15 December 2006

The Enemy Gets a Vote

We are all citizens of the American Century. It has been a great time, though it comes with a certain amount of hubris, I know, and that has proved fatal to all the civilizations who have put their stamp on an Age.

It did with the Athenians in their Peloponnesian War, and to the proud Romans, and the Victorians in their time.

Each of the last two had their own eras. The Peace imposed by the Roman Empire was longer by far than that maintained by British Royal Navy. Technology has its own imperatives, and shortens the cycle of undisputed power.

That led to an American Century that has lasted only about sixty years.

It is not over, mind you, and nothing yet is carved in stone and then cast asunder.

You could even date the era of undisputed American supremacy back to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, since the Russians had a clear vote in about how the future was going to be written. World War II left two powers standing, the Russians with their vast Red Army, and the Americans, whose homeland never saw much of the scourge of war.

The sharp conflict in Korea was a prominent punctuation mark in the American Century, and Vietnam, in the parlance of the day, was a real bummer.

Even so, the economic colossus in North America made it possible to spend the Russians into bankruptcy, even as Mujahadeen surrogates of the American Eagle galled the Russian Bear in Afghanistan.

In 1991, it was popular to talk about harvesting the "Peace Dividend", though people in my line of work suggested it would only be a window of a decade or so until the next threats to American supremacy would arise. We began a withdrawal from Asia, left the Afghans to their own devices, and Presidents of both parties cut defense spending,

The shock of 9/11 brought war in South Asia, as "the only Superpower," sailed off into new conflicts with "transformed" forces against the advice of those who commanded them. Simultaneously, the Administraiton cut taxes and provided guns and butter to all.

I don't know how that is supposed toi work. No Great Power has done it for long, though they all have tried. In the end, that is exactly what has brought them low.

It does not have to be that way, not necessarily. There is time for a change, if there is the will to do so.

In my experience, all the planning and assumptions that are done in a military campaign has to have a blank in one of the fields in the equation.

One forgets that fact at great peril. You see, in any scheme, and really in any century, the Enemy also gets a vote.

Whether you like it or not.

Close Window