The Inevitability Of War - Clausewitz, Human Nature, And The Irrefutable Lessons Of History

Currently (August 2024) there are two major wars being fought.  The first is in Eastern Europe where Ukraine, with the support of the United States and Europe is fighting to defeat and oust the Russian invader. The second is Israel, with the support of the United States, is fighting a war to rid Gaza of the invader Hamas.  

Both wars are proxy wars.  The struggle in Ukraine is America's war with Russia, an unbowed, nuclear adversary on its way to full restoration of geopolitical power and influence after the fall of the Soviet Union.  The war against Hamas is really a war against Iran, the supporter, supplier, and political mentor of Hamas and Hezbollah, unbowed exporter of Islamic terrorism, and America's and Israel's most dangerous and threatening enemy.

 

Israel in its war against Hamas has just assassinated a top leader of Hamas who was currently residing in Iran, and Iran has announced its intention to make Israel pay for such a violation of its sovereignty.  Israel is on a war footing and President Biden will soon meet with his top diplomatic, intelligence and military staff in the war room to plan for what seems to be an inevitable attack by Iran. 

If that indeed does happen then Israel - and its proxy, the United States - will be fighting wars on three fronts - Lebanon and Hezbollah to the north; Gaza; and Iran - and the Middle East will again be the scene of violent regional conflict. Israel has fought such regional wars many times in its past as neighboring Arab states made good on their desire to rid the Middle East of the interloping Jews.  These wars were easily won by Israel, but now the stakes have been upped considerably.  Iran is or is very close to becoming a nuclear power and has been explicit about its intent to annihilate the Jews and remove their scourge from the region. 

 

America's position in both wars has been quizzical at best.  Although it has been providing arms and equipment to Ukraine, it has refused to engage more actively in the war - any more than logistical support, especially ground and air combat with Russia, is unconscionable.  It is one thing to support a valued ally, another to go to war with a determined, nuclear-armed enemy.  

Because of this, Russia is certain to win the war in Ukraine, take over the northeastern territories it has sought from the beginning and reach a favorable compromise with the Ukrainian regime.  Putin's war will have been a success as has been his civil wars against Chechnya and the states of the North Caucasus. War for him, as it was for the famous military historian and strategist, Karl Von Clausewitz 'the continuation of politics by other means', and there is no doubt that Russia's neo-imperialism will not stop with Ukraine.  

 

The Biden Administration has acted with the same purported resolve in its support of Israel, but is as afraid of confronting Iran as it is Russia.  Even though the United States has known for decades that Iran will stop at nothing to gain full and complete Islamic hegemony over the region, it hesitates, prevaricates, and even suggests that it will actually pull support from Israel unless they act compassionately.  

Iran, like Russia has made its imperialistic intents plain; and like Russia, has embraced the perennial lesson of Clausewitz - 'War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means'.  Russia and Iran do not fear war like the United States, but see it only as a  necessary means to an end.

The United States has never gotten over its humiliating defeat in Vietnam, nor has it learned that its 'hearts and minds', casualty-avoidance strategy will never work against an implacable enemy.  Ho Chi Minh never once retreated from his position of total victory at any cost.  Vietnam would be reunified and the invader expelled. 

Surprisingly the US kept its self-defeating 'humanitarian' policies intact.  Rather than establishing an uncompromising military occupation after the easy victory to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq, it felt that democracy because of its higher good, would be embraced by the Iraqi people; and of course radical Islamic militias fought for territory and power and the country is now worse off than it ever was. 

 Afghanistan was also fought on principle, but as had happened many times in the past, America became sick and tired of a struggle against the Taliban which seemed endless.  Without all-our war against the enemy, which the US refused to engage, might as well end it once and for all.

The Taliban are back in power.  They, like Ho Chi Minh, had no doubts about their eventual victory, nor did they doubt American lack of resolve and battle fatigue.  They like Putin and Ho Chi Minh knew that war was simply a necessary geopolitical tool and they used it well. 

History has shown that war is perhaps the most common and the most predictable expression of human society.  War has been the rule since the first human settlements, and every century has been characterized them. Although idealists have insisted that we as a race are progressing towards a peaceful, congenial, harmonious place, the facts show anything but.  The Twentieth Century was one of the most bloodies in a history which included The Hundred Years War, the interminable War of the Roses, and a thousand other conflicts in Imperial China and Japan, tribal and colonial Africa, and the Americas. 

If violent human conflict is not hardwired as part of a Darwinian imperative, then what is?  Conflicts over territory, power, money, and influence are endemic in individuals, families, clans, tribes, and nations.  Why should anyone ever assume that they will ever disappear? 

History takes no sides - human events have never been moral or immoral, but amoral only, the result of swings and sways of power and influence.  'To the victors go the spoils', and in the give and take of geopolitical conflict the winners established their culture, their language, and their religion until they were the defeated.  Things have a way of sorting themselves out. 

In such an inevitable world, the advice of two preeminent thinkers is pertinent - that of Clausewitz who accepted the inevitability of war, and as such nations should always be prepared to fight; and that of Machiavelli who said war, while inevitable, should be fought only in cases of national self-interest. If competing forces are not looked at as evil, immoral, or anti-social but simply extending their national interests, they can be stopped, delayed, or mitigated.  Nations that understand this fundamental motivation will also always be ready for war. 

 

Those who preach world peace, Utopianism, and compassionate progressivism only do a disservice to nations who should be listening only to Clausewitz and Machiavelli.  When Josef Stalin was told that the Pope might contribute his moral authority to discussions concerning post-war Europe, he said, 'How many divisions does the Pope have?' He, Stalin, and his Red Army were the ones who defeated the invading Nazi forces at Stalingrad, not the Pope.  There is no room for moral questions in matters of war. 

Mao Zedong thought no differently. 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun', he said, always putting national interests, geopolitics, and territorialism first and foremost when it came to national sovereignty. 

It is revisionist historians, especially those educated and raised within the moralistic culture of today, who talk of Stalin and Mao's 'evil'; but they were only following their natural human inclinations.  More brutal than most?  Hardly.  Genghis Khan when he marched from the steppes to conquer the world from Japan to Europe left only mayhem and ruin in his wake.  Millions were slaughtered in his Mongol-Turk conquests.  

 

The thought of a mentally compromised, hesitant, and unsure Biden in the war room contemplating an Iran-Israeli conflict is not a pretty one.  Not only is the man not up to the task, but the United States under progressivism has sent exactly the wrong signals to the world - in the interests or world peace, compassion, and human rights, we are here to compromise.  What would Clausewitz and Machiavelli think of that?!