Sunday, October 11, 2009
First off, we should stop thinking about wars as win or lose. It's all lose really. Even in WWII, everybody lost something. The axis (axes?) were hideous, but the allies ended up doing some pretty awful things as well (Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki). Wars will never stop but we've got to take any hint of romance out of it. Any 'win' is false.
For Afghanistan, I do think we should increase troop levels significantly. This is hugely unpopular, and it won't do anything to 'win' the war. We will still lose. What it does do is increase the safety of the troops there, and it will allow us the time to build much needed infrastructure for the Afghan people. They need roads first and foremost, but also a unified military and/or police (good luck there, but worth a try), schools, safe farmlands, airports, government buildings, water, and electricity. The more we can build (or help them build), the more chance that they will survive as a semi-stable country.
Why do they deserve our help? Ironically, this last war is not the reason. The country was already pretty much rubble. The point of going in was destroying the Taliban and rooting out terrorist elements. The reason why these peeps took a foothold in the first place is because the country was tossed around as a spoil between us and the Soviets during the cold war. Little thought was given to the people in the middle because the big picture of avoiding a nuclear holocaust was so much more important to deal with. It didn't help that the country is filled with warring tribes that have a lot of ambition.
If we can rectify the wrongs of the cold war, at least to some degree, then the region *may* become safer and more stable. Even if we make a lot of progress fixing infrastructure, there is no guarantee the area won't destabilize again. And fixing infrastructure won't get rid of the terrorist element (who I'm sure, consider themselves to be freedom fighters), since they reside in a no man's land on the border with Pakistan (which is a whole other kettle of anxious instability, but this time with nuclear weapons). Fixing infrastructure may help us win good will, both from the everyday Afghan, as well as other nations around the world that are more interested in peace building rather than strafing anything that moves and has a heat signature (granted, a simplification, since war is still primarily fought at the gritty level of the infantryman).
In the long term, we must not think that wars can be 'won' in a short period of time with overwhelmingly superior technology. All wars are essentially psychological. We get into them for psychological reasons ("Faction X wronged us! We must fight back!" or "Faction Y has resources we want/need! They don't deserve them as much as we do! Let's get them!" or even worse "Faction W is made up of complete ignoramuses! Let's attack them and teach them the right way to live/exterminate them!"), but to resolve them we need to untangle and address the underlying psychological issues.
In the case of the Muslim extremists (and most Muslims are *not* extremists), they want to bring about a global Caliphate, converting all people to Islam, and exterminating those that get in the way or don't want to be Muslim. This plan has a lot of obvious flaws, but they're not obvious to the planners. Primarily, militant, extreme Islam is incompatible with most other cultures in the world. The "pure" form would go down like ipecac. Where Islam has mixed with incompatible cultures in the past, a sort of impure hybrid has emerged (which is typical what happens when competing cultures mix -- people take what they like from either and make something new). This can be since at the fringes of where Islam has reached. In Africa, many people practice both Islam and aspects of Animism. In Indonesia, Islam historically found it's most liberal outlet (give Krakatoa a read).
It's unreasonable to think that any one religion or culture could blitzkrieg across the planet at the direction of a handful of people. I'm not saying it couldn't happen under the right conditions, but it's highly, *highly* improbable. Even those in the world who lament that American consumerist culture is taking over it 1) has been influencing the world over the course of generations, 2) people still pick and choose what they like out of it and put their own cultural spin on it, and 3) nobody is spreading American culture to purposefully convert the rest of the world. If anything, the spread is an unintentional by-product of trying to squeeze more money out of more people.
That doesn't mean that people won't keep trying to take over the world like Brain from the Animaniacs (I think I'm showing my age). At some level, we all want everyone else to think and act like us. On a small, prehistoric, tribal level this works to make everyone feel included and unified against other tribes competing for resources (but even then I'm sure, individuals who had a varying mindset still got screwed most of the time). Now that we are a global society (and have been for a couple of hundred years), trying to force other people to think and act like us (whoever the 'us' may be), is a losing proposition because there are just so many other people. We are all minorities. At some point, hopefully soon, we'll figure out that it's actually okay to be a minority. A balance can be obtained with there is a myriad plurality of opinions. I'm okay, you're okay.
Unfortunately, tolerance is not something that is hardwired into certain cultures (especially the extremes of pretty much anything). However negotiation and compromise are skills that commonly emerge from the human mind when that human is in a minority position and no one else is in an overwhelmingly dominate majority position. If we are in a minority position facing others in a majority position, most of us won't bother trying to change anyone's minds about anything (though there are brave souls that do make the effort despite the odds). If we are in a majority position facing others in a minority position, we expect and often enforce conformity with our opinion. But if facing positions are near equal in dominance, and especially if there are more than two groups involved, there is an increased likelihood that debate, negotiation, and compromise will take place.
We see this often playing out in government, and we often get frustrated by how long the process takes, but the frustration is sort of silly. It's a fantastically good thing that this process is taking place at all. And that's the lesson for the world. There is no good reason to pull the trigger on a war if there are processes of debate and negotiation taking place. It may seem silly to let people like Castro or Gaddafi or Ahmadinejad rant at the U.N. but the fact that they even want to shows that feel they are in a minority position (of course they won't admit it). If they felt they were in a majority position (delusional or not), they would probably starting bombing and blitzkrieging. But they're not. They are just barking, and as long as they are doing so, engagement, debate, negotiation, and even compromise are still viable ways to resolve conflict.
For Afghanistan, I do think we should increase troop levels significantly. This is hugely unpopular, and it won't do anything to 'win' the war. We will still lose. What it does do is increase the safety of the troops there, and it will allow us the time to build much needed infrastructure for the Afghan people. They need roads first and foremost, but also a unified military and/or police (good luck there, but worth a try), schools, safe farmlands, airports, government buildings, water, and electricity. The more we can build (or help them build), the more chance that they will survive as a semi-stable country.
Why do they deserve our help? Ironically, this last war is not the reason. The country was already pretty much rubble. The point of going in was destroying the Taliban and rooting out terrorist elements. The reason why these peeps took a foothold in the first place is because the country was tossed around as a spoil between us and the Soviets during the cold war. Little thought was given to the people in the middle because the big picture of avoiding a nuclear holocaust was so much more important to deal with. It didn't help that the country is filled with warring tribes that have a lot of ambition.
If we can rectify the wrongs of the cold war, at least to some degree, then the region *may* become safer and more stable. Even if we make a lot of progress fixing infrastructure, there is no guarantee the area won't destabilize again. And fixing infrastructure won't get rid of the terrorist element (who I'm sure, consider themselves to be freedom fighters), since they reside in a no man's land on the border with Pakistan (which is a whole other kettle of anxious instability, but this time with nuclear weapons). Fixing infrastructure may help us win good will, both from the everyday Afghan, as well as other nations around the world that are more interested in peace building rather than strafing anything that moves and has a heat signature (granted, a simplification, since war is still primarily fought at the gritty level of the infantryman).
In the long term, we must not think that wars can be 'won' in a short period of time with overwhelmingly superior technology. All wars are essentially psychological. We get into them for psychological reasons ("Faction X wronged us! We must fight back!" or "Faction Y has resources we want/need! They don't deserve them as much as we do! Let's get them!" or even worse "Faction W is made up of complete ignoramuses! Let's attack them and teach them the right way to live/exterminate them!"), but to resolve them we need to untangle and address the underlying psychological issues.
In the case of the Muslim extremists (and most Muslims are *not* extremists), they want to bring about a global Caliphate, converting all people to Islam, and exterminating those that get in the way or don't want to be Muslim. This plan has a lot of obvious flaws, but they're not obvious to the planners. Primarily, militant, extreme Islam is incompatible with most other cultures in the world. The "pure" form would go down like ipecac. Where Islam has mixed with incompatible cultures in the past, a sort of impure hybrid has emerged (which is typical what happens when competing cultures mix -- people take what they like from either and make something new). This can be since at the fringes of where Islam has reached. In Africa, many people practice both Islam and aspects of Animism. In Indonesia, Islam historically found it's most liberal outlet (give Krakatoa a read).
It's unreasonable to think that any one religion or culture could blitzkrieg across the planet at the direction of a handful of people. I'm not saying it couldn't happen under the right conditions, but it's highly, *highly* improbable. Even those in the world who lament that American consumerist culture is taking over it 1) has been influencing the world over the course of generations, 2) people still pick and choose what they like out of it and put their own cultural spin on it, and 3) nobody is spreading American culture to purposefully convert the rest of the world. If anything, the spread is an unintentional by-product of trying to squeeze more money out of more people.
That doesn't mean that people won't keep trying to take over the world like Brain from the Animaniacs (I think I'm showing my age). At some level, we all want everyone else to think and act like us. On a small, prehistoric, tribal level this works to make everyone feel included and unified against other tribes competing for resources (but even then I'm sure, individuals who had a varying mindset still got screwed most of the time). Now that we are a global society (and have been for a couple of hundred years), trying to force other people to think and act like us (whoever the 'us' may be), is a losing proposition because there are just so many other people. We are all minorities. At some point, hopefully soon, we'll figure out that it's actually okay to be a minority. A balance can be obtained with there is a myriad plurality of opinions. I'm okay, you're okay.
Unfortunately, tolerance is not something that is hardwired into certain cultures (especially the extremes of pretty much anything). However negotiation and compromise are skills that commonly emerge from the human mind when that human is in a minority position and no one else is in an overwhelmingly dominate majority position. If we are in a minority position facing others in a majority position, most of us won't bother trying to change anyone's minds about anything (though there are brave souls that do make the effort despite the odds). If we are in a majority position facing others in a minority position, we expect and often enforce conformity with our opinion. But if facing positions are near equal in dominance, and especially if there are more than two groups involved, there is an increased likelihood that debate, negotiation, and compromise will take place.
We see this often playing out in government, and we often get frustrated by how long the process takes, but the frustration is sort of silly. It's a fantastically good thing that this process is taking place at all. And that's the lesson for the world. There is no good reason to pull the trigger on a war if there are processes of debate and negotiation taking place. It may seem silly to let people like Castro or Gaddafi or Ahmadinejad rant at the U.N. but the fact that they even want to shows that feel they are in a minority position (of course they won't admit it). If they felt they were in a majority position (delusional or not), they would probably starting bombing and blitzkrieging. But they're not. They are just barking, and as long as they are doing so, engagement, debate, negotiation, and even compromise are still viable ways to resolve conflict.
posted by KaOs at
10/11/2009 04:17:00 AM
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