned colonial Far Eastern possessions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via WND","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/PearlHarbor-500x301.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10785,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/pearl-harbor-and-the-legacy-of-carl-vinson\/","url_meta":{"origin":3737,"position":2},"title":"Pearl Harbor and the Legacy of Carl Vinson","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Read the original article here.\u00a0 His monumental contributions to American security are largely unknown to Americans today. Seventy-six years ago on Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese fleet surprise-attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the home port of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Japanese carrier planes killed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "War"","block_context":{"text":"War","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1324,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/pearl-harbor-considered\/","url_meta":{"origin":3737,"position":3},"title":"Pearl Harbor Considered","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Why did Japan attack us 70 years ago today, other than the usually cited existential reasons and the fact that they thought they could and get away with it? We sometimes forget that their expansionism in Manchuria quickly put them in collision with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10177,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lessons-from-the-battle-of-midway\/","url_meta":{"origin":3737,"position":4},"title":"Lessons from the Battle of Midway","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review America\u2019s culture of spontaneity, flexibility, and improvisation helped win the battle. Seventy-five years ago (June 4-7, 1942), the astonishing American victory at the Battle of Midway changed the course of the Pacific War. 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