The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[Bob's World]

I guess this gets to what has been labeled "The American Way of War" (inaccurately, in my opinion).

When Grant assumed command of the Union Army, while he understood that it was very important to defeat Lee's Army and also valuable to capture the Confederate Capital, he also instinctively understood that he needed to crush the will of the Confederate populace, so that the entire Confederate nation would know it was defeated once the war was over. To that end, he positioned himself with Meade to ensure that Meade did not lose his focus on Lee and Richmond; but launched coordinated efforts under his most trusted Lieutenants to crush the will of the South. Sherman in the South, and Sheridan in Virginia. It worked, and coupled with a generous peace the war was over when it was over.

In WWI no such effort against the Axis populace was waged, and the peace was onerous, resulting in no resolution at the end of that conflict as dictated by France and England.

In WWII the war was taken to the people of Japan and Germany. Once their militaries were defeated and capitals captured, their populaces were also fully cognizant of their defeat. Again, coupled with a generous peace, those wars were truly over once over.

For any nation to defeat the United States, if all they do is occupy DC and defeat our military, they are probably about 20% of the way to their ultimate objective. They must crush the will of the American populace to resist to truly win. On the other hand, we have been able to stabilize the growing dissent born of the racial inequities from the slave heritage of our Black populace by "merely" recognizing that the government was wrong and passing and enforcing laws to bring this disaffected segment of the populace into the fold of good governance. It is an ongoing business, this good governance, one clear metric of that being the response of the Black populace to the election of President Obama. Most white Americans didn't think it was a big deal to elect a black man; but for the Black populace it was this huge indicator of validation and citizenship.

Now, we could have dealt with the Civil Rights movement by targeting senior leadership, locating and breaking up networks, and placing increased security on those individuals and facilities targeted by the "rebels." Usually if a segment of your populace is so dissatisfied as to take up arms, or apply more peaceful tactics as those encouraged by Gandhi and King, they have some valid points, and those points must be addressed.