With no real end in sight in the War on Terror, the “new normal” of constant deployments and unending conflict is a condition that the majority of the military has come to accept. Is there a better way?
In a wide survey of history beginning with the Theban Wars (382 BC) and culminating with the successful occupation of Japan (1945), John David Lewis argues, in Nothing Less Than Victory, that protracted warfare is never a necessity, but rather a result of flawed strategy and political failure. War is always quick when fought with proper objectives and aimed at the enemies ideological center of gravity.
“The lives of soldiers and civilians depend upon clear statements of the objectives to be achieved and a commitment to create the resources necessary to prevail,” Lewis argues. “Without clearly stated, rational objectives,” war becomes “a circular process of bloodshed rather than a goal-directed offense, and military victories on the battlefield [become] irrelevant to the outcome…” Lewis explains that in all of his examples, aggressors launch wars “bent on loot, conquest, or slaves” and that the defenders were unable to act as long as they failed to properly identify the threat. In fact, the defenders “abetted the slaughter as long as they failed to confront the true source of the attacks. Once they did, the battle and the conflict turned quickly in their favor.”
Dr. Lewis is a visiting associate professor of philosophy, politics, and economics at Duke University. He draws on over 2,000 years of Western History to demonstrate the need for quick, decisive victory.
For example, in 208 B.C. the Romans had been invaded by Hannibal, and lost during every attempt to oppose him directly. The Roman leader Quintus Fabius implemented a defensive strategy where towns were evacuated and burned that were in the path of Hannibal. Only this scotched-earth policy of “Fabian-delay” could manage Hannibal despite placing Roman civilians in the situation of having to accept an invading army on their soil indefinitely. This situation went on for 15 years with no hope of resolution in sight when Scipio Africanus finally developed a solution. He brilliantly overcame the false alternative of either accepting the roaming enemies on his soil verses launching ineffective attacks against Hannibal. Scipio decided to raise an army and launch a quick, decisive attack against Carthage itself. This resulted in Hannibal rushing back to Carthage to defend his homeland, and an ultimate Roman victory at Zama which ended of the war and established a lasting peace.
Although Lewis does not state the parallels, it is impossible not to see the relationship between our current “fortress America” of metal detectors and color-coded security warnings, and the situation the Roman’s found themselves in during Hannibal’s invasion when “an entire generation of Romans grew used to a foreign army on its home soil.”
In one of the most compelling chapters, Dr. Lewis launches what is probably the most systematic ethical defense of the nuclear bombing of Japan ever written. Citing the projected casualty figures of the planned ground invasion of Japan, the suicidal last-ditch defense planned by Japanese Leaders, the fact that the Japanese– not American soldiers– were responsible for the war, and a myriad of other factors, John Lewis contends that the use of Atomic bombs was the only moral and practical course of action. Lewis explains that “the complete loss of hope was central to Japan’s decision to surrender” and that only a demonstration that “Americans were willing and able to remain offshore and bomb Japan into the bedrock” could result in an immediate end to the war.
Military readers will come away with a better grasp of history, and will be compelled by the argument that war can only be won with a decisive attack on the enemy’s ideological, political, and social center of gravity.
“These wars were fought by commanders who were oriented toward solid objectives and who used flexible strategies to pursue firm goals with an inflexible will…” summarizes Lewis. “Each struck to the center of his enemy’s strength, and achieved a physical victory that extinguished the moral and ideological fire behind the fight.”
