In re: Tet

Great post.

It's sad how the middle aged white men who watch war documentaries on the History Channel, the core Republican voter, and they people they elect, can't understand this simple point. Morons.

I'm baffled as to why you think substituting "policy" for "politics" improves the line of thought. I think it degrades it, instead.

Good post. You should also check out John Keegan's basic criticism of Clausewitz -- that war has an internal momentum that tends to carry it beyond reasonable relation to achieving limited policy goals. In other words, war is a uniquely dangerous way to do politics and should not be thought of as just another means to policy ends.

Chris is right that the core Republican voter (and certain the core warblogger constituency) is a middle-aged male war buff, yet this group is completely incapable of understanding the simplest truths about the actuality of war.

My post had an internal momentum that carried it beyond a reasonable relationship to grammar, sorry. But you get the point.

Pardon the off-topic post, but I can't find an email address anywhere. Do you have for the blog?

Anyway, just got a copy of the latest Washingtonian, and it has an profile of Gilbert Arenas (called either "the Assassin" or "DC's Best Athlete" depending on what page you look at) by Fred Barnes.

I really thought you had staked out the only slot for a basketball/politics pundit but I guess I was wrong.

I guess one could rephrase the conventional wisdom about the Tet offensive as saying that it was a tactical failure for the North Vietnamese, but a strategic success.

I'm not even so sure that I agree with this. Because the North Vietnamese ended up winning the war, there is a tendency after the fact to say that everything they did along the way was successful. Its plausible that the North Vietnamese would have won the war earlier and at lower cost without the Tet offensive, isn't it?

I'm baffled as to why you think substituting "policy" for "politics" improves the line of thought. I think it degrades it, instead.

Because when a lot of people see "politics," it connotes "electoral politics." Now, it's true that for the Republican Party, fighting wars is electoral politics by other means, but that's probably not what Clausewitz meant.

"Because when a lot of people see "politics," it connotes "electoral politics."

I heard Matthew's explanation the first time, but the semantic change still changes a fair bit of what Clausewitz is saying.

"Politics" has a meaning much more broad than just electoral politics. Substituting "policy" shifts things pretty drastically.

Matthew is exactly right.

But I don't think he realizes the import of his post. If there is no distinction between military and policy, then one cannot oppose the policy the military is attempting to achieve and yet still support the military. If he stops and thinks about it, he would realize that his "policy objectives" (as he puts it above) and the insurgents' "policy objectives" are the exact same policy: US retreat; allow the insurgents to win. Efforts by the insurgents aid Matthew's policy objectives; efforts by Matthew aid the the insurgents policy objectives. Does he really want to go there?

Try this out:

"War is the continuation of policy by other means."

That statement has no meaning.

Jim

Its plausible that the North Vietnamese would have won the war earlier and at lower cost without the Tet offensive, isn't it?

No, because until the Tet offensive, support for the South Vietnam remained high both in the US and in South Vietnam itself.

The Tet offensive was a (huge) political success for the Viet Cong because it proved that they could go and fight anywhere they wanted, that there was no place safe from them and that they were willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve their goals. The North was essentially showing what the end game would be.

It was also a military success in the regard that the US was not able to exploit the losses in VC and PNA ranks caused by the offensive.

Al, this is my first time reading the comments at this blog, and your comment is the funniest thing I've ever read. Thank you.

Also, on this:

If your goals in Iraq were to (a) eliminate Saddam's nuclear program, [...] and it turns out that Saddam had no nuclear program [...], you've lost the war.

I don't think that follows. You've WON - in that your policy objective (no Saddam nuclear program) was met. However, you had won that war before it even started, and therefore wasted all of the assets you used.

in VC and VPA ranks ... (sorry for the typo)

"But I don't think he realizes the import of his post."

I thought it mildly ironic that Matthew was echoing the standard right-wing talking points.

"Does he really want to go there?"

Why not? There are other destinations for this line of thought other than the one you are proposing, Al.

BTW - I think Petey is right on his objection. "Politics" is one means to achieve policy objectives. War is another means.

However, I understand where Matthew is coming from. The policy objectives that war tends to try to achieve are usually not achievable through "electoral politics". Without war, there were no "electoral politics" that would have achieve the policy objective of "captur[ing] or killing of the al-Qaeda/Taliban leadership or "constructing a stable, pro-American regime in Iraq". There were potentially other types of politics that could have achieved those objectives, but not electoral politics.

I'm not completely sure this is right about the Tet Offensive, specifically.

The basic results of Tet were as follows: The Viet Cong were crushed as an effective fighting force - from thereon out, the North Vietnamese had to become more and more directly involved in fighting US and RVN forces. At the same time, the mere existence of such a large scale offensive at a time when the Johnson administration was claiming the war was virtually won had major effects on morale in the United States, making US withdrawal more likely.

The main thing about Tet was that the point of it was to bring the US to the bargaining table. This happened - negotiations soon opened in Paris. There was, in fact, almost an actual deal worked out by October. But the South Vietnamese wouldn't sign on, because they knew that Nixon would win, and would (presumably) get them better terms. So the war continued for 7 more years.

So was this a victory? On the one hand, it brought the US to the negotiating table. On the other hand, it politically crippled those elements in the US that were willing to actually negotiate with them, and brought in a new administration that was determined to continue the struggle (at least initially).

So did the Tet Offensive achieve its objectives? In part, maybe. But I think the thing to grasp here is that, in the long run, the North Vietnamese couldn't possibly lose. Their Soviet sponsors insured that the US couldn't invade North Vietnam, or nuke it. Beyond that, time is on their side. At any time, there were basically two options in Vietnam - fighting can continue, or North Vietnam can win. The Tet Offensive did not, in fact, lead to North Vietnam winning, so in that sense it can be seen as a bloody failure.

But I'm not sure. Maybe I'm over-estimating the inevitability of North Vietnamese eventual victory. But the basic point is - all the North Vietnamese need to do is to get the US to decide to stop fighting. Once that happens they'll win. Tet did not, in the short term, convince the US to stop fighting. In the long term, the US was going to stop fighting, anyway, at some point. So how is it a victory, exactly?

I don't think there ever were goals.

I think they came into office intending to invade Iraq for some personal revenge issues (Cheney was still pissed through the 90's that the Pentagon and GHWB laughed at his idea to send SpecOps to kill Saddam and told him he watched too much A-Team). The lesser was pissy that the guy walked around on a mural of his father. Cheney at Halliburton had commissioned studies to show that privatizing core duties from the military was prudent so that's in the back of your mind.

They won I suppose if you throw away all the garbage they fed out to fool the rubes.

Matt,

I beg to differ about Clausewitz. In today's nation-state and post nation-state world, his famous aphorism is clap-trap. It worked when war were fought above and without the populations by interchangeable sovereigns commanding armies of limited destructive means, an era that, ironically enough, was coming to a close as Clausewitz was writing his book.

Since Clausewitz, war has become so extreme and destructive that it is the continuation of jack precious nothing. It's an end-point, not a mean. It doesn't achieve anything but complete destruction. As a consequence, modern war only works when the political goal is destruction itself, a goal which is legitimate only when the target is clearly, unequivocally defined, that there is a clear agreement (from the army, the population, the political class) that no agreement can be conceivably sought and that nothing should spared to destroy the other side.

It worked great in WWII when the Nazis and the Japanese Empire had to be utterly destroyed and erased. It should have worked great in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Talibans, save for GWB's imbecility. It's completely non-sensical in Iraq, the same way it was non-sensical in Vietnam, given the limited, mushy goals of both wars.

I liked the "nonsense on stilts" metaphor from Alan Wolfe's post. As if an ill-conceived strategy could be salvaged by escalating the physical humor used in selling it. Great image, and more effective than the more direct "clown show" put down.

But to the policy question: the need to bundle the "war phase" and "peace phase" is the root of the problem. Both pro and con sides of the "invade Iraq" strategy agree that these need to go together. The difference is that the pro-war folks think we need to match the Roman empire for ruthlessness (and become Saddam, morally speaking) to win the peace, while the anti-war line is that the war was dumb to start with because we knew going in we couldn't be that ruthless.

Of course, there are structural reasons for our inability to win as well as lack of "roman ruthlessness". Afterall, even the Romans at the height of their "virtue" were unable to keep the Germans whipped.

Ah, but we live in post-history, the age where "history is bunk" while we relive it in endless iterations of travesty and farce.

The policy ends of the Iraq War have never been exclusively -- or even greatly -- in Iraq. Much of the reason for the Iraq War has been to have a war -- any war -- in order to promote the domestic policies of the Republican Party. Spending, taxes, consolidation of presidential power -- all of these weigh more heavily on Bush's prosecution of the war than any particular Iraqi result imaginable. After all, we toppled Saddam in days, and there was no widespread insurrection for a long time. Bush didn't leave Iraq pronto because HIS objectives back home required delay. War in Iraq gave him cover and power he wouldn't have had without it.

Al, that's exactly why Bush has screwed up so badly. He's put us in a position where the insurgents are going to win. Don't start fights you can't win.

MQ, I remember reading somewhere about chaos theory and power laws and whatnot, that when wars start, there's no telling how large or small they'll up. I don't know what they lesson is there, but I'm guessing starting wars isn't it.

maybe it was this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1541615,00.html

I agree with John's post above. I don't know if people really appreciate how much of a military, or "tactical", setback Tet was for the North Vietnamese. There are so many counterfactuals involved here, that its hard to predict what would have happened in the absence of the Tet offensive.

Al,

The jihadist/insurgent/al Quaeda/Taliban factions are currently in a win-win situation. If we leave, then they can claim victory, if we stay, they can claim that their theories of western imperial domination are correct and "grow their base". In either case, Iraq will be a fantastic training ground for them for a long time to come.

So how is Matt's proposal that we leave any more pro-insurgent than your desire that we stay? It seems the primary difference is that Matt's proposal is an open acknowledgement of our loss of the war, whereas yours is merely an open ended (and expensive) deferral of that recognition. I can understand why Bush wants to push it all back 'til 2009, but I don't see why his supporters are so ready to help him. Why put off to tomorrow...etc.

Another reason for not changing the original Clausewitz quote is that the converse is also true:

Politics is war carried out by other means.

Also, just to note something that seems to have been misunderstood, the fact that the Tet offensive crippled the Viet Cong was not a drawback from the point of view of the North Vietnamese. It was another advantage. It meant that, after the U.S. withdrew, there was no longer an effective potential insurrgency in the south to oppose their control of the entire country.

This may or may not have analogous features to Iraq.

If you follow his logic out, Americans have a duty to never quit or question quitting any conflict until we have killed them down to the last Vietnamese or Iraqi or whoever in the name of humanitarian intervention. It's really something to wrap your mind around.

If there is no distinction between military and policy, then one cannot oppose the policy the military is attempting to achieve and yet still support the military.

This is the most idiotic comment I've ever seen posted on the internet. Bravo.

Beyond that, time is on their side. At any time, there were basically two options in Vietnam - fighting can continue, or North Vietnam can win.

There was a third option which was to turn the joke on North Vietnam : foster guerilla warfare north of the 17th parallel, push the Communists in an endless cycle of repression against its own population and turn the war in a war of liberation against the Soviet oppressor. All of that would have supposed a truly popular government in the South, US officers impeccably attuned to guerilla warfare and local culture, massive economic and social assistance and an awful lot of ponies...

BTW, that improbable strategy is quite certainly the only possible path to US success in Iraq : disengage quickly, let the worst Shia fundies take power in non-Kurd Iraq (and neutralize preemptively any potential moderating influence among the fundies to make sure the truly worst gets on top), open the door as wide as possible to Iranian agents and make them as visible as possible (that is, drag Iran in) and then spark the repression cycle by economic sabotage and pro-US/anti-Iranian/anti-Shia/secular guerillas. Then sit back and "enjoy" the carnage, until the fundies/Iran are totally discredited, at which point you can go back on the offensive for an honest-to-Allah war of liberation against the fundie/Iranian oppressor.

The civil war is already there. The moderating elements have already left the country. The quantity of ponies required to successfully implement the rest of that strategy is, of course, absolutely staggering. It is also very likely that Iran would not play along along and would rather end-up playing the Vietnamese to Cambodia's Kmers Rouges (they're crazies but they aren't stupid).

Let's call it a day and go home.

One historical note: By wiping out the Viet Cong, the Tet Offensive solved a major long term political problem for North Vietnam by eliminating indigenous South Vietnamese rivals for eventual control over the South. The two subsequent offensives of 1972 and 1975 were conventional North Vietnamese Army operations, not guerilla attacks like Tet. The NVA rounded up some surviving Viet Cong to lead the victory march into Saigon in April 1975, but that was the last anybody heard of the VC.

So, Tet was a no lose proposition for the North Vietnamese Army -- it would either defeat the Americans or the Americans would defeat the Cong. A classic let's-you-and-him-fight situation.

"Much of the reason for the Iraq War has been to have a war -- any war -- in order to promote the domestic policies of the Republican Party. Spending, taxes, consolidation of presidential power -- all of these weigh more heavily on Bush's prosecution of the war than any particular Iraqi result imaginable."

I think this point is crucial, and underappreciated. What's more is that Vietnam too was fought for domestic ends, but they were policy rather than political ends. In a sense, we can say that the deaths of more than 50,000 young Americans were a blood sacrifice for Civil Rights, Medicare, Medicaid, and quite a number of other enormously positive social, environmental, workplace safety and entitlement programs (and a few useless and counterproductive programs). And Mr. Johnson understood (at least about Civil Rights, if not perhaps about the expansion of government programs more generally) that he was sacrificing his party's future political fortunes for the greater good. Vietnam is still too fresh to fully forgive LBJ (and strangely there seems less pity for him than for Nixon, even though both were tragic, and although Nixon's sins foreign and domestic were clearly greater), and perhaps we'll never fully appreciate the man's domestic achievements (because of Vietnam). It's been more than 200 years since John Adams prevented a devastating war with France, and in doing so probably also prevented the breakup of a young and fragile nation, but this fact remains underappreciated, and much of the focus is still on Adams' ruthlessness toward his political enemies (which in addition to being a fault of character was also likely necessary to assuaging the warhawks of the Federalist Party so he could pursue a private peace). Adams, like Johnson, sacrificed his party's fortunes and his own reputation for the greater good.

Today the bought-and-paid-for Republican owned and controlled Mainstream Media blares "Court Told It Lacks Authority" in a headline regarding proposed conduct of tribunals without our foundational American Constitutional right of Habeus Corpus. Well. Let's see: the ultimate authority in our Democratic Republic resides not in our President, or in our Congress, nor in our Senate, as all of these are chosen by We The People to represent us. Therefore, all members of our government are fundamentally subject to the will of We The People Of The United States Of America, as expressed through representatives selected through our Constitutionally Guaranteed process of Free, Fair and Open Elections. This twice-unelected administration now asserting that our courts "lack authority" was never itself actually elected by We The People Of The United States Of America through our Constitutionally mandated process of free, fair, and open elections, but rather this administration twice stole our elections through the use of Diebold Black Boxes, wholesale manipulation of the entire mainstream media, voter intimidation, fraud, and hundreds of other documented illegal, immoral, unconstitutional and illigitimate actions. Therefore, it is not in fact our courts which lack authority, but this twice unelected Administration itself which holds no legitimate authority or any other rightful claim to governance. One of 60 members of the team investigating massive FEMA fraud, waste, abuse, and neglect in the aftermath of the Katrina debacle just fired by Republican appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis, who is himself under Federal investigation for charges related to jailed defense contracting bribery convict Republican Duke Cunningham stated: “This staff has saved billions and billions of dollars, we’ve turned up malfeasance and misfeasance. It’s results justify the expense of the staff. I have no idea why the chairman would do this.” By this latest action of firing investigators into malfeasance and misfeasance against all Americans, Lewis has unequivocally, blatantly and clearly announced that the entire Republican administration is fundamentally corrupt from top to bottom. Since the Republicans have now fired the investigators, the only possible way to preserve what is left our American national integrity is to fire all Republicans in government through triple-verified citizen hand counted paper ballots. Anything less leaves our nation subject to the further whims of actually miscreant, proveably derelict and manifestly corrupt tyrants.

Oy, I hate all bold. Hurts.

Didn't finish that thought.

Madison (whose own term was characterized by significant increases in public spending and an unpopular war) is clearly the better analogy with Johnson. But of course we don't remember Madison first of foremost for his tragic presidency, and Mr. Johnson's achievements as a younger man don't quite equal Mr. Madison's.

Also, just in case it needs to be said I'm not sure the Iraq War will end as a kind of closed loop like Vietnam. It's my belief (as a catastrophist more than a liberal or conservative about the present mideast) the violence could spread through the region like a brush fire. In that sense, Iraq may be far worse than Vietnam.

Fifi, your first comment is pretty much Keegan's basic criticism of Clausewitz (see MQ at comment 3), though Keegan also notes that the distinction between "civilized" warfare and "true" or "lawless" warfare is largely a western construct meant to protect that aristocracy from the nastier aspects of the furies they unleashed. Of course, that's neither here nor there.

That said, Clausewitz clearly has some applicability here if we care about war for more than it's own sake (which is an assumption perhaps not shared by all war supporters. See, e.g. Ledeen doctrine) - "winning the battles but losing the war" inescapably means that you're fighting the wrong battles...

Unless you kill everyone, or damn near everyone, a war is over when the loser says it is. In any war for a more limited end than national survival, there is a point for each side where the end isn't worth the cost of achieving it. Whoever reaches that point first "loses." The question of which bunch of thugs would run Vietnam was of more importance to the Vietnamese than to us and we blinked first. Sure, we could have turned the country into a parking lot, but even leaving aside the possibility that some other power might object and intervene, nothing at stake there warranted our doing that. We could not achieve the end we sought at a price we were willing to pay. And we were right not to be willing to pay the price because the end wasn't important enough to us. So we "lost." That's just rational behavior. What's so difficult to understand?

CJC,

I suppose one man's rational calculus is another's "failure of will." (Brings to mind MY on the "Green Lantern" theory)

The substitution of "policy" for "politics" works because the Germans do not have separate words for these concepts. The word Clausewitz used was "die Politik," which can be translated either way. Matt's substitution, I believe, was meant only to clear up a common misconception among some people, especially Americans, especially blog readers, regarding the use of the word "politics."

So yes, war is an extension of policy by other means; if a state's policy is to "incorporate territory X" or "destroy government Y" then war is a possible tool for achieving this policy. What's important in the use of "die Politik" is that was is, fundamentally, about politics; not the political one-upmanship and ideological litmus testing that Republicans (especially) understand it as, but rather about different groups using force to impose will and contest power.

Clausewitz's statement about war qua politics wasn't his last word on the subject, however. He was a good Hegelian, and that was just the thesis. The antithesis was war qua dueling. The synthesis? I never finished the book. Oh well...

Fifi, Pooh got there first -- this is exactly Keegan's point. You stated it very well.

Al -- do you really believe the stuff you type, or is it just some kind of weird game you're playing with all of us?

"Another reason for not changing the original Clausewitz quote is that the converse is also true:

Politics is war carried out by other means."

Let's try this another way:

"Language is not math. Therefore, not math is language."

Language is not math, and "to be" is not the same thing as an equal sign. War is a continuation of policy by other means, as is diplomacy, or economic sanctions, or covert action. This does not that policy is any of these things by other means.

Is there time yet to work Carl Scmitt, the "Other" and the "State of Exception" in here, or are we too many German already?

War is domestic politics by other means, not necessarily having anything to do with domestic policy.

Linus at 3:40: Much of LBJ's domestic agenda was completed by the 1966 midterms, in which he lost a ton of house seats to Republicans anyway, mostly because of civil rights. I am not sure to what degree he was trapped, or how much the "sacrifice theorey" works. 1966 was when American casualties approached their peak (67-69), and I suspect the Generals had their own flawed input. IOW, they told LBJ they could win.

No, dammit, there's nothing left to "win" (or "lose.") We won what could be won--we defeated Saddam (will someone give me a "b.f.d."?)

After that, there was a political challenge which was probably doomed at the start but which has certainly been turned into a very bloody failure by the administration's incompetence.

It is now hopeless.

Keegan also notes that the distinction between "civilized" warfare and "true" or "lawless" warfare is largely a western construct meant to protect that aristocracy from the nastier aspects of the furies they unleashed.

From an Intel Dump comment thread:

The reason the laws of war exist is because war, while frequent and a curse on mankind since we first stopped roaming and formed human societies, is not a normal state of affairs. It is an abberation, a temporary condition whereby people from different groups attempt to kill one another until a dispute is settled. What the most successful warriors and most successful societies found is that war often takes on a purpose of its own - not to settle the underlying dispute, but to punish the enemy for killing people on one's own side. As a result it was common for most of human history for wars to be fought continuously by "traditional enemies." War became the normal condition, peace the exception. This weakened and harmed everybody and often led to the elimination of both sides by an outside, third-party group of humans. Because wars were so frequent and so hard to stop once started, the goal of wars often ceased to be settling an underlying dispute, but became genocidal. Rome destroyed Carthage, and all of humanity is worse off as a result. Rome thought it had to destroy Carthage or be itself destroyed, and maybe Rome was right.

The survivors often realized that incidents in war having nothing to do with the underlying dispute made it harder to end the war even after the dispute was settled. That led to the idea of a "just peace." The purpose of Just War doctrine is to arrive at the cheapest, most stable, and most tolerable (for both sides) outcome - that is, once the dispute is settled both groups can go back to farming, raising their kids, building cities, etc - without having to continuously wage wars against the "enemy" until one side is enslaved or eliminated.

In order to arrive at a Just Peace, which is always the goal of every war the United States fight, it is necessary for us to fight a Just War - that is, while attempting to win the war we should recognize that ANY destruction and death imposed on the enemy that doesn't result in a tactical or strategic advantage will make it more difficult to arrive at a Just Peace. Actions that make it harder to reach a Just Peace are therefore counter-productive. If you massacre the inhabitants of an entire village, then the surrounding villages that might have surrendered to your forces will not, they will fight to the death. If you instead treated your prisoners well, fed the inhabitants of the village, and declared that any who promised not to bear arms against you could go on about their business, you might find that you had won the war much more cheaply - and the "losers" would be much more likely to accept that outcome, instead of coming to attack your kids 20 years later.

North Vietnam was a seperate country?

Oh h---, just square the circle. To the Bush gang, war is the pursuit of politics by other means. And probably the only instance in which they are pleased to push Democrats to the front.

Aside from some concerns about an oil pipeline, the Bush gang never cared what happened in Afghanistan. I mean, really, like the average American is going to go there and check on things. Pretty much anything that did happen could be buttered and greased by the talkiing heads and pundits, and the average American would swallow it.

It's just all business at the same old stand for the Bush gang, a flood of bamboozlement and bullying during the time they, like a bunch of monkeys, rule the boardroom, and then the getaway, leaving the poor saps who work there to pick up the pieces.

And in this case, we're the poor saps who work here.

Forget all that Great Books crap. Sun Tzu is the authority, not Clausewitz.

Al -- good lord. I guess the years of ever-increasing cognitive dissonance are starting to cause some load-bearing parts to splinter. Or maybe spittle and foam are interfering with the proper functioning of the keyboard.

Separately, I wonder at people (not necessarily Al) who seem incapable of typing "Q" without typing "u" immediately thereafter.

Sunt Tzu also emphasized that a military leader should keep in mind the political objectives of the war, perhaps more so than Clausewitz. (I haven't read Clausewitz. I have read Sun Tzu.)

"North Vietnam was a seperate country?"

You people mzke me feel old; parts of my life are ancient history to you.

Yes, North Vietnam was a seperate country, like North Korea.

"Politics" in contemporary usage tends to denote "partisan politics" or "electoral politics" so perhaps it's better to think in terms of the word "policy."

Agreed. It doesn't annoy me nearly as much as having to call states 'nations' or 'countries' to avoid confusion with the United States. Another good reason to be anti-American. ;)

STS --
Wolfe borrowed "nonsense on stilts" from Jeremy Bentham, I believe, who I think use it to describe the idea of natural rights.

"Yes, North Vietnam was a seperate country, like North Korea."

Like the Confederacy?

Vietnam was partitioned by the Geneva Accords of 1954, as a preliminary to elections to be held a couple of years later. The elections were cancelled by the South Vietnamese regime.

Interesting to compare Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. The french sinologist, Francois Jullien, claims that classic Chinese philosophy is about creating conditions - and that, specifically, Chinese war strategy was aimed at conditions, rather than objectives, with the idea being that the objective would flow from the application of force that would determine the enemy's own objectives. As Steven Sailor said in his comment, one of those conditions, in Vietnam, was the liquidation of the power of the VC, which the North Vietnamese could only regard as a hazardous ally - and the U.S. came through in that respect, undoing itself as it undid the Viet Cong, and creating, in its pursuit of impossible objectives - the creation of a fictional South Vietnamese state that was at once the embodiment of the will of the South Vietnamese and the complete instrument of the Americans - conditions in the countryside in South Vietnam that would turn the people against the Americans. The same thing, for the same reason, is happening in Iraq - the idiotic use of air power, the bullying use of force on the ground, the blind support for factions that the Americans don't really know, and their use of American troops for their own ends, and finally the impossible objective of creating a democracy that just happens to be in 100 percent agreement with anything D.C. wants. So, while the Americans pursue impossible objectives, the various factions pursue conditions. The end result will be Americans lose, and miltary porn fans, in the U.S., will bemoan the fact that we didn't nuke em.

Re: and strangely there seems less pity for him than for Nixon, even though both were tragic, and although Nixon's sins foreign and domestic were clearly greater

Still, compared to BushCo Nixon was a saint, even with Watergate included. And Nixon did lay the groundwork for the end game of the Cold War by the opening to China, he tried to enact universal healthcare and even a guaranteed minimum, income program. Not to mention creating the EPA. If only they made Republicans like they used to!

I watched Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion last night and thought of this post ... The Criterion DVD has an intro by Renoir in which he says that WWI (in which he was a fighter pilot) was "almost a gentlemen's war," and the theme of civility and mutual recognition of humanity, even between enemies in war, is central to the film.

It struck me that this kind of war might be what Clausewitz was thinking of. Now, though, the idea that "war is the continuation of politics by other means" seems more akin to saying that "rape is seduction by other means."

Just imagine some other country invading us with, say, two million troops. Can you imagine what kind of hell would be unleashed against them by one and all?

Trying and failing to avoid feeding the trolls here:

"War is the continuation of policy by other means," to which Petey objects.

Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, Book 1, Chapter 1, subhead 24: "Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln"
http://www.carlvonclausewitz.de/vom_kriege_1_1.php

"Politik" is routinely and correctly translated as "policy." (Visit dict.leo.org for one of the better German-English online dictionaries.)

I've yet to see Petey admit to being wrong about anything here, but for the rest of the audience, there it is.

Good comment.Thanks admin.

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