The Seductive Short War Myth

---by Micheal

Middle East insurgents boast openly that they plan to win by simply outlasting western forces (i.e. America). It's not that they have deeper pockets or larger stockpiles of goods. What they're openly banking on, is America's lack of resolve. They're banking on Afghanistan and Iraq becoming "another Vietnam" in which America loses heart and bails out.

FoxNews just released a story about a letter from Aymen al-Zawahiri to his top deputy in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (FoxNews story) "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam — and how they ran and left their agents — is noteworthy. ... We must be ready starting now."

The insurgents are counting on American culture not having the fortitude to stay and finish what they started. America has developed a taste for short, flashy "wars" with gizmo bombs and few casualties. The seductive myth of the short war isn't new, nor does America alone suffer from it. Europe is equally seduced.

The Short War Myth arose in the late 1800s, shortly after Prussia kicked France's backside (Franco-Prussian War) in a matter of weeks. This, the pundits imagined, was how wars will be from now on: Short, hot, not-too-disruptive. The destructive power of (then) new techno-weapons, like the machine gun, airplane and submarine were thought to frighten nations into only fighting short wars, low-destruction, wars.

World War One proved the Short War Myth to be very wrong. Nations did employ their techno-killing-machines on each other and they did it for four long years, killing millions. World War Two was no smaller, nor shorter. But did anyone learn from them?

Apparently not. Some "peace activists" are clamoring that America should pull out of Iraq -- primarily because it's going on too long. The seductive lie of the Short War Myth is very much alive and well.

Did Bush lie to get us in? Maybe. Is the world better without Saddam? Seems so. We can argue about many aspects of the war, but to argue for its end on the grounds that it's gone on too long, is the Myth talking.