Mark Steyn's War on Terror perscription

[Black Dog]

In his book Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, Max Hastings puts forward the idea that the fighting quality of the United States and United Kingdom in World War Two was well below that of the Nazis and Soviets due to the former nations' status as liberal democracies. These nation were unwilling to make the sacrifices that the totalitarian states demanded due to the value they placed on human life. Having just wrapped up this book, it was weird to see a recent column from Mark Steyn (whom I despise) echoing the same broad point as Hastings: Professionalization of war is ghettoization of war

So even the most powerful military in the world is subject to broader cultural constraints. When Kathryn Lopez's e-mailer sneers that "your contribution to this war is limited solely to your ability to exercise the skillset provided by your liberal arts education," he's accidentally put his finger on the great imponderable: whether the skill set provided by the typical American, British and European education these last 30 years is now one of the biggest obstacles to civilizational self-preservation. A nation that psychologically outsources war to a small career soldiery risks losing its ability even to grasp concepts like "the enemy": The professionalization of war is also the ghettoization of war. As John Podhoretz wondered in the New York Post the other day: "What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?"

Of course, this regard for human life, be it friend or foe, is seen by Steyn and his ilk as a handicap, a negative. (Also, Steyn is a solopist: his frame of reference only extends back 30 years). In the great War on Terror (in Steyn’s lizard brain, anyway) the west is not the west of 60 years ago: combatants of choice and principle. In today’s struggle, we are the Soviet Union: fighting for our very survival against an implacable enemy bent on conquest. Never mind that, then, the foe was real, a rich, powerful western nation bent on conquest versus today’s scattered, hardscrabble fanatics. It’s a neat summary of pretty much the entire neocon ethos in this post 9-11 age, which really just amounts to “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.” Or, perhaps more accurately "to defeat the terrorists, we must become the terrorists."

When it comes to hating western values, its a dead heat between western neocon elites and eastern fanatics.

[Biblio Bibuli]

In his book Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, Max Hastings puts forward the idea that the fighting quality of the United States and United Kingdom in World War Two was well below that of the Nazis and Soviets due to the former nations' status as liberal democracies. These nation were unwilling to make the sacrifices that the totalitarian states demanded due to the value they placed on human life. Having just wrapped up this book, it was weird to see a recent column from Mark Steyn (whom I despise) echoing the same broad point as Hastings: Professionalization of war is ghettoization of war

So even the most powerful military in the world is subject to broader cultural constraints. When Kathryn Lopez's e-mailer sneers that "your contribution to this war is limited solely to your ability to exercise the skillset provided by your liberal arts education," he's accidentally put his finger on the great imponderable: whether the skill set provided by the typical American, British and European education these last 30 years is now one of the biggest obstacles to civilizational self-preservation. A nation that psychologically outsources war to a small career soldiery risks losing its ability even to grasp concepts like "the enemy": The professionalization of war is also the ghettoization of war. As John Podhoretz wondered in the New York Post the other day: "What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?"

Of course, this regard for human life, be it friend or foe, is seen by Steyn and his ilk as a handicap, a negative. (Also, Steyn is a solopist: his frame of reference only extends back 30 years). In the great War on Terror (in Steyn’s lizard brain, anyway) the west is not the west of 60 years ago: combatants of choice and principle. In today’s struggle, we are the Soviet Union: fighting for our very survival against an implacable enemy bent on conquest. Never mind that, then, the foe was real, a rich, powerful western nation bent on conquest versus today’s scattered, hardscrabble fanatics. It’s a neat summary of pretty much the entire neocon ethos in this post 9-11 age, which really just amounts to “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.” Or, perhaps more accurately "to defeat the terrorists, we must become the terrorists."

When it comes to hating western values, its a dead heat between western neocon elites and eastern fanatics.

Actually Mark is more on the money than Max. 60 years ago the west nuked poor Japan and razed Dresden.

No one would have done that in the solopist Mark's 30 year reference. In these past 30 years we lose our minds if we hit a taxi driver in error. Jesus, a few future Hezbollah kids died yesterday & Israel is being vilified as if they were the Hutus ( or was it the Tutus ... I always forget who was doing the amputations).

We've become very very very nice. And it means our extinction.

Which if you're an old fart pushing 60 like me ... who the hell cares?

But Mark's right. Very right.

[Black Dog]

Actually Mark is more on the money than Max. 60 years ago the west nuked poor Japan and razed Dresden.

Neither of which cost the west much in terms of manpower and neither of which made any difference in the outcome of the war. Again: these nation were unwilling to make the sacrifices that the totalitarian states demanded due to the value they placed on human life. Principally those of their own soldiers, but there was a reason the brutality of the eastern front was not duplicated in the west.

We've become very very very nice. And it means our extinction.

Nonsense. What force threatens us?

But Mark's right. Very right.

He's incoherent is what he is, nor doe she seem to recognize that the ionformation age has put an end to the coercive power of slaughter.