The Most Immoral Way of War

What contributes to the extreme arguments about the morality of Western conduct in modern wars is not so much the tactics but rather our failure to sacrifice. Due to inadequate means, our war-fighting capacity is too often inadequate to the tasks, which increases the frustrations that lead to either demands to be more brutal or receptivity to those who would have the West be lambs to the slaughter.

Some will argue that there’s no place in war for morality, particularly when one’s adversaries choose entirely immoral means that leave Westerners at a disadvantage, and particularly (the case of Israel most often cited) where actual survival is in immediate peril. Such arguments have validity, especially when placed against the other extreme so common in the West among internal adversaries of Western civilization -- whether directly or through timidity or relativist confusion -- that almost anything done by the West is immoral.

But the validity of being far more brutal – not just having more sensible rules of engagement that recognize battlefield realities – holds up only if one is willing to ignore that we are Westerners. The values and interests we are willing to fight for include limitations on levels of violence that were once more common and accepted in the West.

Where Westerners have diverged more from the past – and its lessons -- is in forsaking preparedness for war. To be unprepared is the larger immorality, and creates needs for or conditions for individual combat immoralities. Europe is incapable of deploying, without U.S. logistics, even puny forces against puny foes. Israel has slacked in its preparedness, not yet fatally. But, the U.S. is, also, incapable of fielding forces adequate to the larger foes.

Consequently, going to war with the military we have (as Rumsfeld had to, following the “peace dividend” ‘90’s reduction of our military), results in less forces being applied than necessary to complete the job in Iraq. Perhaps we’ll craft a solution, through perseverance of our superb volunteer military and some able statecraft. Those forces are still formidable.

However, it would have been more moral – defined as lower casualties among Americans and Iraqis, more infrastructure built there, more assurance of more lasting internal and regional peace, and even more impetus to spreading democracy -- to have at hand and committed adequate forces to begin with.

A Richard Cohen, at least partially, tries to be honest about his shifting motivations being due to perceptions of whether we’re winning or not:

There is the "I" who originally thought the Vietnam War was morally correct, that the communists were awful people and that the loss of South Vietnam (the North was already gone) would result in a debacle for its people. That's, in fact, what happened. It was only later, when I myself was in the Army, that I deemed the war not worth killing or dying for. By then I -- the second "I" -- no longer felt it was winnable, and I did not want to lose my life so that somehow defeat could be managed more elegantly.

Things are precisely the same with Iraq…

Iraqis have similar perceptions about which course works for them, reliance on the inadequate U.S. presence or on their own sect and settling matters themselves.

Joe Galloway’s empathy for the battlefield grunt impels him to much of his opposition to our Iraq engagement, in my opinion excessively negatively. Still, his core point about “Time to Fix What's Broken,” is completely on target, if we care about morality of either tactics or strategy, not to mention winning and survival.

In this dangerous world, Americans must be willing to pay for an Army, and they must be willing to send their sons and daughters to serve in that Army. Nations that are unwilling to defend themselves and are governed by an elite that's unwilling to send its own children to be part of that defense, are doomed.

The Bush administration says we're embarked on what it defines as a long war - 40 or 50 or 60 years of struggle with the forces of Islamic fundamentalism - and if that's true, then it's long past time to begin making some sacrifices at home to prepare to fight and win that war.

Mr. Gates can begin his brief tour as secretary of defense by jacking up the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon's 20-year look at the future and what will be funded in our defense budgets, and re-ordering its priorities. He must make the hard decisions that Mr. Rumsfeld promised to make but never did.

We cannot have business as usual in the Pentagon. We cannot continue to fund huge aircraft and ship purchases for the Air Force and Navy while starving the Army and Marines who are bearing the brunt of the fighting and dying in this brave new world of ours. Boots on the ground are not as glamorous - or as lucrative to defense contractors - as the high technology so beloved by Mr. Rumsfeld. But in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, there is still no substitute for them.

My old friend Col. (ret.) T. R. Fehrenbach wrote in his landmark history of the Korean War that a nation that wants to hold the barbarians at bay must be willing to put its sons on the ground, in the mud and the blood. It also must be willing to pay the price for an Army and a Marine Corps that's fully manned, well trained, and equipped and supported with everything it needs.

Without that, this brave new century and millennium that were celebrated as America's will swiftly become someone's else's, and we will become no more than a footnote in history - a nation whose days of glory and power numbered only half a century or so.