In my endless Mad Manuscript on the history of the idea of free speech (which recently transgressed the 16,000 page barrier), I have a section on the difference between "sophistry wars" and "total wars". In the latter, of course, a nation or people is fighting, by any means necessary, for its survival, in an atmosphere of almost complete violence and anarchy, thrashing in the mud and blood. By contrast, a "sophistry war" is a war that a more powerful nation imagines will be limited, barely noticeable, a walk in the park really; and about which it lies to itself with gusto. America seems addicted to sophistry wars, which have included the Spanish American, the invasion of the Philippines, and of various Latin American countries we can't even remember; Korea; Vietnam; Iraq and Afghanistan; and now Iran. Sophistry wars illustrate the history of human vanity and acquired stupidity, in that we make the same mistakes in almost every one, without learning from them, world without end, amen.
Here are some of them:
The inhabitants will rise up to greet us and aid us in overthrowing their oppressors. This is always false, and yet was central in the Spanish American War (and the Bay of Pigs later), Vietnam; the first Iraq war; and now Iran. The Times reported a day or so ago that even Iranians who were hopeful of liberation when the bombing began, now see us as just another brutal entity trying to murder them, like their own government.
It will be over quickly. We always think that the target government will fall within a day or two of our attack, then discover that it didn't. We were three years in Korea before we declared victory and got out; twenty years in Vietnam; and twenty years in Afghanistan before we similarly scrambled.
It will require few resources. The most notable case study was the second invasion of Iraq, which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thought could be accomplished with about 70,000 soldiers, many of them subcontractors. He was defying other estimates that 250,000 to half a million would be required to do the job right. In the end, we sent in 150,000 soldiers to do it poorly.
It can all be done with air power. We have known since airplanes were first used in war that no war-- not World War II, not Vietnam-- is ever won by bombing alone. Yet here we are, bombing Iran.
We assign geopolitical importance to places that have none. Think Vietnam and "domino theory". Henry Kissinger said with cruel knowledge and laughter while brainstorming the coup in Chile that the enemy nation was "a dagger pionted at the heart of Antarctica".
We find excuses where there are none. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. Iran was not planning an attack on the United States.
We think its over when its not. This happened in Iraq, with Bush's inane, deadly "Mission Accomplished" ceremony. He then sent in young American civilians who thought they were coming to aid reconstruction, but who died in hails of bullets.
We can break things and not fix them. This one is a truly evil and self-destructive development in human history. Before the advent of the airplane, war was conducted with infantry and cavalry who by definition, physically entered the enemy nation. Since most wars were conducted for the capture of territory, it was a natural consequence that we would seek to hold, and rebuild, what we conquered. The variations possible here were: kill everyone and replace them with our own people; kill few, accept surrender, and leave behind an army of occupation. This was advisable even when we were invading to punish or to end an enemy; if we did not leave an army behind, we risked having a new, more enraged enemy in a few years. During the mid-twentieth century, there was at least some idea also of a moral responsibility to rebuild what you have destroyed.
Only with the advent of bombers has it become possible to devastate a country ("bomb it back into the Stone Age", as a certain American demographic enjoys saying) and then do nothing to restore it. Israel is iconic in this respect; it is a perfect storm of brutality, racism, and American support (we give it the bombs). Right now, Israel is bombing civilians and infrastructure in three places, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, bringing an image of Israel alone in a Middle East that it has rendered a Mad Max-style wasteland (and how will it defend itself then?). The US has signed on to this sociopathic, self-destructive mission in Iran.
Its not a good look for humanity that we make the same stupid, vain, deadly mistakes over and over again. Every one who dies in a sophistry war has usually died for nothing. Vietnam, all these years later, is still a Communist country (and a relatively stable and non-murderous one). We handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban.
Donald Trump was an adult during Vietnam, but observed, learned, remembered nothing (he also evaded service). And then millions of Americans imagined he was qualified to be President. But much smarter people, like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and most famously, Robert McNamara, are stupidified, immersed in the heavy water of sophistry wars.
If I, who am Nobody, can figure all this out, why can't the people who actually run things?