Monday, September 17, 2007

The Next War ... and the One After That

The Outlook section of the Sunday Post opened with the most depressing headline imaginable: The Next War. The article beneath it, by former NATO commander Wesley Clark, details military lessons from Iraq and other recent American wars that ought to inform preparations for the next war.
Oh, sure, Clark closes with an almost obligatory final sentence, “The best war is the one that doesn’t have to be fought, and the best military is the one capable and versatile enough to deter the next war in the first place.” But the preceding twenty paragraphs are spent detailing how we need to keep up “skill in hunting and killing our foes” and improve our skills in “concealing and protecting our troops.”
Can one imagine a main stream paper such as the Post giving as much space to preparing for the end of war as they do to preparing for the next war? As long as the powers that be spend time, talent and treasure on preparing for war Plato’s words will remain true: only the dead have seen the end of war.

1 comment:

Ghostly Wisconsin said...

Does anyone know if the attack on Iran will be considered "the next war", or an expansion of the Iraq war? Also, in view of the Bush administration's saber-rattling at South America and Korea, would an attack on those areas be considered new wars, or World War III? And has anyone considered the possibility that the world community might find it in the best interests of all life on Earth to stop the US from expanding its war efforts, one way or another?