Larry Schweikart: Says we'll win the war on terrorism
This just in: We’re going to win the war on terror. Or so University of Dayton history professor Larry Schweikart says. He is author of the new book, America’s Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars and Will Win the War on Terror and thinks the case is made in American military and political history. Schweikart went through some of it in an interview with National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: So why does the U.S. win wars?
Larry Schweikart: The glib answer is (cue Bill Murray from Stripes), “We’re Americans, dammit!” In fact, there are several characteristics of American fighting forces — some of them unique to us, some common to most Western nations — that make it difficult for us to lose. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, all free individuals in a volunteer force, come from a remarkably typical cross-section of American society, and always have. Whether it was the free men of color, Indians, and Baratarian pirates who fought under Andy Jackson or the special-ops forces riding horses to rain down precision-guided munitions on the Taliban, our military has generally represented our society almost perfectly. “It ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son,” sang Creedence Clearwater Revival, but in fact the modern military has a higher proportion of sons and daughters of our elected officials than from the population as a whole; and zip-code studies have shown that virtually every zip code is represented pretty proportionally, including the infamous 90210. (Note to John Kerry: The Northeast has, except for the Civil War and the Revolution, been notoriously underrepresented in our wars).
Americans win wars because we learn from loss — this is a no brainer, but there have been, and are today, cultures that find shame and dishonor in admitting a mistake, and thus can’t fix it. We win wars because our fighting men and women are the best trained in the world, then we give them unprecedented levels of autonomy, so that, as one American officer put it, a U.S. sergeant has the operational autonomy of most Middle Eastern colonels. Americans are successful in wars because we embrace technology, which itself comes from a society that tolerates failure and the ability to adjust to a bad hypothesis; we are successful because our protesters actually have caused the military, through their constant focus on American casualties, to relentlessly push down the level of casualties we take and push up the levels we inflict on others; and we are successful because above all we subscribe to concepts of sanctity of life that lead us to “leave no man behind.” In fact, I can find no other military in human history that has attempted so many times to rescue its own prisoners of war.
Lopez: Even so, isn’t your declaration that we will win the war on terror ridiculously optimistic? How do you know?
Schweikart: If it was based on mere political punditry, it might be optimistic. I base my views on the historical record. If you ask any historian, “When did we win the war in the Pacific?” the answer would almost always be, “Midway.” After that, Japan couldn’t win — the only issue was the final, often gruesome, death toll. Think of that! That’s years before Iwo Jima or Okinawa, and yet historically the war was over after June 1942. Likewise, if you look at the Filipino Insurrection (1899-1902, followed by the “Moro Wars”) — which mirrors Iraq very closely, the war was over when William McKinley was reelected. It took two more years for Emilio Aguinaldo to admit defeat, but his stated goal of forcing a political solution by “un-electing” McKinley was finished. I think we hit the “tipping point” in Fallujah in November 2004. After that, the terrorists could no longer hold up in any town for long, nor could they organize effectively. Zarqawi’s recent death closely resembles our Pacific model as well when American P-38s ambushed Isoroku Yamamoto and killed him. Historically, of the 11 “insurgencies” and “guerilla wars” of the 20th century (including Vietnam), the government (in this case, that would be us) won eight. However, most of these took between five and eight years to win. That places us right on our timetable, which is to expect the death throes of the terrorists in Iraq in another year or two. ...
Read entire article at National Review Online
Kathryn Jean Lopez: So why does the U.S. win wars?
Larry Schweikart: The glib answer is (cue Bill Murray from Stripes), “We’re Americans, dammit!” In fact, there are several characteristics of American fighting forces — some of them unique to us, some common to most Western nations — that make it difficult for us to lose. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, all free individuals in a volunteer force, come from a remarkably typical cross-section of American society, and always have. Whether it was the free men of color, Indians, and Baratarian pirates who fought under Andy Jackson or the special-ops forces riding horses to rain down precision-guided munitions on the Taliban, our military has generally represented our society almost perfectly. “It ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son,” sang Creedence Clearwater Revival, but in fact the modern military has a higher proportion of sons and daughters of our elected officials than from the population as a whole; and zip-code studies have shown that virtually every zip code is represented pretty proportionally, including the infamous 90210. (Note to John Kerry: The Northeast has, except for the Civil War and the Revolution, been notoriously underrepresented in our wars).
Americans win wars because we learn from loss — this is a no brainer, but there have been, and are today, cultures that find shame and dishonor in admitting a mistake, and thus can’t fix it. We win wars because our fighting men and women are the best trained in the world, then we give them unprecedented levels of autonomy, so that, as one American officer put it, a U.S. sergeant has the operational autonomy of most Middle Eastern colonels. Americans are successful in wars because we embrace technology, which itself comes from a society that tolerates failure and the ability to adjust to a bad hypothesis; we are successful because our protesters actually have caused the military, through their constant focus on American casualties, to relentlessly push down the level of casualties we take and push up the levels we inflict on others; and we are successful because above all we subscribe to concepts of sanctity of life that lead us to “leave no man behind.” In fact, I can find no other military in human history that has attempted so many times to rescue its own prisoners of war.
Lopez: Even so, isn’t your declaration that we will win the war on terror ridiculously optimistic? How do you know?
Schweikart: If it was based on mere political punditry, it might be optimistic. I base my views on the historical record. If you ask any historian, “When did we win the war in the Pacific?” the answer would almost always be, “Midway.” After that, Japan couldn’t win — the only issue was the final, often gruesome, death toll. Think of that! That’s years before Iwo Jima or Okinawa, and yet historically the war was over after June 1942. Likewise, if you look at the Filipino Insurrection (1899-1902, followed by the “Moro Wars”) — which mirrors Iraq very closely, the war was over when William McKinley was reelected. It took two more years for Emilio Aguinaldo to admit defeat, but his stated goal of forcing a political solution by “un-electing” McKinley was finished. I think we hit the “tipping point” in Fallujah in November 2004. After that, the terrorists could no longer hold up in any town for long, nor could they organize effectively. Zarqawi’s recent death closely resembles our Pacific model as well when American P-38s ambushed Isoroku Yamamoto and killed him. Historically, of the 11 “insurgencies” and “guerilla wars” of the 20th century (including Vietnam), the government (in this case, that would be us) won eight. However, most of these took between five and eight years to win. That places us right on our timetable, which is to expect the death throes of the terrorists in Iraq in another year or two. ...