We’ve launched a full-blown offensive against Moqtada al-Sadr’s milita in Najaf. No doubt many will think we’re doomed for no other reason than because this is happening, without regard to what it might look like when it’s over.
Stephen Green (aka Vodkapundit) published his first Tech Central Station piece today and it goes rather nicely when the rest of today’s headlines.
If you think war has become complicated, peace is messier still.
Nobody ever knows what the peace will look like. At Fort Sumter, who could have predicted the KKK, Jim Crow, or Radical Reconstruction? Who knew in August, 1914 that the European War would result in 20 million deaths, Russian Communism, or Nazi Germany? If you can find me the words of some prophet detailing, in 1940, the UN, the Cold War, or even the complete assimilation of western Germany into Western Europe. . . then I’ll print this essay on some very heavy paper, and eat it. With aluminum foil as a garnish.
It simply isn’t possible to plan for the peace. “No peace plan survives the last battle” is Green’s Corollary to von Moltke’s dictum that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.
So then — how do we win this Terror War, and what will the peace look like?
I don’t agree with everything he says, but I think he’s basically right and I suggest you read it.
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