The Ratchet and the Governor – Tools for Today – Part II
The lead in post is here….
Look at our pattern of waging since we have twice used miniature suns on our enemies:
Korea – Took the attack, got rolled back, finally got into the battle, rolled over the enemy, right up to the far end of their country, when we let them. joined by their allies, push us back and a long term armistice has been in place ever since, the Korean War having nver reached “closure.”
Vietnam – Took over from our allies, brought a conventional military, in terms of equipment and mindset, designed for a fight against an armor heavy military, into triple canopy jungles, initially to fight against an un-uniformed militia. While we dominated on the battlefields, even with our historical mindset and equipment limitations, world political opinion was picked up by our own governmental authorities, and we declared victory and departed, promising support for our allied forces. Strategically, we lost the war and the cause of world communism enslaved the people of South Vietnam, when too many loud voices said we couldn’t stomach the carnage anymore. In this war, we faced an enemy who wanted us out our their country, which, was definable by internationally recognized lines on maps.
Gulf War I – A defined mission to liberate Kuwait was handily achieved, using tactics requiring entry into a second nation (Iraq). While the military sought to not only push the aggressors out of Kuwait, they began to neutralize, by elimination, the forces of Saddam Hussein. With his paper tiger military was trapped on the “Highway of Death” while leaving Kuwait, our public opinion lost it’s stomach once more and demanded the end of the carnage, which was actually the strategic destruction of enemy armed forces, and was not engaging civilians. Once again, we fought against a country, one that we could identify on a map. We pushed them back within their borders.
The Global War on Terror – We have used far fewer troops to control two foreign nation far from our shores than any nation has used before in a “war.” We have been exceedingly “delicate” in the application of force, which has left mostly infrastructure intact, compared to the carpet bombing in WWII. We now are hamstrung by an enemy that knows no national boundaries, flies no flag, and wears civilian clothing, operating freely in all nations of the world. The stated goal of the enemy is not for us to leave “their land,” for “their land” is the entire planet. As a result, they are demanding the conquest of all lands of the world. We may leave Afghanistan and Iraq, but that will not be the end of the conflict. At best, it will provide a time to breathe, but no more.
This discussion is about our “governor,” metaphor being the control imposed, short of being able to reach full power on a piece of machinery, a limiting device. I would contend, with each conflict after WWII, we went in and adjusted the governor each time to a lower level than before, while at the same time, we were engineering more and greater military might and technical ability to attack anyone who attacks us.
Why? That is the main question.
You can understand the nations of the rest of the world, our allies, our enemies, and those who are still trying to decide who to stand with in the future, is looking at our much publicized debate and hoping they have correctly ascertained a trend in our policy and actions. The hope of the enemy is we will, lose our lunch and and, maybe, unlike Vietnam, not have the politicians declare victory and then bring the troops home (More like force the withdrawal by cutting off the appropriations money), but this time, following the trend line established, declare we are defeated in our effort to attack a root cause of aggression not only against us, but against all peoples who do not declare Islam as their guiding principle, and tell the rest of the world, from the mouths of our most senior elected officials, we should be ashamed of having sent out troops to their doorstep, to barge in and rape their daughters and kill their sons and fathers, and then cut off the funding, causing a “redeployment” all the way back to their stateside bases.
So, we are coming to a crossroad in our history. Do we, with the most powerful weaponry, the most militarily effective, yet compassionate people every to step forward in the defense of our nation, allow people, who are now well over 30, yet proclaimed “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” while they are young, to emasculate the military, so they may bow before any other country who does not “like” what we do?
It is clear. The projection of the ability to back up your statements, showing your strength, is what the world respects, unless you are the strong one. It is a particular human condition to try to tear down the ones who have risen to the top. We see it in the business world, as software companies went to Congress to try to break up Microsoft. We see the liberals attacking Wal-Mart, and we have the Islamofascists telling the world we need to be conquered. The enemy, respects the strength of our military, and like the Soviets, realize they cannot beat us on the battlefield. They can, as proven in Vietnam, in Central America, and to a lesser extent, in Gulf War I, defeat us by turning the stomachs of those in Congress and a few widely respected media outlets.
We have the answer and it also shows the degree of schizophrenia that has come to be accepted within our society. That will be the topic of Part III of this serial posting.
Categories: Geo-Political, History, Military, Military History, Political