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logo    Winning the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq


Human beings apparently have a predilection for allowing meaningless language to influence their thoughts and actions. People are asking, for example, Are we winning the war in Iraq? Some answer in the affirmative, others in the negative, but does anyone really know what this question means?

For example, if we take World War II as the paradigm (we could go back much further) the scenario is two or more countries each with its own national army declaring war on each other. Battles ensue and eventually one side surrenders, bringing about a peace treaty. At the end of World War II in Europe, Germany signed a document of surrender with each of the allied countries. And that is what winning a war meant: one protagonist surrenders to another. But World War II was the last war of that kind.

The Korean war started out just like World War II,  but strange things happened during its prosecution. North Korea, a nation with its own army, attacked South Korea, another nation with its own army. As the collapse of the South Korean army became evident, the United Nations stepped in with its coalition of forces. But the United Nations is not a country. If the coalition forces had been routed, would the United Nations have surrendered. Not likely. When it looked like the coalition forces were going to prevail, China entered the conflict but without a declaration of war. The war's original protagonists had become irrelevant; they were out of the picture.  The war was being carried out between the coalition forces of the United Nations and the Chinese army. But neither the United Nations nor any of the countries in the coalition had ever declared war on either North Korea orChina, and China and North Korea had never declared war on the United Nations or any of its coalition countries. Who would have surrendered to whom to bring about the end of this war? Of course, no one ever did, and the war has never officially ended; yet the world goes on its merry way just as if it did. But no one won.

Then came the Vietnamese fiasco. A South Vietnamese insurgency began what amounted to a revolt against the South Vietnamese government and its French colonial masters. The North Vietnamese supported the insurgency in various ways, including sending in what amounted to a North Vietnamese army to attack the French. The United States entered the war in support of the French, and when the French withdrew, the United States ended up fighting the North Vietnamese without either having declared war on the other in a country which was not the homeland of either. As we know, the South Vietnamese government and army eventually collapsed, the United States withdrew, no one ever surrendered, South Vietnam was abolished, and the fighting ended. I pressure that, in a sense, the North Vietnamese won, but I doubt that the generals in the Pentagon will ever admit it.

Now there is Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States being the other protagonist. But the Congress has never declared war on either of these countries, and neither has ever declared war on the United States. Of course, initially, armies started out to fight armies in these wars, but although both the Afghanistani and Iraqi armies were defeated, neither ever surrendered, nor did their governments. Instead, each turned into native insurgencies, neither of which is supported by a national government. So who is going to surrender to end these wars? No country, since the governments that were in charge when these wars started are no longer in existence, and certainly not thousands of disparate insurgents. If the insurgents stopped fighting, the war would be over in some sense. But who would have won?, which really depends on what happens afterward. If the country survives and is united by a government acceptable to Americans, then perhaps the United States could say that it has won. But what if no united government acceptable to Americans emerges? What if the United States withdraws and the insurgency goes on? What if Iraq is broken up into three separate entities aligned with sympathetic neighboring countries? What if, like in Palestine, the insurgency goes on for more than fifty years without a resolution?  What then? Will anyone have won or lost?

Once upon a time, wars had a beginning, a conflict, and an end. Today they do not. Once begun, wars can go on indefinitely. In some, the fighting eventually stops without the war's ever being ended; in others, the fighting goes on and on as in Palestine. Wars no longer are declared, and antagonists no longer surrender. Only the killing endures.

People should be wary of starting wars without defining specifically what would constitute winning them. If there is no way of knowing when a war has been won, all wars are lost. (10/28/2006)