The Way Of War

[Dayuhan]

To attack an opponent is not to defeat an opponent. One must still occupy and hold ground and the skies above that ground. One must secure passage across the seas and skies to reach that ground. And even if one accomplishes all of those things, one must then force the people living on that ground to submit to their newly imposed system of governance.

As the US has demonstrated (too often of late), if one has the relative advantage of resources and technology, yes, the initial aspects of that can be fairly quick and easy. But forcing a people to submit?

I don't think that submission or occupation should be presumed necessary: that would depend on the political objectives being pursued. Entering a conflict with clear objectives and refusing to expand those objectives can often (not always, but often) free us from the assumption that we "must" occupy territory and impose systems of governance.

Countries such as the US will increasingly need to absorb the occasional sucker punch and not be distracted from the business of being a powerful state. Retaliation and prevention cannot be an all-consuming extravaganza such as we have put on for the past decade or so, but rather must be a small, quiet, but deadly certain capability. No massive deployments, no public chest-thumping when enemies fall, just cold hard business of being a state in the modern age.

Well I'll be damned, we agree on something...