Military History and American Politics

The last couple of days has delivered a number of articles and opinions dealing with military history, peace studies and the like. Some of the infatuation maybe because the military situation in Iraq is getting better and more and more Democrats are coming to understand that pulling out of Iraq prematurely would be a mistake. But Philip Mella talks about national security being the Achilles' Heel of the Democrats:

So, what is it in the Democratic sensibility that fails to understand all of this? It's a combination of an obtuse appraisal of human human [sic] that presupposes that no conflict is immune from candid negotiations, that people and nations, regardless of how despotic, are susceptible to reason, and that peace is a universally shared goal.

Call it the Rose Colored Glasses Syndrome or the view through the Looking Glass, but most contemporary Democrats seem to inhabit an alternate universe and that's why they will have a hard time convincing average Americans that they are willing to pull the trigger when the time comes.

My thought is that too many Democrats subscribe to the notion that it is better to talk than to act, it is better to equivocate than decide. But there is also the fear of the "dark time" in any conflict.

If one were to study the major wars in which the United States has fought, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq today, there has always been a "dark time," a time in which the progress of the war looks bleak and resolution uncertain at best and dismal at worst. In the Revolutionary War, it was the time through Valley Forge and slightly beyond. In the Civil War, the first two years of the war the South was pushing the North's troops around like so many chess pawns. In World War II, the battles in both major theaters looked pretty bad through 1943. In the end though, in each case, the United State persevered and eventually won those conflicts. The war in Iraq is similar, it that after an extended "dark time," a time that could and should have been shortened, is coming to a close militarily.

The sudden conversion of Democrats is not going to help their case in the national security area. If the GOP is smart they can capitalize on this weakness, noting that had Democrats occupied the White House, we would have exited Iraq on the verge of victory, all but assuring another Vietnam, but with far reaching and global consequences. The change of heart gives the impression of "fair weather friends" and while Americans may not crave war, they certain crave victory in war. Students of American warfare would easily recognize the "dark time" pattern and realize that cutting and running in a "dark time" extends the darkness, it does not bring the light.