The imperfect enterprise of war.

Victor Davis Hanson has written an eloquent piece on the inevitability of mistakes in war, with victory going to the side that corrects its mistakes the faster. He touches on the insane liberal view that imperfect aims and conduct of war are proof of the unworthiness of the entire enterprise and which is completely blind to the usual policy choice between bad and much worse.

He notes the passing of the time when a predominantly rural population fought, with their acceptance of life as inevitably involving natural disaster. I.e., realism about life.

The replacement ethic was one exemplified by Alan Alda's character in M*A*S*H — a smart ass, rear echelon mother trucker and loose cannon who thought that resisting the Chinese and North Koreans was some kind of a murderous joke. (The original M*A*S*H screenplay was written by Ring Lardner, Jr., who held "strong left-wing views" according to Wikipedia but who was, to be blunt, an unrepentant communist.) Not that that mattered to Hollywood.

Where are Golan and Globus when you need them?

But more likely the American public, not the timeless nature of war, has changed. We no longer easily accept human imperfections. We care less about correcting problems than assessing blame—in postmodern America it is defeat that has a thousand fathers, while the notion of victory is an orphan. . . . We do not acknowledge the role of fate and chance in war . . . . Most importantly we are not fixed on victory as the only acceptable outcome.

What are the causes of this radically different attitude toward military culpability? An affluent, leisured society has adopted a therapeutic and managerial rather than tragic view of human experience—as if war should be controllable through proper counseling or a sound business plan. . . . If [things don't go smoothly], then someone must be blamed for ignorance, malfeasance, or inhumanity. It is as though we expect contemporary war to be waged in accordance with warranties, law suits, and product recalls, and adjudicated by judges and lawyers . . . rather than won or lost . . . in the filth, confusion, and barbarity of the battlefield

It is an article of faith amongst those who believe in pyramid power -- and the innate wisdom of the earliest arriving Americans (possible Vikings) -- that if we but open our minds to the reality of other people we will then learn about them. Once you learn about them then there can be no war with them. This is the foundation of a serious foreign policy in some quarters.

Learning about others is not inevitably to love, respect, or accept them, however. It can lead one to understand that some people are committed enemies who order personal depravity by the carload. As Mr. Hanson makes clear, when we take the field against such people it's a messy and imperfect enterprise with the advantage to those with the shortest Observation- Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) loop.

"In War: Resolution." By Victor David Hanson, Claremont Review of Books, Winter 2007 (emphasis added).