Didn't Kill Nearly Enough

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. For RealClearWorld, he writes a trenchant critique of U.S. foreign policy.

For at least the past 35 years -- that is, since well before 9/11 -- the United States has been "at war" in various quarters of the Islamic world. At no point has it demonstrated the will or the ability to finish the job. Washington's approach has been akin to treating cancer with a little bit of chemo one year and a one-shot course of radiation the next.

While there may be many reasons why the Iraq War of 2003 to 2011 and the still longer Afghanistan War yielded such disappointing results, Washington's timidity in conducting those campaigns deserves pride of place. That most Americans might bridle at the term "timidity" reflects the extent to which they have deluded themselves regarding the reality of war.

With the nation as a whole adhering to peacetime routines, Washington neither sent enough troops nor stayed anywhere near long enough to finish the job. Yes, we killed many tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, but if winning World War IV requires, as Cohen writes, that we "break the back" of the enemy, then we obviously didn't kill nearly enough.

Bacevich's ultimate conclusion is what Eliot A. Cohen calls "World War IV" cannot be won without turning the U.S. into something we could neither recognize nor stomach. The costs, Bacevich believes, would be astronomical, the time frame might well run to a half century, and a military draft would be mandatory. I believe him to be nostalgic for the commitment and moral clarity of World War II.