War and Peace

"Ronald Reagan once said “history teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap”.

Walk alone down a dark alley in the wrong part of town and you are asking for trouble. Walk down that same alley with ten of your well armed friends, and you are likely to be left alone.

There was recently an article in a popular news magazine that posited the idea that nuclear arms make the world safer because nobody with them is willing to confront anybody else that has them. That was behind the MAD (mutually assured destruction) doctrine of the cold war. If both the Soviet Union and the United States had enough nuclear capability to wipe each other off the map, and no effective way of stopping incoming ICBMs, nobody would launch a first strike. While arming the world with nuclear weapons is not a safe or sane approach to world peace, we can learn something from that period of history.

There are bullies in this world who run governments as well as school yards and organized crime. Seeking peace is a good thing, but we must be aware that the bullies only respect and believe power. If you are overly reluctant to demonstrate your power, or if you sue for peace too anxiously, these bullies will interpret your behavior as weakness. Convinced of your willingness to avoid war at all costs they will be inclined to push you to the point where you have no choice but to capitulate or respond with force. If, for example, you are unwilling to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, you can’t let them put you in a position where you will have to react with more force to a larger threat and cost more lives than would have been the case if you had clearly drawn your line in the sand at the beginning of the exchange and reacted with targeted force the instant that line was crossed. You will face anger at home and abroad, but you will have saved lives, money and, ironically, preserved the peace more effectively, by using force sooner rather than later.

The longer you wait to address hostility in the Iranians, North Koreans, Al Qaeda or even the Russians, the more egos are in play on the side of those aggressive regimes, and the less they believe your threats and ultimatums. You are enticing them to push you as far as they think they can, and that is likely farther than you are, or should be, willing to be pushed. The result is a much larger scale war than would have been the case with a sterner position and reaction in the beginning.

A clear example of that is Saddam Hussein. After the Gulf War there were terms set down for Iraq to follow. Saddam agreed to those terms, but repeatedly violated them. Little of consequence was done in return. The UN and the USA wagged their fingers and gave them stern looks. Then came September 11, 2001. President Bush was in no mood for a repeat. An ultimatum was given, allow UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to your country, go into exile, or be attacked. There are reports that tell us that Saddam’s generals believed he had weapons of mass destruction, because he believed giving that impression gave him cache’. Those reports indicate that he was convinced that the United States would not launch a major assault on his country. We see the results of those miscalculations.

We want peace. The United States does not seek war for conquest. We have not occupied or annexed a vanquished foe since the Indian wars of the 1800s. But we must realize that we value human life more than our adversaries do. We can’t let that desire for peace allow them to back us into a corner. We can’t give up weapons systems without getting something meaningful in return, and we can’t use fewer troops than is necessary to get the job done in Afghanistan, and we can’t wag our finger and talk sternly to Iran. We can’t wait until the cost of waiting is capitulation or more massive devastation.