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The purpose of a military is to gain and hold territory.
That purpose is obsolete.
No military power, no matter how great its weapons or how dedicated its people, can control any land without at least the acquiescence of those who live there.
This acquiescence may be grudging. It may be a devil’s bargain, freedom exchanged for comfort or opportunity. But that acquiescence must be won. Without it nothing else is possible.
This basic lesson has been building in history for centuries.
England could not project its power against the resistance of the
Continental Army and the people who supported its Declaration of
Independence. In the American Civil War the Union was saved because the
North refused to acquiesce, troops were withdrawn from the South
because it refused to acquiesce, and the long dark tunnel of Jim Crow
was the result, because black people refused to acquiesce.
In both World Wars it was economic power that determined the final
result. But the victory was not entirely won by force of arms. It was a
victory for what Roosevelt called "the United Nations," people
resisting occupation to the death. Germany and Japan were never able to
totally subdue the Soviet Union or China, never able to bring the
economic possibilities of those lands to bear on the battlefield.
History suggests that Great Britain lost its colonies because it was
weakened by these struggles, but in fact the result was foreordained.
Colonial powers learned that a new equation had emerged. The cost of
maintaining territory was exceeding the economic value of that
territory. Gandhi had known this, 20 years before his success. But he
also knew that what worked against England also worked against India,
which is why he acquiesced in the partition.
Gandhi knew that the great prize was peace. And the value of that prize has only risen with time.
It is peace that builds power, not war. Peace between nations is one
prize. Peace within nations is the ultimate prize. Social peace,
political stability, and an economic system acceptable to a consensus
of the people allow the economy to grow. They allow infrastructure to
be built and maintained. They allow human capital to be developed.
Beating swords into plowshares is the route to power.
This is not an easy lesson for those with military power to learn.
It is counter-intuitive. It’s a lesson that is resisted by all those
who hold power.
Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king
And a king ain’t satisfied
till
he rules everything
It takes a grand sweep of history to teach this lesson to the
powerful. It takes great falls from power to teach this lesson to a
whole people.
We learn it the hard way, through suffering, through death and
destruction. Germany learned it the hard way. Japan learned it the hard
way. China learned it the hard way. India is learning it the hard way.
Russia continues to resist this lesson, and so do we.
Not all of us. But this lesson is the American political divide. You can learn this for yourself by asking a single question:
How did we win the Cold War?
The truth is it was our economic power, created by relative social
peace, that won the Cold War. Absent the nuclear holocaust, victory was
only a matter of time.
The lie told by Republicans is that it was our military power,
pushed by Ronald Reagan, that won the Cold War. Vietnam, they insist,
could have been won had we not been stabbed in the back. Afghanistan
could have been lost had we not supported Bin Laden in the early 1980s,
the Middle East lost had we not supported Saddam Hussein.
Talk to a Bush lover for even five minutes and this is the formula
that will emerge. This is the heart of their political Thesis. Thus the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the greatest economic opportunity ever, was
rejected by these people in their constant search for enemies, for the
projection of power.
What are we protecting in the Middle East? Democracy is a choice.
Social peace is a choice. You can’t force your choices on a people,
because you can’t hold territory. And you can’t extract resources
without some social peace – this is the great lesson of the 20th
century.
Our victories of the 20th century have blinded us to reality. It was
our ideals that won the day, not our fighting men. These were the
decisive weapons in every struggle. Yet in the last five years we have
been throwing these weapons on the fire – interfering with liberty,
risking our social peace, undermining our economy – in order to occupy
territory through force of arms.
That can’t be done. That war can’t be won. But because everyone else
knew this we became "The Hyperpower," and ignored the lesson. Right
now, the American military can take on and defeat, not just any other
military force, but all other military forces combined.
We assume this gives us responsibility, that it makes us the world’s
policeman, that our military is the only guarantee for world peace and
stability.
Bullshit.
Our military is a tax, imposed on us, and our children, and our
grandchildren, by politics, and by politicians who have not yet learned
the great lesson of history.
It will be learned. It’s just a matter of time. The only question is
how much we must suffer along the way, how much America must lose or
throw away in the course of learning it.
Because the lesson is true.
