What's unexpected in ou historic quest for better ways to kill our enemies is that improving martial technology doesn't necessarily lead to commensurate success on the battlefield. Advances in weaponry, tactics, strategy and military organization don't invariably produce more effective warriors.
From antiquity to our own times, there have been recurring examples of nomads, barbarians, or indeed "savages" successfully raiding more highly deveoped civilizations, or defending their ancestral territories against the advances of technologically superior enemies. From the nomadic Medes teaching the arrogant Assyrians a lesson in 7th century B.C. to the barbaric Visigoths troucing the far more sophisticated Romans nearly a thousand years later, examples of low-tech troops getting the better of high-tech troops abound in military conflict.
In Afghanistan, a high-tech Western coalition has been batting the low-tech Taliban for a decade. How are we doing? Not well. Hirsute warriors riding mules around the peaks and valleys of the Amu Darya have held out four years longer against the combined forces of America and Europe than the Axes of the Third Reich and the Empire of the Rising Sun did against the Allies in the last century.
Well, aren't the Talibans religious fanatics? Yes, they are, but that doesn't explain much. The Nazis were pretty fanatical, too, to say nothing of the Japanese kamikazes.
Others say: No comparison. We haven't the effort. We haven't fought the jihadists the way we fought the Nazis.
Precisely. In asymmetric warfare, the high-tech side almost never does. That's one reason it so often loses.
After doing more damage with a smaller outlay of men and material than any belligerent in the history of warfare, our enemy retains the initiatives. Ten years ago, he used our jetliners to knock down our buildings; now he uses our legislators, soldiers and security guards to occupy us. By tweeting a rumour on a social network, he can turn our transportation facilities into armed camps. Every person stripping at an airport is a triumph for the Talibans. We may say that jihadists are "on the run" but a foe that hits, withdraws, then regroups to hit again is not on the run.
It's a waging guerilla warfare.
The Huns of Attila or the Mongolian hordes of Genghis were low-tech compared to their roman, Byzantine or medieval European opponents, though nowhere as low-tech as the 19 jihadists who attacked America on 9/11. If history gave out annual Clio awards named after history's muse, like the film industry hands out Oscars, al-Qaeda's assault on the United-States would win a "Clio" for sheer audacity, in addition to an award for the dubious distinction of senseless evil.
More than anything, what jihadists with box cutters demonstrate is that war is a game of wits. A ruse in war is worth a hundred bomber squadrons, which it may take a conventional belligerent to penetrate America's air defences to the Pentagon. The high-tech side in asymmetric warfareoften sends its bravest and most upright sons and daughters to the battlefield; the low-tech side will often send, or self-select, the williest. The adventage goes to the low-tech side.
We know that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, because Ecclesiastes told us. (Amazingly, he did so in chapter 9:11.) But even though we know, we rarely adjust our strategies accordingly. We know, since Napoleon told us, that God is on the side of the big battalions - but what Napoleon didn't tell us (since God didn't tell him) was that God sometimes changes his mind.
We know what that warfare is more of an oart than a science, and that scientific warfare is an oxymoron, in a class with government benefits or military intelligence. We know it so well that we call it a cliché and feel free to dismiss it.
We do so at our peril. Clichés are accurate observations, stale-dated. Clichés are our ancestors trying to tell us something. A cliché flashing through one’s mind — say, “war’s hell!” — is Uncle Louie or Aunt Matilda watching appalled as we’re headed for the ditch, warning us not to go there.
Our legitimate business in Afghanistan was to demonstrate the high cost of attacking the West. We did that by going there, killing some jihadis, exiling the rest, and installing a government non-hostile to us. The day we finished doing that, our reason for being there ended — and we finished doing that in 2004.
Now it’s 2011. We’re still there — but why? Are we prepared to annex Afghanistan, or at least deny it to the Taliban? If the answer is no, as it clearly is, what are we doing in a war zone? We’ve no business in war zones unless we have war aims and can reasonably expect to carry them out.
And since we’re on the subject, are we prepared to deny Libya to the next Gaddafi? And if the answer is no, why are we noodling around in Libya’s skies? You race at Indianapolis (if you qualify) or get off the track. Or — that’s another choice — look every inch the dangerous fool you are.
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