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A Bigger Issue
Yet the implication that Clark was fired because
of normal disagreements between the center and
the periphery, between the Pentagon and a regional
commander, is utterly misleading. Something much
bigger was at work: Clark was caught in the middle
of an extremely muddled and controverted transition
between two forms of warfare.
One is very familiar, because the entire structure
of the U.S. armed forces is built on it: classic
war, fought by Army infantry, Marines storming
ashore, armored forces, artillery, attack helicopters,
fighter-bombers that dive low to attack the enemy,
as well as strike aircraft and bombers that operate
more safely with stand-off weapons, and the entire
panoply of naval forces of course. That is what
the U.S. Defense budget purchases--both equipment
that may last 30 years and the training and operating
"readiness" that must be bought afresh
every day, like cut flowers.
To fight classic war, both equipment and readiness
are certainly needed, but so is a willingness
to accept casualties. Without that, the Pentagon
with its 13 Army and Marine divisions resembles
a man with 13 luxurious cars and one gallon of
gasoline. Blood has become the limiting factor
on the conduct of war, not arms or ammunition.
Recent evidence not only from Somalia, which
we evacuated after 20 servicemen were killed,
but also from the 1991 Gulf War (when a full-scale
U.S. Marine amphibious landing was canceled at
the last minute because of a few sea mines), suggests
that the United States does not differ from Russia
or indeed any other advanced society with 2.2
children per family or less. When the entire emotional
capital of families is invested in one or two
children instead of the four or five or six of
World War I and World War II families, there are
no expendable children whose death in combat is
ultimately acceptable. Once willing to accept
hundreds of casualties per day as the normal cost
of warfare, today's United States will accept
very few, if any at all.
It is not just draft-dodging, weak-willed presidents
who refuse to tolerate the casualties of a deliberately
started war, but the entire political elite and
society as a whole, including the military, much
as they might deny it. To be sure, the high priests
of the military will carefully explain that they
only refuse to accept casualties in "operations
other than war"--OOTW--as in insignificant,
not-worth-dying-for Somalia, for example. The
implication, of course, is that there is a magical
condition called "war" in which important
interests are at stake, for which all necessary
casualties will be accepted.
Yet, when the Kosovo war unexpectedly turned
into NATO's fight for survival as a functioning
military organization and key U.S. strategic asset
and when the prolongation of the fighting caused
by ultra-cautious tactics dangerously eroded U.S.
relations with Russia and China, the U.S. Army
still refused to risk a few symbolic Apaches;
the U.S. Marines still refused to fly their Harriers
as low as they were designed to fly; the U.S.
Air Force still made no use of the A-10's powerful
antitank gun, and all fighter-bombers involved
only attacked targets when it could be done in
almost perfect safety. And of course, the European
allies of the United States were even more cautious,
so that it was safer to fly a NATO aircraft over
Serbia than to be a passenger on some Third World
airlines.
In other words, the entire "national interests"
argument is a mere rationalization: The Pentagon
obdurately insisted that Kosovo remain a not-worth-dying-for
OOTW just like Somalia, even when it became very
clear that important U.S. interests were endangered
by the way the war was fought.
The truth is that when countries are still willing
to fight and accept casualties, they will do so
with slight provocation; when they no longer tolerate
combat and its casualties, they invent clever
new reasons for avoiding them in virtually any
circumstances except immediate self-defense. Thus
any war that the U.S. is likely to fight--unless
Mexico attacks across the Rio Grande--will be
classified as an OOTW not worth dying for, raising
the huge question of what use it is to keep the
present array of forces replete with ground units,
attack helicopters and fighter bombers that are
not usable in combat without some risk of casualties.
(Peacekeeping forces designed as such would be
much cheaper.)
A Modern Alternative
Historically, when nations lost the capacity to
fight and die, they hired mercenaries. But modern
technology offers the alternative of the new kind
of war now seen in action against Serbia: post-heroic
war, fought without casualties by remote bombardment
alone, with cruise missiles and with aircraft
operating from very safe altitudes. To protect
their traditional array of forces, the Pentagon
staffs, like the military bureaucracies of other
NATO countries, must pretend that they are all
still usable in war, that the infantry, armor
and the rest are ready for combat.
Clark, of course, knew better. He himself prepared
for a much longer air campaign than many others
expected by ordering minimum-risk air operations.
Nevertheless, the pressures of the war forced
Clark to call the Pentagon's bluff, in the case
of Apaches, publicly exposing the gap between
pretended "combat readiness" and the
refusal to accept its real-life risks. He could
hardly be forgiven for that.
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