Focal Points

It has been said of war that amateurs talk about tactics, while professionals talk about logistics. There has been a lot of talk about tactics in the war on terror lately: to what extent were Iraq and al Qaeda co-operating, where are the rest of the Iraqi WMD programs dismantled before and during the war, how extensive is the Darfur genocide going to become, has Zarkawi taken over operational control of al Qaeda in the greater Mid-East, will NATO contribute troops to Iraq, and so forth. The answers are actually utterly meaningless to determining the course of the war - no more important really than Midway was to determining the outcome of WWII in the Pacific.

Since Midway was the turning point, and resulted in the gutting of the Japanese Navy, most people assume that we would have lost the war in the Pacific if we had lost Midway as badly as the Japanese did. In fact this is not the case. Japan lost 4 carriers at Midway, of the 20 total it produced from the 1920's to the end of the war (some of which were never deployed due to lack of air crews). We had 3 carriers at Midway, of which we lost 1, but produced 15 carriers (not including escort carriers) in 1943 alone (by V-J day, we had commissioned 34 CVs and CVLs, had a good half-dozen being build, and had already cancelled many more). Even if we had lost all three carriers at Midway, and the Japanese had lost none, Japan would have been outnumbered and outclassed by the middle of 1943. Similarly, how many troops are in Iraq from which nations is a sideshow: unless we withdraw because of a moral failure, the US has enough troops committed to prevent Iraq falling apart.

In this war, logistics per se is not really at issue: the US can move its forces and those of its allies about, and keep them remarkably well-supplied. The jihadis are bound to supply more like medieval armies than modern ones, foraging off the civilian societies where they take root. There are a few issues which are key to the eventual outcome, however, in the same way that industrial production and the means to move supplies are key to a total war between industrial nations:

• The morale of the US public in particular, and of the publics of free-market democracies in general (Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, and Canada foremost among them). If the American will to fight collapses, the war will eventually be lost. This is why it is so frustrating to watch Western press coverage, which frequently seems to be hoping for our defeat, apparently without realizing that this is not Viet Nam: the enemy will follow us home this time.
  
• Control of oil. The world needs it; the US protects its supply for the rest of the world; the major sources are largely on the jihadis' home ground. The oil for food scandal at the UN, the attacks on Western oil workers through the Mid-East and the attacks on oil tankers all figure in to who controls the oil. If the jihadis succeed in taking control of a large fraction of Mid-East oil, they will be in a position to dictate terms to most industrial nations, and to wreck many industrialized economies. If they are merely able to disrupt supplies extensively, they can wreck many industrialized economies.
  
• The jihadi religio-cultural value system. In order for the democracies to win the Terror Wars, this ideology must be as thoroughly discredited as the Japanese militant nationalism of WWII.
  
• The continued existence of states which sponsor, arm and/or protect terrorists. Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, at least, will need to be dealt with. As long as such states exist - or lawless areas like much of Africa where jihadis can find sanctuary - the war cannot be won by the West.
  
• Nuclear proliferation. Should nuclear weapons ever come into the hands of the jihadis, the only likely outcome is genocide on a scale of millions.

These factors are key to the Terror Wars, and without understanding where we stand on these points, it is not possible to understand the state of the war. Sadly, our media is not well-equipped to evaluate and report these stories, because they aren't nearly as exciting as those few places where we are imperfect - or can be made to appear so. Nor are such stories nearly as likely to bring professional renown to a reporter as a hit piece on an American politician.

My I recommend Belmont Club, Little Green Footballs, USS Clueless and Winds of Change as good places to get such information?

Posted by Jeff at June 18, 2004 02:59 PM | Link Cosmos