Gotta love war, right? No? Well, why then is and has humanity been embroiled in so much of it? If history were viewed from an alien planet taking notes, you’d have to assume that human beings have adopted war as an international pastime the way Brazil (used to?) loves soccer and the United States its baseball. Most wars are brewing long before they erupt in conflict, and with the exception of lions versus mice (U.S. vs. Grenada or Nicaragua, for example), virtually none of the wars “of significance” are ever short.
On the hundredth anniversary of World War I (it didn’t have number when it was declared, remember – it was the war to end all wars), it’s interesting to look back at how the nations involved – never really having fought a massivelymechanized war before – simply ignored the changes in military capacity and arrogantly assumed that the lesson would be learned quickly, that victory was a short moment away. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany told his troops, “You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.” The British and the French measured their expected commitment in months. Years and millions of casualties later, the war actually ended. July 28, 1914 through November 11, 1918.
Mustard gas extinguished lives with soldiers mired in ugly trenches as modern artillery pounded from above. Airplanes flew into battle, dog fights and bombs everywhere, machine guns exterminated soldiers deploying old tactics, as soldiers waddled against barbed-wire, slow-killing stalemates, playing awkwardly with lumbering tanks and battleships blowing away at each other.
In World War II, the Maginot Line – a series of barriers designed with WWI experiences in mind – was perceived to be impenetrable. France was safe! Hitler simply ignored the self-proclaimed Western European neutrals and blitzkrieged his way around the barrier. That war officially began with Germany’s invasion of Poland (you could pick an earlier time) on September 1, 1939 and dragged on until the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945.
Korea was supposed to be a short-lived United Nations “police action,” but it too dragged on: June 25, 1950 through July 27, 1953 (it never really ended; we are still technically at war with North Korea). You’d think America’s battles in Vietnam – which lasted from the time U.S. military advisors arrived in the early 1960s until August 15, 1973 – would have been a lessor for future far away conflicts. You’d think we would have learned from the French experience in that theater (their war lasted from 1946 to 1954 and they lost), but obviously not.
Notwithstanding the utter failure of the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) which provided the tipping point for the collapse of their entire nation, Americans felt that somehow, we’d do better. We invaded after the 9/11/01 attacks on the world trade center, and our troops are still there. The Tailban – new incarnations of the former Mujahadeen that tackled the Soviets – are rising in strength and power. As Iraq unravels with a government we imposed on them, we need to remember we invaded that country from 2003 until 2011. Lost that one too.
As we play whack-a-mole with Muslim extremists – our very actions to subdue them provide the publicity materials that generate donations and recruitment posters. Hard to think of more murderous groups than Nigeria’s Boko Haram (murdering schoolboys in their beds, kidnapping schoolgirls to be sold into barbarous marriages) or ISIS (fond of beheading anyone who opposes them), or more callous barbaric Hamas (trying to generate more pictures of dying Gazans to engender global sympathies – a tactic that seems to be working), and now – burned – we are decreasingly likely to get involved.
Israel – justifiably trying to stop the rain of rockets and seal up the concrete-reinforced tunnels where Hamas killers infiltrate into Israel – seems to be locking into a long conflict to stop – once and for all – Hamas’ ability to attack them. The problem is that Israel has made the same pledges before (remember how they tried to wipe the PLO off the face of the earth only to wind up negotiating with them years later?) without lasting success against any of the terrorist groups they attacked. 100% failure rate. Short-term solutions that seem to work become longer-term realities that don’t. At least they understand that this is going to be long one. Unfortunately, Hamas is getting the global reaction it wants from the civilian casualties they seem committed to foment. More donations. More recruits. More local hatred of Israel. All factors that will haunt Israel for decades to come, regardless of the military victories they are able to line up.
In the end, humanity seems to have a bitter attraction to military solutions, few of which easily accomplish stated goals and too many that actually make the situation much, much worse. It may be nature’s way of dealing with over-population, but you’d think we would look at history and understand that war is a really hard, last choice that is likely to drag on much longer than we expect and often unlikely to solve the problems that caused the war in the first place. But we don’t.
I’m Peter Dekom, and learning from past mistakes seems to be one skillset that is lacking in the vast majority of nations on earth.
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