Has the warrior become obsolete? Should the United States change the way it prosecutes engagements in the future? Since the ending of World War two the major powers and their armies have engaged in guerrilla wars in distant lands only to be defeated by an enemy who did not possess the technology, firepower or resources the so called super powers have come to rely so heavily upon. History gives us examples with France in Vietnam, the U.S. in Vietnam, Russia in Afghanistan and now the U.S. in Iraq and I add Afghanistan because things are not going so cheery there either. It just seems the media and the Bush administration has forgotten about that mission.

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So why do such super armies fail in these conflicts? It may have to do with the fact that these governments train their armies, navies and air forces with the mind set of a warrior and in now obsolete rules of engagement. “The Warrior is emotionally suited to pitched, Pattonesque battles of moral clarity and simple intent. I don’t mean that he is stupid. Among fighter pilots and in the Special Forces for example it is not uncommon to find men with IQs of 145. Yet emotionally the Warrior has the uncomplicated instincts of a pit bull. Intensely loyal to friends and intensely hostile to the enemy, he doesn’t want any confusion, as to which is which. His tolerance for ambiguity is very low. He wants to close with the enemy and destroy him.” – Fred Reed

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This ideal works well when an army engaged an army such as the battles of WWII and before. However, in today’s conflicts it is an obsolete idea because we are dealing with a much more intelligent enemy. This enemy knows that they have no chance to slug it out with America’s military and industrial might and live to tell the tale. This enemy probes for America’s weak points. One of these weaknesses is America’s willingness to engage in distant conflicts in which the American people have no interests and American soil is not threatened. In this type of conflict the enemy needs the make the American people weary of war not with pitched battles on open ground, at sea or in the air. But by keeping the level of violence high enough, threw smaller more deadlier actions, that it remains fresh in the everyday American’s conscious. This enemy wants to make prosecuting the war expensive to the American people from high prices for fuel and goods to the never-ending parade of body bags. This enemy knows if they keep this type of warfare going long enough that the American people will grow sick of it and feel it is not worth the lives of their sons, fathers, brothers and husbands. The cost is far too great and all out victory will be at hand. This worked well for Ho Chi Minh and now seems to be working well with the insurgency in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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However the mentality of the warrior does not grasp this type of warfare or victory. Victory for him is measured in battles won, in firepower, ground taken and held and resources captured. He believes in unleashing the full might of his military hard targets on the battlefield while ignoring the small but deadlier threats. He enters combat full of emotion and with little rational thinking fueled by the propaganda and wild tales from his government that takes advantage of his blind patriotism and sense of duty. That this is a just cause, for freedom and democracy, for God and country! Unfortunately, he is out thought and defeated by an enemy that does not use conventional arms but political ones one of them being the tolerance of the American people.

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The Bush administration suffers from this acute “warrior” syndrome. This administration is not granting the American people the right to grow weary. It cares not about the flow of coffins to small town America. This warrior’s reasons for staying in these failing missions are unacceptable to many an American and grow even more unacceptable each day. There is no rationality or purpose but to control and seize power and potential wealth. This warrior does not want you to ask why but to stay the course, fight the good fight and to bare it a little longer.� Well Mr. President, Congress and the Senate the American people have bore enough! Now is the time to end all failed missions and return to the more pressing matters at home and not become the victim if yet another lost and senseless war at the hands of a smaller enemy.

Blessed be,

Micheal