How does a military power confront the true-believing enemy that is not only willing to die, but actively seeks death as a way of psychologically defeating the superior power it faces?
American-Israeli analyst and news commentator Micah D. Halpern wrote an interesting column recently for his blog — The Micah Report — entitled “The Qualitative Edge,” in which he suggested that Israeli deterrence of enemies has been accomplished through maintaining superior military power: better equipment, better training, better intelligence and greater motivation than its enemies. Halpern states that this doctrine has worked for the past 60 years against Israel’s adversaries, but notes that now Israel is confronted by enemies that are motivated by fervent religious ideology that includes a willingness to die for the cause, putting Israel’s superior military power at bay. In effect, Halpern is asking: how does a military power confront the true-believing enemy that is not only willing to die, but actively seeks death as a way of psychologically defeating the superior power it faces? Halpern suggests that Israel and the West need to find a new model to confront this “new” type of enemy.
With due respect to Dr. Halpern, whose article essentially is correct otherwise, a new model is not needed. However, what is needed is the resolve to fight relentlessly against those that use terrorism — especially against innocent non-combatants — as a method of gaining an advantage in the psychological aspect of war. Although the daily missile and rocket attacks from Gaza have been terrorizing Sderot and its environs, as well as Ashkelon with the Grad missile attacks, Israel’s retaliatory attacks on the Hamas leadership were having a pronounced effect on that terrorist organization. The same can be said about Hizballah. Whereas the rank and file may be willing to become shahadin (self-sacrificing homicidal murderers), Hassan Nasrallah and his fellow leaders of Hizballah have been very careful to seek protection when the bullets fly and the bombs fall. In a similar manner, much of the Iranian leadership has displayed no desire to become martyrs for a greater Shiite caliphate — their life is too sweet to be sacrificed — besides, they always send proxies in their stead.
The answer to terrorism — whether it is perpetuated by Palestinian Sunni Islamic fundamentalists, Lebanese Iranian-inspired Shiite fundamentalists, or the fanatic Iranian ayatollahs themselves — is to fight it vigorously, just like we fought the Japanese kamikaze pilots at the end of World War II. The allies didn’t flinch when attacked by the kamikazes — we didn’t call for, or agree to, a truce at that point. We fought with one goal in mind: total defeat of the enemy. Whereas we don’t wish to harm the civilian populations of our adversaries, we should be seeking an overwhelming defeat of those who not only wish, but also actively seek, our destruction. We are in a war, and we need to remember that fact at all times. Truces called by the other side are meant for their advantage; we should not give in to the temptation for a cease-fire when we have our enemies on the ropes. The time for magnanimity is when the enemy has been utterly crushed, and not before.
We need to understand the mentality of our fanatic fundamentalist enemies. Life is totally black or white for them — there are no shades of grey. Surviving a battle with the superior forces of their enemy is seen as a victory by them — proof that we in the West are too soft to defeat them ultimately. Hizballah thus views the 2006 Lebanon War as a victory since the superior military might of Israel was incapable of crushing the Iranians’ Lebanese proxy. So too, Hamas looks at the current cease-fire as a proof that Israel cannot destroy the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. For that matter, every time that we agree to talk to the Iranians in Iraq, they see it as proof that they are capable of eventually driving us out of the region. And it goes without saying that every time the West offers the Islamic Republic of Iran a bigger incentive to stop its nuclear program, the more adamant Khameneí and his spokesman Ahmadinejad become in their insistence that Iran will never back down ultimately from its “national rights.”
If Israel and the West are to succeed in defeating Islamic fundamentalism, which seeks to return the world to an era long before the Enlightenment — to an era of misogyny and wars of religion — we must realize that our fundamentalist enemies mean to defeat us and subjugate us or put us to the sword. They are fighting as if the future status of heaven and earth are hanging in the balance; it is high time that we learn to take this battle seriously. The fate of Western civilization, indeed of this planet, will be determined by our response to the threats we face today emanating from the Middle East. If we fail to deal with the threat today, by tomorrow the battle will be at our doorstep.
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An excellent analysis. It leaves out only the logical conclusion; if the enemy wants to die, then let them do so. While this flies in the face of modern moral relativism, none-the-less, it is the correct approach. Israel and the West must be willing to kill as many of the enemy as want to die. Eventually this may cause them to learn that their deaths are accomplishing nothing. If this happens they may stop the militarism. If not, then the problem is solved when the last militant dies. Both ways the West wins.
Comment by Steven D. Laib | July 30, 2008
“…how does a military power confront the true-believing enemy that is not only willing to die, but actively seeks death as a way of psychologically defeating the superior power it faces?”
When are the authorities going to learn the only way to defeat terror is with terror. We should pick up the remains of a homicide bomber and bury them in a pig sty along with pork fat. Muslim terrorists might not fear death, but they fear eternal damnation.
Comment by sedonaman | July 30, 2008
In Liberal-think, if a terrorist wants to kill me just because I pray in a church instead of a mosque, or because I believe that women should be allowed to work outside the home, drive a car – or even vote — it's incumbent on me to reason out our differences and find common ground.
Unfortunately, in the real world that common ground is normally about 6 feet of soil covering my rotting corpse, because that's the only compromise a terrorist will agree to. You can compromise with your spouse. Sometimes, you can compromise with your neighbor. And occasionally, you can compromise with your boss (if you still have the negatives from last year's Christmas party to use as an inducement to his cooperation). But you can't compromise with evil.
Wishing for a better world won't make it happen. But a couple of tons of bunker-busting bombs dropped on the right target will.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | July 31, 2008
Phil:
You have pointed out something that Americans refuse to learn: some things just don't lend themselves to compromise.
Comment by sedonaman | July 31, 2008
Sedona: It's the product of our public education system that teaches that all people are essentially the same, and if we just sit down and talk to our enemies, we'll find the common ground that will eventually make us friends. It's the idiotic hubris of Western Liberals who think that every culture/society essentially operates under a Western value system, and refuses to recognize that some people (and their culture/societies) are truly evil and deserve to be opposed, not compromised with.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | July 31, 2008
Good article and great comments. The bottom line is our unwillingness to recognize that terror tactics must be responded to in a way that is devastating to the civilian population protecting (albeit reluctantly) the terrorists. In Viet Nam our rules of engagement guaranteed a loss since we could not attack SAMs located in or sheltered by schools, hospitals, houses of worship, population centers, or historic buildings. Didn't take long for all SAM installations to be sheltered in that way. To be effective we will need to attack the terrorist wherever they are. That may mean that schools, hospitals etal. will be destroyed. That is the price of sheltering the terrorist.
We also need to be good friends to those that help us in the fight. Over time the population will figure out that there is no benefit to becoming a part of the terrorists attempt at suicide and a lot of benefits to being part of the solution.
Does that mean that we need to lose the trappings of liberal civility? Yes! Does it mean that our philosophy will be almost stone age in its simplicity? Yes! Will the media and one worlders hate us? Yes! But taking these steps we will survive.
Comment by Mickey G | July 31, 2008
A great article with great comments. Mickey G has reflected well. WE will loose each and every battle as long as the politicians are allowed to decide the rules of engagement.. I also remember it was said "the more rubble, the less trouble". Given my travels through SE Asia, I will also agree that Westerner's do not understand other cultures, lest their beliefs. Our generals need the autonomy to aggressively destroy our enemies whether on the ground or from 10,000 feet.
Comment by Tom WOZ | July 31, 2008
Micky G makes a good point. When the goal is eliminating the enemy and ending the war, there is no room for trying to define war as anything but Hell.
The irony is that reluctance to do what has to be done to end it more quickly often leads to more agony and death (of troops, enemy and civilians)
The dropping of the A bomb is a good example of an attack that saved lives by taking loads of lives. Sherman's brutality in Georgia terrorized the population, and not a chicken was left breathing by the time he toppled Atlanta. But it broke the back of the south and helped end the war.
The problem is our sensibilities have changed so much. We can't accept as many casualties (ours or theirs)than we were able to 60 years ago. If you look back to the Civil War, the difference is even greater.
Unfortunately, that is not a good thing when you are fighting an enemy with 900-year-old sensibilities and a suicide mentality. Add to that fighting from behind burkas, children and from inside holy places, and you have an enemy who makes you a barbarian if you so much as raise a stick.
Sherman would have resigned at the prospect, but Sherman is who we need. Sorry you Georgians out there, I know it's still a sore spot for some of you.
I'm no anthropologist, but it also is interesting to think that Islamic terrorists/warriors are not exposed to shame that would fall upon those who practiced such tactics in western cultures.
In interviews I've seen with Muslim civilians, they seem to accept hiding and fighting from behind human shields as a logical, valid tactic. And who can argue if the criteria for judging these tactics is survival?
And when there are civilian casualties, the women wail in the street. The terrorists who brought it upon them celebrate the photo opportunity, after which they declare a great victory for Allah, and the cycle continues.
It is a cycle that will go on as long as the populations of these countries behave as sheep. Fortunately, I think what we may be seeing in Iraq these days is a population that is in the early stages of realizing there is a better way. That would be truly devestating to the enemy.
Think of the villagers in "The Seven Samurai" or "The Magnifent Seven." Either movie should be on the mandatory viewing list of embattled Muslim populations everywhere.
Comment by nick adams | August 1, 2008
nick adams, Mickey G:
The following quote is appropriate:
“There must be no delay. People will endure their tyrants for years, but they tear their deliverers to pieces if a heaven on earth is not created immediately.” – Woodrow Wilson, on restoring peace to Europe in 1919.
Comment by sedonaman | August 1, 2008
Mr. Jackson,
While not exactly…polite, I've found a semi-effective tract for demolishing this silliness amongst liberal women. I describe an example where their boyfriend wants a sexual practice that will either hurt them, or that they find disgusting. She doesn't want to do it. He does. Only one of them can get what they want. IF she "compromises", she does something she doesn't really want. They usually get it…at least a little…after that.
Comment by WolvenBear | August 1, 2008
Wolvenbear:
I used a similar example in my essay "What Kind of Car Would Jesus Drive to take his Girlfriend to an Abortion Clinic?"
***
What we need, some people say, is to find common ground with the terrorists (I mean, “freedom fighters”). We should not make them even madder by resisting their aggressive actions toward us. It’s an interesting thought. However, I’m still waiting to see what kind of compromise is possible with Israel’s enemies before I support that same policy for the U.S. What Israel wants is to be left alone and not attacked. What their Islamo-fascist enemies want is to kill all Jews. If land was the only stumbling block, the withdrawal from Gaza would have prompted Hamas and “Hezabaloo” (to quote Charles Rangel) to recognize the state of Israel and enter into new negotiations for other concessions, not to keep attacking and killing Jews.
I guess the compromise for all Israelis, then, is to commit mass suicide, since that represents the logical middle ground between continuing to live unmolested, and being exterminated. The terrorists will not kill the Jews, denying the terrorists what they want. And the Jews will not continue to live, denying the Jews what they want. Only suicide prevents the terrorists from killing the Jews, while at the same time denying the Jews the opportunity to keep on living. The logic of compromise for compromise’ sake is flawless; unburdened by the need to assign moral superiority to either of the competing objectives.
Or, to pull out my usual example when I talk to Relativists who think that the definition of peace is nothing more than the absence of war, consider this dilemma. Talking to a Feminist (a sub-genus of relativous morales) I say the following. Joe wants to rape Sally. Sally doesn’t want to be raped. What’s the compromise? Sally and Joe have consensual sex. Each side “compromises.” Joe doesn’t rape, and Sally gives in on her no-sex position. Conflict is avoided, we have peace in our time, and everybody is happy. Right?
Or could it be that Joe’s desires are morally wrong? If so, there should be no compromise. Resistance by Sally is the proper course of action. If this is indeed the case, then what makes rape wrong? Is it a law passed by a particular government? If that’s all there is to it, what happens if Sally finds herself in a place where rape is lawful, or there is no law at all (like the old American frontier, or other parts of the world today)? Does that mean if Joe and Sally ended up in Somalia, Joe would be justified in raping Sally despite her wishes? (No law, no prohibition against rape, therefore rape is an acceptable practice.) Or is the prohibition against rape something that transcends man-made law, cultural differences, or historical periods of time? If so, just where does this higher moral authority come from, if it isn’t from the laws, culture, or decisions of man?
It comes from God.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | August 2, 2008
Phil:
I found the following observation very perceptive:
Rev. Keith Roderick: "Someone from the Middle East told me once that Westerners play games, looking for win-win outcomes. Islamists play for win-lose outcomes. Liberals have a very difficult time dealing with the kind of triumphal attitudes inherent in Islamism. They think that everyone should be able to paint reality in subtle shades of gray. Islamic intolerance and barbarism is often excused as merely cultural expression."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=802EEC9C-17C6-4AC2-9C12-4ACD59A5970A
Comment by sedonaman | August 3, 2008
Phil:
Shall we call your compromise for all Israelis "a modest proposal"?
Comment by sedonaman | August 4, 2008
As Mr. Jackson has discussed;in short, Islamists adhere to a belief system that is closed to outside influence. Islamists repeatedly remind us that they violently oppose the principles of western world democracry. As such, I continue to be amazed by leftist belief that they are so enlightened that they can convince Islamists to forego their stated oblective(global imposition of Sharia law)through some vague diplomatic process.
Comment by geosmy1 | August 4, 2008