| The United States can usually win even postmodern wars abroad if it can play to its strengths — which are marshaling our enormous material, intelligence, and technological advantages to defeat the enemy before he inflicts enough casualties to convince an affluent and comfortable public at home that such losses are simply not worth the envisioned aims. |
Not even a proper paragraph, is it? only a paragraph fragment. And yet it gives rise to so many questions that it goes on to beg! Let's turn over a few of the words and look at the scorpions underneath:
"Usually"
Why doesn't Col. Blimp name a few splendid triumphs (maybe Serbia 1998) and not so splendid ones (maybe Lebanon 1983) and merely ridiculous ones (Mexico 1914, Guatemala 1954, Grenada 1983) and then let his readers work out proportions and "usually"? He could even list all pertinent capers, back through Spain 1898 -- the first blooding of Grant's Old Party, and also the first US war that can be called "imperialist" in the current sense, the affairs of dishonour with Canada 1812 and Mexico 1847 having been aimed at grabbing the conquered land itself as well as control thereof.
"Win"
I seem to recall some rightist rhetor or geopol maintaining that, despite certain superficial appearances, the USA in fact won Secretary MacNamara's War. Doubtless the current crop of wombscholars are not led to believe that we failed to win the 1812 affair, despite not gaining a single square centimetre of Upper Canada. This little monosyllable can be pretty flexible, although presumably there are limits somewhere. Blimp probably would not agree with any German who claimed that his fatherland had won in 1945, although the Teutonic sophist could undoubtedly maintain a perfectly straight face while pointing out that almost everybody, Germans included, is better off that we would have been if the Hitlerites had had all the technical military successes. Blimp certainly would not agree that Jefferson Davis et al. were winners in or after 1865; that outcome involved an "existential" -- Blimp's own silly word later in this piece -- failure to win.
Or did it? A lot of the slaveocrats and their dupes survived individually, after all, and by the time McKinley sallied forth to settle the Dons' hash, many ex-Confederates actually did say, more or less, "We won too in 1865. Everybody in America won." So maybe they did win, but of course Blimp has not the slightest intention of settling for that kind of success and victory in advance. Neither did the not-yet-ex-Confederates while their rebellion was in progress. To settle, unilaterally and preëmptively, for a Jefferson Davis kind of "win" as regards the occupation of Peaceful Freedumbia and the GOP Kiddie Krusade in general would invite contradiction from Blimp and swiftboatin' from some of his crew's weaker brethren.
It would also, and more importantly, be in violation of ordinary language the same way ordinary language is violated whenever wicked liberals propose to classify goods like education or health care or racial reconciliation or regulation of OnePercenter capitalism under the rubric of National Defense. If words existed in a vacuum of connotations and sentimentalities, there would be no objection to talking that way, we could even Blimpishly call these goods "existential urgencies of national defense" without defying facts or logic. Nevertheless it is self-defeating to talk that way. Even though there was no intention to deceive, the folks at Rio Limbaugh and Wingnut City, who may not see anythin' especially good about such nonmilitary or antientepreneurial goods, will take the line that everybody, including Ms. Liberal, knows very well that schools and hospitals and trade unions are not really part of national defense, and so the lady is a liar. (Blimp, being a specialist in geistige Militärismus, will be more determined than ninenty-nine percent of the neocomrades to reject that particular patter. He is scarcely representative, though, or a suitable native speaker to be used as informant..)
Most importantly of all, to claim that Uncle Sam could "win" in Peaceful Freedumbia by withdrawing from it, or "win" the GOP Kiddie Krusade by relapsing into a wimpy law enforcement paradigm instead of the cowpokers' belovèd "war" paradigm undermines itself. The policy recommended consists in preferring long-term stability and reconciliation to immediate economic and ideological gratifications. The goal might be described as "nobody wins," or "everybody wins," but to market this product with a slogan about Uncle Sam in particular winning is likely to make foreigners worry about being swindled into ending up as losers. Blimp's own parade of supposed Yank supremacies reflects the present correlation of forces: our poor Sam is a sort of (unelected) global wheeler-dealer who wins all the ties, and also gets to define what counts as a tie. If there is anybody in sight who does need more winning than he's got already, it's Sam.
"Postmodern"
Coming from an AEIdeologue and a Hoovervillain, "postmodern" can only be a partisan insult of some sort, but exactly who it is calculated to annoy and why they should be annoyed, I have no clear idea. Probably Blimp counts the Second World War and the Korean "police action" as modern wars par excellance, but how far his "modern" stretches backwards and forwards unprefixed from the period 1941-1953, Blimp really ought to tell us, since there is no way to guess. Perhaps he intends his subsequent formula about "defeat the enemy before he inflicts enough casualties to convince an affluent and comfortable public at home that such losses are simply not worth the envisioned aims" is intended to be the definition of "postmodern warfare"? It wouldn't hurt if he said so. Decent political grown-ups could then wonder exactly what is postmodern -- or modern, or premodern, or calendar-connected at all -- about deciding the game is not worth the stakes. Prudence and rashness were not invented last Thursday afternoon, were they?
If that rigmarole is a definition, then Uncle Sam's wars will have became postmodern as soon as Sam's nephews and nieces became "affluent and comfortable" instead of poor and wretched. But when was that? Compared to most of our contemporaries at any given point in time, we've always been very well off in these parts, thank you very much! George III should have been able to keep us under his thumb if affluence and comfort are automatically conducive to defeat, those Highlanders raised after Culloden and the clearances should have ripped Gen. Washington to shreds single-handed. Trying to take Blimp seriously in this fashion leads straight to absurdity: King Philip's War was our most recent modern conflict, and indeed, our one and only modern conflict of any significance. (The French and Indian War might qualify, had the Indians and the French won it, but unfortunately for theoretical Blimpianity, they did not, comparatively underfinanced and uncosseted though they were.)
We had better stick to the first guess and confine Blimp's historical grotesqueries to the proposition that American affluence and comfort only set in after 1953 at earliest. That's ridiculous, but not so ridiculous as the other. The obvious question is whether the war that Sec. MacNamara and Dr. Kissinger jointly contrived to lose was a postmodern one or not. Probably Blimp thinks so, but it would have been a great kindness had he simply said so. Along those lines the colonel could gratify many kindred Party and factional spirits by discovering that affluence and comfort first got the whip hand of America precisely in February 1968, when, as every present-day wombscholar knows, that futile Tet Offensive of the black pajama guys was put down with ease, and yet for some obscure reason Mr. Johnson of Texas decided not to take the obvious view of what had happened, but its exact opposite.
It goes without saying, if you're an AEIdeologue and a Hoovervillain, that the "Democrat Party" must have presided over the ruinous Triumph of Affluence and Comfort, and LBJ looks to be the most eligible donkey to pin that shameful tail on. The traditional devotion of the militant GOP to poverty and discomfort -- and thus, teaches Blimp, to the warlike spirit -- for most Americans, though perhaps not altogether for themselves, has been maintained unswervingly from U.S. Grant to G.W. Bush. The only possible exception is Mr. Reagan's divagations into "voodoo economics," if harshly assessed. (You'll recall that the Party hero was once a donkey himself, though. Maybe poor Ronnie just couldn't help himself?)
"We hate '68" makes a suitable bumper sticker for the Boy-'n'-Party crowd of 2007, although most of their hatred has little to do with Col. Blimp's special concerns and a lot to do with affirmative action and Equal Rights Amendments and grade inflation and that complete collapse of highbrow culture that The New Criterion will be glad to measure and denounce for you on request. If geistige Militärismus, or the possibility for it, did in fact collapse at the same point as Kultur in general, presumably this was not an accident. Should V. D. H. Blimp ever think these matters through synoptically, perhaps he will find that High Culture is quite as inconsistent with affluence and comfort as his own pet notions are. For that matter, perhaps spiritual militarism is -- was -- itself a component of High Culture? It would be logical enough, in this outsider's opinion, that a nation grown too fat and happy to enjoy Arnold Schönberg's music or the verses of Mr. Eliot of St. Louis any more should have little use for General von Clausewitz either. Or if not exactly logical, at least natural, the sort of thing anybody might expect.
Attempting to invent or expand Blimpianity in advance of Blimp himself is a bit cheeky, I admit, but now that all standards have crumbled -- that being probably the core slur in "postmodern" as the word is customarily deployed by AEIdeologues and Hoovervillains and Weekly Standardizers and suchlike cattle --, what else is to be expected? Surely my insolence fits right in?
Blimping it is kind of fun, too, although perhaps too easy to be genuinely edifyin'. For consider, if all standards have crumbled, then the standard implied in "such losses are simply not worth the envisioned aims" must have crumbled as well. Prudence and rashness were indeed not invented last Thursday. What happened on the day in question is merely that all the yardsticks and balances and spectrometers for measuring prudence and rashness were smashed to smithereens by the affluent and comfortable mob. The Hansons and Kramers and Kimballs and Kristols, the whole host of "conservative" "intellectual" señoritos, often talk as if they had a private horde of measurement devices left over from before the flood of '68 stashed away somewhere, and perhaps they really do, but plainly the time is not yet ripe for these treasures to be made public. Why bring such precious antiques out into the daylight of Neocomrade R. Neuhaus's Naked Public Square™ and give the affluent and comfortable mob a chance to smash what they -- what we -- accidentally overlooked in 1968? Squirrel them away safe somewhere until absolutely sure that all danger has passed!
Meanwhile the señoritos are in a (suitably?) uncomfortable position. They dare not risk exposin' their pre-1968 instruments to the affluent and comfortable mob of 2007, but at the same time they keep makin' particular measurements down in their secret crypts or root cellars that they think everybody should know about, as notably that Peaceful Freedumbia must be successfully occupied and the GOP Kiddie Krusade pursued through all the windin's of a Long War. The "prudentiometer" that recorded these measurements cannot be risked, yet to present the measurements without presentin' the measurement device does not go over well with the affluent and comfortable mob. There is a certain ipse dixit flavour to that approach, don't you know? For us, that's a bit too like the lady's "Kindly allow me to know best!"
But maybe these "postmodern" trappings are more amusing than essential? It seems quite conceivable to me that Col. Blimp does not possess any prediluvian prudentiometer after all, and that he is in fact doin' business at a familiar old rightist stand. The señoritos of "conservatism" have traditionally been nothing if not elitist, frankly preferrin' their own judgments about prudence and rashness (and a lot else) to the mob's. One might say that the Little Friends of Eddie Burke don't need external prudentiometers, they are prudentiometers. When the gentry say a war is worth fightin' and the mob disagrees, why, so much the worse for the mob! It's as simple as that (?) and to drag in "postmodern" contributes nothing worthy of mention. It's also unimportant what the mob is moved by, maybe it's "affluence and comfort" today, maybe "Church and King" in the 1790's, maybe tomorrow "All power to the Soviets!" or "Islam is the Way!" Who cares? A mob is a mob is a mob. Period.
On the other hand, it was Blimp, not I, who dragged in "postmodern." Evidently he thinks it is important. Still, he might be mistaken in thinkin' so.
==
The scribble is long enough, but I did mean to quarrel with the colonel about "our enormous ... intelligence ... advantages." Who would deny that the noble GOP Godzilla utterly outclasses evil terrorist Bambi in material advantages and technological advantages, the two ellipses in that scrap of quotation? When it comes to intelligence advantages, though, I have my doubts, and that no matter whether Blimp refers to CIA intelligence, as he probably does, or IQ intelligence. Can he seriously consider that M. Bin Ládin of Khurasán is enormously worse equipped to detect (and to analyze) what Mr. Bush of TX is up to than the other way around? The proposition seemed dubious to me primâ facie, and it still looks pretty dubious now that I examine it again. But God knows best.
NB: I took "honesty" from the señoritos of National Review, who called Blimp's piece "Honesty about Iraq: How are we doing?" VDH himself only used the H-word once, at the very end, and when he did so he was not thinkin' of self-criticism at all, although what he says happens to condemn the P. R. behavior of Boy and Party:
| So more explanation, less assertion; more debate with, rather than dismissal of, critics. And the final irony? The more brutal honesty, the less euphemism and generalities, the more Americans will accept the challenge. |
The affluent and comfortable postmodern mob seems to have evaporated somehow: hey, presto, now Uncle Sam's nephews and nieces are poor and wretched and heroically belligerent again! Or anyway, we could be inspired to become so.
Karl Rove's pro judgment on such a question would be ten times more valuable than Blimp's amateur one. That neocomrade is never goin' to discuss his calculations in public, of course, but in practice it is plain that Rove's employer is not exactly headed towards a revival of Spiritual Militarism through "brutal honesty" at the moment, even though "euphemism and generalities" is not the best way to describe current Party agitprop either.
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