Hearts and minds
Daniel Pipes expounds upon the crucial commodity in modern warfare (certainly for the United States): not munitions or strategy or tactics or geography or any of the other things which have dictated the outcomes of wars in the past, but rather the battle for the public mind and will, both in the countries which stand in the balance and at home.
This, I think, was what Sec. Rumsfeld (with whom, as you know, I have some serious disagreements about how the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been and are being fought) meant when he said that defeat in Iraq is militarily impossible. This is, after all, not a war at all- the war was won, quickly and decisively- but a police operation concentrating on the only two essentially unpacified provinces in Iraq- Baghdad and Falujah. Yes, the enemy can wreak havoc. But he cannot win unless we give up. It's a military mismatch; as long as it's a military matter, we can't lose.
We can lose only if the Fifth Column both in Iraq and in the West create sufficient political pressure to force us to give up.
This, I think, was what Sec. Rumsfeld (with whom, as you know, I have some serious disagreements about how the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been and are being fought) meant when he said that defeat in Iraq is militarily impossible. This is, after all, not a war at all- the war was won, quickly and decisively- but a police operation concentrating on the only two essentially unpacified provinces in Iraq- Baghdad and Falujah. Yes, the enemy can wreak havoc. But he cannot win unless we give up. It's a military mismatch; as long as it's a military matter, we can't lose.
We can lose only if the Fifth Column both in Iraq and in the West create sufficient political pressure to force us to give up.
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