What these statements reveal is the change in the nature of modern warfare. For years, we believed that the ultimate modern war would be fought on the Fulda Gap between massive tank armies arrayed along a continent-wide battlefield augmented by a sophisticated, multi-dimensional battle space that encompassed air power, naval power, long-range rocket systems and information dominance fought out in cyberspace. The truth of the matter is that Vietnam was the forerunner of the modern 21st century war. For a long time, the military treated Vietnam as the anomaly to modern war-fighting doctrine when it was, in fact, the blueprint of how future wars were going to be fought.
Modern war in the 21st century is not won or lost on the battlefield. It is won or lost back home by the opinions formed in the minds of the average American. It's not the tactical command post where battle strategies are formed. It's the chambers of the House and Senate where these strategies are truly developed. War is no longer a matter of killing bad guys and destroying enemy equipment. Wars are now defined by the perceptions portrayed by the news media, the internet and sound bites uttered by politicians. The Truth is no longer a factor; Perception is the only factor.
The military is still a viable tool in enforcing foreign policy; but modern leaders need to understand that today's military can only be used as a temporary solution and not a long-range solution. Send in the military; gain the immediate objectives; then pull the military out and go back to diplomacy, economic pressure, humanitarian aid and other incentives/sanctions as the long-range strategy. Otherwise, we will end up going from one quagmire to another.
Vietnam was the primer, and we collectively ignored it.
What they reveal is a change in who controls society, and who has the voice. When the pussies take charge, it's over. The fact is, SunniMan's crap about the anti-war crowd being right applies only to losers who have no f-ing idea where they came from, and have lost the stones to stand up for who they are and what they believe.
They are the weak. Those protected by the strong. Every society in which the weak has legislated the strong out of power has COLLAPSED. Pick one and argue otherwise.
By the most conservative definition, we shouldn't get involved in the affairs of other countries unless they attack us directly. By that strict definition, we had no business attacking Afghanistan. I don't happen to agree with that, but I mention it just to emphasize how modern warfare has changed. There's more to it than just going over to another country and kicking someone's ass.
In the past, it was pretty easy to define who was the enemy and whose ass we needed to kick. This is no longer true today. It has nothing to do with the politics of left vs. right, liberal vs. conservatives, MSNBC vs. FOXNews or Democrats vs. Republicans. Unlike the traditional wars of the past, we can't simply draw battle lines on a map and define victory in terms of seizing terrain because we no longer seize and control terrain. We occupy terrain still populated by civilians, some of whom may be insurgents who serve our troops breakfast in the morning and plant IEDs on a road at night.
Just to set the record straight, all I've been referring to is the deployment of conventional troops into an unconventional scenario. That's a recipe for disaster, again, as we learned in Vietnam. I am, on the other hand, a big proponent for the employment of special operations forces. President John Kennedy was way ahead of his time when he instituted the use of Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs which eventually grew into the modern JSOC. The problem is that to truly implement SOF, we have to have an open mind. Culturally, we don't. It's across the political spectrum and not just limited to the left or right. It's both. Look at how upset the nation got over a couple pictures of some naked Iraqis in a prison cell. Until we learn to stop being so squeamish over these things, we won't be able to unleash the full potential of special operations doctrine. The French, Brits and Aussies don't have a problem with how they implement their Shadow Warriors.
We do.
