Reinventing War

There’s a fascinating little spot here in my town where a shed once stood. Now only a bronze marker remains to remind us where and when the rules on how to fight a war changed.  Torn down long ago, the shed was the spot where Lt.Col. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and British General Braddock met to plan the ill-fated attack on Fort Duquesne (located where Pittsburgh now stands.)  It is said that Washington and Franklin pleaded long and hard for Braddock to alter his plans to march his troops, bagpipes skirling, proud in their British scarlet, cumbersome supply wagons in tow, through the Ohio Territory wilderness to attack the French Fort. But Braddock, victor on European battlefields, knew better, and insisted on doing it his way. The Indian allies of the French taught him even better, too late.

The rules on how best to fight a war have changed many times, not just at Ft. Duquesne. The Romans learned from losses to neighboring Italian rivals the value of the short sword over the long sword.  The English long bows at Agincourt taught the French about missile warfare. I remain amused after 50 years at reading the remark in Froissart’s Chronicles (think of him as the blogger of the late Middle Ages) that “War has become so terrible that it is no longer possible.” Over centuries, we have gotten better and better, from skirmish lines and snipers to Atomic Bombs to predator drones, at the weaponry of war. It remains possible, and we think we Americans are the best at conducting it.  Even against widely dispersed enemies like terrorists in the Middle East, we think we are really good and getting better.  But we are now at a “Ft. Duquesne” moment where the nature of war itself is being redefined and the battlefields have become invisible.  And we are behaving more like General Braddock than like Washington or Franklin.

In a global age dominated by economic strength as much as military force, our allies, our opponents and our trading partners often  become the same thing and both visible peace and invisible war are waged concurrently.  In a May 30 article in the Washington Post, Dominic Basulto argues that we are entering a new age where shadow, “plausibly deniable”, perpetual cyber-wars are being fought among nations and shadow nations, who on the surface may be friends and allies.  The wars are perpetual, without beginning or end, targets are ambiguous, and participants are often indistinguishable from bystanders. And, as Basulto points out, even the allegiances of participants are often invisible.  The wars themselves are only part of invisible power struggles which may be more economic and corporate than military and national.  Success is measured not by military victories, but by the relative health of whole economies.

  China, for example, one of our largest trading partners, is stealing us blind with cyber invasions aimed at obtaining business secrets from our corporations.  They are doing the same with Germany, with whom they just entered a trading alliance.  The U.S. is accused by Germany of bugging Merkel’s phone. Russian hackers, government backed or on their own – who’s to say -, are supposed to have stolen millions of passwords from U.S. websites. Simultaneously, Russia is working with us against the ISIS terrorists while opposing any U.N. action against Hamas and is sending a humanitarian – or is it? –convoy into Ukraine.  ama.HIs a Cold War II occurring?  Are these allies or enemies? No one seems quite sure.

We have entered a period when military superiority is often only a small part of the power equations, but the General Braddocks in our Congress haven’t caught on yet. The new solutions to global conflicts will rarely be only the application of military force; sometimes military intervention will be needed and at other times our worst choice.  Both hawks and doves need to learn that, and it’s a hard lesson. Often, both victories and defeats will remain hidden, not available for review.  

We may already have victories to cheer, but don’t know about them. Defeats tend to be the ones heard about. On the surface, it appears we, particularly our representatives in Congress, are off to a shaky start and need to study harder. For starters, we need to learn that Middle Eastern problems, from Gaza to Afghanistan, are not going to be solved by military force – that’s been tried many times and always failed. And that successes of America domestically count as much or more than military victories abroad.  And that diplomacy is nuanced as never before.  Traditional American jingoism will never solve our problems.  The McCains who never saw a fight they didn’t want to join, like the Braddocks, are dangerous leaders into this new wilderness.