Daily Alert Archives

Do We Still Understand How Wars Are Won?

(New York Times) Bret Stephens - In World War II, Allied bombers killed 10,000 civilians in the Netherlands, 60,000 in France, 60,000 in Italy, and hundreds of thousands of Germans. All this was part of a declared Anglo-American policy to undermine "the morale of the German people to the point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened." We pursued an identical policy against Japan, where bombardment killed nearly one million civilians. Franklin Roosevelt's portrait hangs in the Oval Office. The bravery of the American bomber crews is celebrated in shows like Apple TV+'s "Masters of the Air." Nations tend to canonize leaders who, faced with the awful choice of evils that every war presents, nonetheless chose morally compromised victories over morally pure defeats. Today, Israel is engaged in the same kind of existential war. Hamas, Hizbullah and their patrons in Iran openly call for Israel to be wiped off the map. In response, it wants to fight aggressively, with the view that it can achieve security only by destroying its enemies' capability and will to wage war. In a war, either you're on the way to victory or on the way to defeat. Right now, the Biden administration is trying to restrain Israel, asking it to fight its war in roughly the same way that the U.S. has fought its own wars in recent decades - with limited means, a limited stomach for what it takes to win, and an eye on the possibility of a negotiated settlement. In the short run, the Biden approach may help relieve humanitarian distress and allay angry constituencies. In the long run, it's a recipe for compelling our allies to lose. A cease-fire with Hamas that leaves the group in control of Gaza means it will inevitably start another war, just as it has five times before. It also vindicates the strategy of using civilian populations as human shields - something Hizbullah will be sure to copy in its next full-scale war with Israel. The least we can do for the Israelis is understand that they have no choice to fight except in the way we once did - back when we knew what it takes to win.
2024-05-30 00:00:00
Full Article