What Can War Accomplish?

Column for week of March 24, 2014       

     As US participation in the war in Afghanistan winds
down (hopefully) it seems appropriate to ponder what war can
accomplish.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have
accomplished little worthwhile and at great cost in wealth and
lives.  It should have been obvious going in that a few years of
foreign intervention wouldn't end the strife among hostile ethnic
and religious groups.  The wars have given many people a few
more reasons to fear and hate the US.

     Saddam Husain's regime in Iraq was totalitarian and
brutal.  It was slightly stable, and balanced against the power of
Iran in the area.  The main accomplishment there was to allow
the feuding parties to get on with killing each other until a new
tyrant emerges.

     The continuing civil war in Afghanistan had reached the
age of majority before the US military arrived.  The US had
switched sides in that war after the Soviet Union pulled out its
military.  That civil war still rages and will continue until a
dominant tyrant puts a damper on it.  That damper won't end the
ethnic and religious hostility which will eventually erupt into
new violence.   Perhaps eventually one faction will eliminate the
rest.  Or, perhaps the factions will agree to divvy up the country.

     From the beginnings of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
there was no reason to expect the wars to turn either country
into a peaceful, prosperous nation.  Looking back a bit further it
is hard to see that Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are more
peaceful and prosperous than they would have been if the US
had left it up to them to settle their differences.

     We need to look back further to the two successful wars,
World War II and Korea.  I don't doubt that the defeat of the
totalitarian, materialistic governments of Germany and Japan at
least hastened the development of peace and prosperity.  Why?

     Most of the people of both Germany and Japan shared a
common culture.  Neither nation was at war with itself.   Both
nations had an educated productive population.  They couldn't
have caused so much devastation if they hadn't had strong
economies.

     The tyrants that ruled both nations misdirected the
productive capacity of the nations toward war and conquest. 
The US and its allies removed those governments.  War weary
people of both nations were ready to accept less ambitious
governments.  The peace and prosperity happened because of the
nature of the populations of the nations, not in spite of it. 
Striking down the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan did
nothing to change the people in a way to make cooperation,
peace and prosperity possible.

     East Germany provides more evidence that merely
striking down a destructive tyrant isn't enough.  With a new
militaristic tyrant East Germany languished for over half a
century.  Destruction of Germany's tyrannical, militaristic
government was of little immediate benefit to the people of East
Germany.

     The Korean war prevented the tyrant from the north from
dominating the entire country.  Like Germany and Japan, South
Korea wasn't at war with itself.  With a less oppressive
government than the North, South Korea has achieved peace and
prosperity although skill and education wise it started well
behind Japan and Germany.

     On this side of the pond repeated, and even long, US
interventions in Haiti have done nothing to change the corrupt
exploitive nature of its government.  The conditions and attitudes
in Haiti don't support such change.

     Destroying a tyrant is not in itself enough to change a
nation.  Unless the people are inclined toward peaceful,
productive cooperation, destroying the tyrant may do more harm
than good.

     Meanwhile, the US government steadily grows more
militaristic and tyrannical, more and more resembling the
governments it has destroyed.  When the time comes, Who will
be there to rescue the people of the US from their homegrown
tyranny?

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2014
Albert D. McCallum