I think I see the problem some are having with Trump’s Iran negotiations. I’m not talking about the lunatics on the Left, nor the pathetic Never Trumpers, worn out Neo-Cons and assorted grifters. No: I’m talking about those who want victory and fear Trump is throwing it away. Here we go:
They neither understand what constitutes victory, nor understand why we lost all of the post-WWII wars.
The first part is easier: most people, on the whole, don’t understand military or foreign affairs (this is especially true among senior military and State Department personnel, until Trump II). Lacking such knowledge, they feel that there should be an abject surrender ala Reims or Tokyo Bay. Gotta tell ya: these are not usual. In fact, they’re nearly unique. Of course, total war is nearly unique…the world approached it in WWI and went overboard on it in WWII, but such is not the norm. Usually the enemy quits before all resources are exhausted – that is, the leadership weighs things and figures that continued fighting is more costly than peace, and so peace is made.
In my view, the demand for unconditional surrender was a gigantic strategic and moral mistake. The Germans and Japanese were already determined enough to fight hard; that demand just fused their peoples into a determined mass willing to fight to the last man. Had we offered a way out, the voices of ceasefire would have been able to rise to the top. We should have offered peace to a non-Nazi Germany on basis of her 1938 borders. Peace to a Japan willing to surrender all post-1932 conquests. Heck, we should have worked Germany to overthrow the Hitler regime and place Rupprecht of Bavaria on a new German throne (thoroughly Royal, despised the Nazis, wanted to curb Prussian militarism – just perfect, actually). The demand for unconditional surrender probably extended the war at least a year longer than otherwise…with untold millions being killed as a result. Plus half of Europe in Soviet hands with no major Continental Power able to stand athwart Stalin’s ambitions. It is not a good idea to totally destroy your enemy…you might need him as a friend. Often very soon. Look how quickly we actually needed a powerful Germany after 1945. Japan, too. Didn’t have them, so we had to take the whole burden upon ourselves.
So much for the easy part – that is, people just not knowing that you can win a war and leave your enemy alive. Now, to the second part: why did we lose all those wars?
Quite simple: we held back the full application of our power against an enemy who was supported by outside powers we deemed off limits to retaliation. It is really nothing more than that. Or do you really think some Korean and Vietnamese peasants could do what the Waffen SS and Japanese soldiers failed to do? Sorry, no: they didn’t beat us in a stand up fight. They didn’t, in fact, beat us at all. We beat ourselves. Failure to apply power. Failure to take the steps necessary to victory. Allowing the conflicts to drag on for years, causing dismay among the American population. What we have done since 1945 is set ourselves up for defeat. Rather insane. Stupid, too. And you do wonder if we had people in our government deliberately setting this up? That’s for a later time. Suffice it to say that if we allowed our enemies to script our moves, it could not have ever come out worse.
Until Trump.
Trump is not a man of war. He takes a businessman’s view of it. That is, its bad for business. Why shoot when you can work a deal beneficial to both sides? This sort of view can get you into some trouble (it fails to take in to consideration the simple passions which war can cause), but on the whole it is the best way to go about it…because war is a business. A nasty one, to be sure. As the old saying goes, amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. Business, that is. Not the glorious charge or the clever flanking move…but how can I get this many troops there by this day? How long can I supply them? How large are the enemy’s supplies? Who can produce more supplies over time? These are the questions which real generals ponder. And Trump seems to instinctively know this – and so his plan, when he put it in motion, was two fold: hammer the leadership in hopes of an uprising and hammer Iran’s economy so that even if there wasn’t an uprising, whoever was in charge would have to come to the table. We haven’t engaged in that sort of warfare since 1945. There was no uprising…but Iran’s economy is in shambles. They came to the table because if they couldn’t start selling as much oil as the market can bear, there would be an uprising because the Iranian people are running out of food.
Iran also has no outside power willing to bankroll them. Russia and China are friendly, but neither want to tangle with us over Iran. Plus we just demonstrated that Russian and Chinese military hardware is worthless on the battlefield against us. Just as they had to after the first Gulf War, they are now pausing to rethink their whole strategic worldview. They are once again unsure they can actually fight us – so, time to lay low. A year ago the Chinese might have been thinking they could send a naval task force to contest our control of the Arabian Gulf…but not today. All they’d be doing is providing excellent naval scrap. Without a patron, without the ability to endlessly kill Americans, with their economy on the verge of collapse…they really had to come to the table.
Can we trust them? Of course not! But peace doesn’t require trust. No more than alliance does. It requires shared interests. Right now, Iran has a vested interest in a calm middle east. A time for it to recover a bit. Build a bit. Reconsider strategic choices. Argue amongst themselves who gets to be in charge. We, too, need a calm middle east and an Iran no longer sabre rattling all over the Middle East. We need time for the peace efforts to really take hold and encompass the entire region. This is why Trump was so mad at Israel for bombing terrorists in Lebanon: for very small returns – killing a few more terrorists – Israel nearly upset the apple cart. Hey, I get it: Israel would like all her enemies dead. But Israel, herself, refused to do this in Gaza. For the most decent and humane reasons, to be sure, but it totally undercuts bloodthirsty demands about Iran…as well Hezbollah creeps in Lebanon (who probably haven’t been paid in months given Iran’s troubles). Both sides need peace – and so we’re going to try to make it. And even if the Mullah regime survives, that isn’t a defeat. It is, in fact, a victory – because Iran’s whole thing has been to disturb the peace.
Blogs For Victory 