War and Peace

I’ve stated before that I’m not adverse to use of massive force:

I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether the Israeli response is “disproportionate”. I myself have no qualms about destroying an enemy’s infrastructure if civilian deaths can be kept to a minimum and the payoff in psychological damage to the enemy is great enough (think about General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea).

I went a little deeper into this in response recently to a comment from someone:

I don’t want to sound like a “make love not war” type of guy, but come on, dropping bombs with that might … is a bit of an “over kill” literally …. It’s like a little kid goes to a football player (Defense) and kicks him in the knee, which makes the football player rip him apart

My response:

Without supporting or protesting any specific Israeli tactics, I would pose the following question: What does it take to win? In your analogy, the stakes aren’t very high; probably a bruised ego at best. But in the actual war between Israel and Hezbollah, the stakes are the very survival of Israel. Sure, Hezbollah does not currently have the wherewithal to wipe Israel off the map, as long as there’s a little more than token resistance on the part of Israel. But asking Israel to do no more than that is essentially to say to Israel to grab her ankles.

Personally I’m in favor of General Sherman’s idea of total war: Destroy the infrastructure. I grant that General Sherman’s methods may not entirely apply here, because unlike the Union occupation of the South after the American Civil War, Israel’s not likely to occupy even just southern Lebanon after the conflict, with an eye toward annexation.

So, back to the question: What does it take to win? Israel has nuclear weapons. If all it wanted was to be rid of Hezbollah, why not just nuke the frontier areas? Goodbye south Lebanon, goodbye Gaza. But the international relations repercussions of such an activity, to say nothing of the moral repercussions, argue against such a tactic.

Thus I think I have established that merely putting up token resistance, or nuking Hezbollah, are extreme solutions that are non-starters. What does it take to win?

The kind of power politics we’re used to seeing, which has developed over the Cold War era, is that the international system does not want any party to a conflict to win outright. While it’s easy for remote adversaries to come to a ceasefire agreement (North Korea/United States), or even to declare a winner (United States > North Vietnam, United Kingdom > Argentina, etc.), it is far more difficult for neighbors to live with the sense that one side or another has “won” (Iraq v. Iran, Iraq v. Kuwait, Somalia v. Somalia, Ethiopia v. Eritrea), much less a convincing victory (Israel > Egypt + Jordan + Iraq + Syria + Saudi Arabia). More times than often, one neighbor complete absorbs the other (North Vietnam > South Vietnam). In fact, outside of the Americas and most of Europe, neighbors often exist alongside each other with some unease (North Korea v. South Korea, Japan v. North Korea + South Korea + China, Vietnam v. China, China v. India, Cambodia v. Vietnam, Indonesia v. East Timor, India v. Pakistan, Iran v. Iraq, Serbia v. Croatia, to list just a few outside the Middle East).

In fact, the international system as it currently exists tends to support the underdog blindly. In some case, this may be good, if the underdog was attacked (Bosnia, Kuwait, and Egypt in 1956); in others, it’s probably not good, if the underdog is the aggressor (the occasional incursions by Pakistan). The only exception to this rule is that when Israel is the underdog but not the aggressor, it is not supported (1967, 1973).

A system which applies pressure for war to cease before a workable peace is possible merely buys time for the side that was about to lose. This is not to say whether that’s good or bad, but at least in the case of post-1967 Israel, we’re not talking any longer about states rubbing up against each other, jostling for land and/or resources. No, we’re talking now about an enemy that intends for the complete and irrevocable eradication, not only of the Jewish state, but of any Jewish blood in the Middle East. Against that backdrop, a system that does not allow one side or the other to win is actually a way to lengthen the conflict, not to ameliorate it.

We go to great lengths to say that we want the war to stop because innocents are getting killed. But what we end up doing is forcing the parties to refight the same war every few years. When you add it up, the civilian casualties turn out greater than if we were to let the parties have a free-for-all, last man standing.

If you don’t mind keeping the conflict simmering, then Israel is “overreacting”. But keep in mind that essentially what you’re supporting in this conflict by limiting Israeli options is the continued existence of Hezbollah.

If you want a real end, let Israel do what it must, and punish it later for its excesses.

I’m sure some of the dates can be cleaned up, but overall I think this is a pretty good representation of the current international system, which is in fact a rather “reactionary” one, a truly “conservative” system.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]

Michael Oren is right:

In countering Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel has little choice but to strike at those who authorize the attacks: the heads of those organizations. Both Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza and Hasan Nasrallah in Lebanon appear indifferent to their own people’s safety. For propaganda purposes, they order rocket crews to operate in densely populated areas so that Israeli retaliation will inflict the maximum number of civilian casualties. But these leaders remain extremely reluctant to pay for terror with their own lives, a fact that Israel discovered when its policy of targeted assassinations compelled Hamas to agree to a cease-fire.

By contrast, punishing the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples collectively, as Israel has been doing, only strengthens their support for terror while creating painful ethical problems for Israelis. And negotiating with the terrorists for their hostages’ release merely encourages them to kidnap more Israelis. Ultimately, Israel has no alternative other than convincing these leaders that terror incurs a personal cost.

But even targeted assassinations are no substitute for deterring the state sponsors of terror. Israel cannot hope for quiet along its borders as long as Hamas leaders continue to direct terror with impunity from Damascus and as long as Hezbollah receives orders from Syria and Iran.

Efforts by the United States, the United Nations and the European Union to dissuade Iran and Syria from activating their terrorist agents have consistently proved ineffective. Therefore Israel has no realistic option but to convince these states that the price of promoting aggression is prohibitive. If Israeli soldiers and civilians are the targets of Iranian- and Syrian-backed terror, then the Iranian and Syrian militaries must become targets for Israel.

Iran opened this new front in its war against the West. Syria is Iran’s puppet and ally.

Israel blundered by threatening instead of acting in response to provocation, showing weakness that I think brought on the attacks. Instead of sending planes to buzz Assad’s home Israel should have leveled it. They should have resumed their campaign of assassination against Hamas, and now Hezbollah, leaders. But that’s water under the bridge.

Iran has skillfully exploited the democracies’ aversion to open conflict. The mullahs have played the USA against the Europeans for years, gaining time to pursue WMD programs while the Americans and Euros each hoped the other party would take care of the problem. Now Iran exploits the reluctance of the USA and Israel to do what obviously must be done sooner or later. Israel hopes that the USA will deal with Iran and vice versa.

Israel should take this opportunity (if it hasn’t already done so) to renew its assassination campaign against the Hamas leadership, and to start similar campaigns against the leaders of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Make the leaders personally accountable. Try to kill Assad and his cronies. Go after Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. While they’re at it they should probably also bomb the Iranian oil terminals and other governmental/military targets of opportunity. Such attacks would be audacious and difficult to pull off, but even the attempt would be likely to strike fear into our enemies. And it might succeed.

The people who are behind the war don’t want to be killed or personally endangered. They want to run the campaign by proxy, tie up the Israeli government and military, make life hell for Israeli civilians and split the USA from its Arab allies. So much the better if Israeli counterattacks kill lots of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and encourage Muslim unity against the Islamofascists’ enemies.

Israel should do what the mullahs probably don’t expect. It should take the war to them, personally. If Israel won’t do it, the USA should.

(Via Rachel)

My own guess is that the long-awaited second front (shades of Overlord) will wait on three key things: 1) the strengthening of the Iraqi government; 2) the rebuild of our intel and covert capabilities; and 3) the elections in 2006 and 2008. Just as internal politics plays a huge role in the Jihad it plays a major role in the West. There is a war in the West; a real war. Its principal weapons are ideas, speech, education, politics. Most conservatives are picking up those weapons for the first time, in an ideological sense at least. And they are still very much inferior, man-for-man to the seasoned fighters of the Left. But it’s getting more even all the time.

–Wretchard

This site, “Photos of the Great War”, has many photos from World War I.