American Are Soft On War

Despite all the dangers in the world today, Americans are dragging their feet when it comes to defending our way of life with the sword. Unfortunately, war will always be a necessary fact of life—as long as human nature remains as it has since the beginning of recorded history. We seem eager to use Theodore Roosevelt’s admonition of 1903 in that we always want to “speak softly,” but for several reasons, we are reluctant to “carry a big stick” (or, we are, at least, reluctant to use it).

Western nations join America in this reluctance to fight for the things we value. The West cannot even get together to agree on sanctions against Iran when everyone knows that once Iran obtains nuclear weapons it will seriously threaten Israel and soon it will aim its rockets at Munich, Frankfurt, and Paris.

Why this reluctance? I think the main reason is that we, at home, eating pizza and sitting before our TV sets do not feel seriously threatened. A country will only fight for its way of life if it is being invaded, as America did during our revolution and after 9/11. But the fact that we do not actually have any foreign invader (yet) does not lessen our ultimate danger.

We, Westerners, need to realize that we are facing an enemy who does not value the lives of its fighters as we do. We cringe at reading about war casualties, and very rightly so. But our enemies think nothing about sending women and children into market places with suicide bombs strapped to their bodies. They think they can assure themselves a place in heaven by dying in a jihad for Allah. Our enemies’ philosophy of war, whether we like it or not, makes for effective tactics.

In asymmetric wars, such as we fight today, the ultimate winner is not the one who wins big battles—it is the side that remains in the field the longest and who is able to avoid losing its soldiers in pitched battles on a conventional battle field. That kind of tactic is exactly what the Taliban is using today in Afghanistan.

Despite our American distaste for war, we must realize that no war is won without paying attention to the old principle of warfare: It is impossible to win a war without putting foot soldiers on the enemies’ soil. American foot soldiers are in danger. We, as Americans, desiring to protect the freedoms we enjoy and desiring to spread those freedoms to other nations not so fortunate as we, must support those troops and believe in what they are doing for us!