Logic Times

Conditional Support for War

Posted by Aslan, 12/29/04, 11:32pm.  Comments (3)

 

In a pure exercise of military power, the United States armed forces cannot be defeated.  This is a statement of fact that not even the most extreme anti-American would contest.

 

When the United States deploys its military in a cause that it believes to be in its critical self-interest, what then is the standard of victory for the enemy? To defeat that which cannot be defeated.  Any opponent of our military machine is confronted with the insurmountable task of assembling more firepower, better intelligence, more highly skilled personnel, superior technology and greater wealth than the United States of America.  This is not remotely possible.

 

However, there is a non-military component to the application of force – is the action supported by the people – is it justified?  If morally justified and strongly supported, then the full application of military power is expected, and the standard for the weaker nation to prevail is out of reach.  This we saw in Afghanistan. Post 9-11, the American people overwhelmingly considered this military action to be justified.  The United States therefore entered that operation with the full threat of its military behind every move, every negotiation.  This flipped Pakistan, a strong advocate of the Taliban, and made short work of Afghanistan, the vaunted slayer of empires.  

 

A fully supported American military operation (which implies the American people see it as justified) will inevitably achieve victory given the current array of military powers in the world.  It further follows that the only chance to defeat the United States in a war is to avoid the full might of its military and instead focus on eroding American support for the military action in question.  Without unconditional support, there emerges a cost threshold beyond which support will be withdrawn, resulting in political management of the conflict and a chance for the enemy to prevail.  This we saw in Viet Nam following the Tet Offensive. We also saw this in Mogadishu, where we were strategically defeated despite a weak enemy that suffered massive casualties.

    

What happens when unconditional support for a military operation becomes conditional?  

  • Unconditional support recognizes that the operation is essential regardless of the potential costs associated with the action.  By virtue of our power and wealth, victory becomes inevitable.
  • Conditional support views the operation as desirable, but not essential, and the cost influences the support.  This is how the left, recently lead by John Kerry, views Iraq:

      Diane SAWYER: So it (the Iraq War) was not worth it?

      John KERRY: We should not -- depends on the outcome ultimately – “

      (Good Morning America, September, 2004)

What is the devastating effect on our military when unconditional support is denied and the military operation receives only conditional support?

  1. Conditional support communicates to our opponent that the United States can be defeated.  Support is dependent upon a certain reduced-cost outcome and support will be withdrawn if that cost threshold is exceeded.  
  2. Conditional support restrains our military planners who know that the full application of military power may be a factor that influences tenuous support.  This restraint results in a more hazardous environment for our military and ultimately costs the lives of American soldiers (e.g., Somalia).
  3. Conditional support emboldens our enemy to resist in the hopes of reaching the conditional threshold. In an engagement with the U.S. military where support is unconditional, the enemy must operate without hope of success, which demoralizes and leads to rapid victory.
  4. Conditional support lengthens any military engagement beyond its normal course (when the enemy is emboldened to resist, the conflict is extended).

The most devastating consequence of conditional support – most commonly seen in the phrase “I support the troops, but not the war” – is that we communicate to the enemy we can be beaten. The emboldened enemy will then try and elevate the cost in American lives to such a point that the support evaporates.  

 

There is no greater disservice to our troops than to openly fault the war in which they are risking everything.  The time for debate in a representative republic is before war.  Once we commit as a nation to war, the time for debate is over.  War is not a tax bill or stadium levy.  War is life and death.  The time for support is upon us.  

    This is the price that our soldiers require from the people they defend: to maximize their chance for success and survival with an unconditional message to the enemy that the massive might of the American military and the unshakeable will of the American people is behind each and every soldier.

With Viet Nam, it became fashionable to suppose that protest was American.  It was free speech.  This is not so.  Protest before war, fierce debate in Congress, grass roots activism - these things are American. Protest during war is treason, developed in the Constitution as follows (taken from here):

    1.2. Article III, Section 3. of the United States Constitution defines the crime of treason. Title 18, USCS, (Crimes and Criminal Procedure) Section 2381 of the Federal Statutes which is the Federal Statute implementing Article III, Section 3, of the Constitution, further defines treason as follows:

     

      Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or be imprisoned for not less than five years, and fined not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding office under the United States.

     

    1.3. The case of United States v Haupt, D.C.III., 47 Supp. 836, 839 expanded the definition of treason to mean any act which 'strengthens or tends to strengthen the ability of the enemies of the United States or which weakens or tends to weaken the power of the United States to resist such enemies.'

Conditional support “strengthens or tends to strengthen the ability of the enemies of the United States.”

 

Conditional support reveals a weakness in American character to avoid assaults on a comfortable way of life, a weakness that has empowered the very Islamic movement we are now fighting:

    "Using very meager resources and military means, the Afghan mujahidin demolished one of the most important human myths in history and the biggest military apparatus. We no longer fear the so-called Great Powers. We believe that America is much weaker than Russia; and our brothers who fought in Somalia told us that they were astonished to observe how weak, impotent, and cowardly the American soldier is. As soon as 80 American troops were killed, they fled in the dark as fast they could, after making a great of noise about the new international order. America's nightmares in Vietnam and Lebanon will pale by comparison with the forthcoming victory in al-Hijaz."

     

    Osama bin Ladin, recruiting tape found in Afghanistan, post 9-11.

The purpose of the More Fuzzy Moral Math essay was to isolate those who do not support the war because of their concern for our soldiers. Such a philosophy puts those soldiers at greater risk; it is moral cowardice and has created and emboldened an enemy that now hopes to leverage our weakness into victory, a victory that would be otherwise impossible.

 

 

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