WAR STORIES
This Victory May Haunt Us
Winning still requires getting bloody.
How quickly the fortunes of war shift. Last week gloomy commentators spoke of a "quagmire" and invoked Vietnam analogies. This week, following the liberation of Kabul, giddy commentators will no doubt be talking of bringing our boys home by Thanksgiving, Christmas at the latest. It may seem churlish in this hour of victory to raise doubts about how the triumphs of the past few days have been achieved, but the manner in which we have fought the war in Afghanistan may yet come back to haunt us.
This is not a war being won with American blood and guts. It is being won with the blood and guts of the Northern Alliance, helped by copious quantities of American ordnance and a handful of American advisers. After Sept. 11, President Bush promised that this would not be another bloodless, push-button war, but that is precisely what it has been.
From the American standpoint, this is Kosovo Redux: American pilots bombing from 15,000 feet, while our local allies (in this case, the Northern Alliance, not the Kosovo Liberation Army) do the fighting on the ground. This may seem like a sound strategy--why send American boys to die when Afghan boys will do our dying for us?--but it poses two major problems, one short-term, one long-term.
The short-term problem is that it will be hard to shape a peace in Afghanistan without having forces on the ground. The administration hoped in vain that the Northern Alliance would not enter Kabul, but who was going to keep them out, once the Taliban collapsed like a punch-drunk fighter? In the Spanish-American War, the Philippine and Cuban insurrectos were kept out of Manila and Havana, respectively, by American armies of occupation. But 100 Special Forces troopers cannot occupy Kabul.
The hope in Washington is that we can send Muslim peacekeepers--Turks, Bangladeshis, Indonesians--into the Afghan capital. Perhaps this will work, but the precedents are not auspicious.
Remember Somalia? The clans were awed by the presence of some 26,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines. But as soon as the bulk of the Americans left, turning over their duties to a United Nations force drawn from Pakistan, Malaysia and other states not renowned for their military prowess, the local warlords were emboldened to cause trouble. The spiraling violence led to the deaths of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers, and then 18 American Rangers and Delta Force commandos. So much for United Nations "peacekeeping." Pretty soon, all the foreigners had pulled up stakes, and Somalia had reverted to a state of Hobbesian nature.
It would be a gross dereliction of our imperial responsibilities if we allowed something similar to happen in Afghanistan. Worse, it would be dangerous: It would risk turning Afghanistan once again into a den of terrorists driven by homicidal hatred of the West.
The longer term danger is that the war in Afghanistan will do nothing to dispel the widespread impression that Americans are fat, indolent, and unwilling to fight the barbarians on their own terms. We got into this mess in the first place because of the widespread impression--born in Beirut in 1983, seemingly confirmed in Mogadishu in 1993--that Americans are incapable of suffering casualties stoically. This "bodybag syndrome" is our greatest strategic weakness; it is no doubt why Osama bin Laden dared to send his holy warriors to our shores to kill thousands of our countrymen.
If his goal, as stated, was to drive the U.S. out of the Middle East, he has demonstrably failed. But perhaps bin Laden can take some small comfort, in whatever cave he is now hiding in, to see President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell talking in recent days of Palestinian statehood. It may be an egregious distortion to claim that the events of Sept. 11 have brought the Palestinians' agenda closer to realization, but that is no doubt how it will be interpreted by many in the Arab world.
The low-risk manner in which we have conducted the Afghan campaign so far can only add credence to this "bodybag" myth. It is, of course, a rightful cause for celebration that not a single American life has been lost to enemy fire on the road to Kabul, but it can only be a cause of worry that we have not shown a willingness to conduct ground operations in earnest. Our bombing campaign reveals great technical and logistical prowess, but it does not show that we have the determination to stick a bayonet in the guts of our enemy.
The point is not that we should suffer casualties; our commanders should do everything they responsibly can to safeguard their men's lives. World War I-style bloodlettings are worse than criminal; they are stupid. But the military's highest goal in planning a campaign should not be to avoid any casualties. Yet this appears to be what Gen. Tommy Franks has done in Afghanistan, as his predecessors did in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.
It is still not too late to dispel the illusion of American weakness; in fact, we may have no choice in the weeks ahead. The Taliban, still shielding Osama bin Laden, remain holed up in southern Afghanistan, a land where the Northern Alliance is unlikely to venture. U.S. forces may still have to strike some hard blows, if only to encourage more defections among the Pashtuns. As we have seen in the past few days, the imminence of defeat concentrates the mind wonderfully; it does far more to encourage surrender than any amount of propaganda.
Of course the Taliban in the south may complete their collapse within a matter of days. But if they do not, U.S. forces may still have to go cave-to-cave, as U.S. Marines once went cave-to-cave on Tarawa, Saipan and Okinawa, incinerating the enemy in their redoubts. America should show no mercy. Preferably Osama bin Laden will be killed. If by some remote chance he is captured, he should get not a criminal trial, but instead a military tribunal followed, like the Nazi and Japanese war criminals, by a quick trip to the gallows.
Beyond Afghanistan lies the challenge of Iraq--a menace whose defeat will in all likelihood require large-scale U.S. ground operations in conjunction with our allies.
It is not a pleasant thing to contemplate more battles, greater bloodshed. It would be nice if our troops could simply come home and enjoy the holidays. But if we do not show soon that American soldiers can wage sustained ground combat--that we can practice the cruel art of warfare as relentlessly as our ancestors did--we may pay a heavy price later on.
Mr. Boot is The Wall Street Journal's editorial features editor.
