The failure to win wars over the past 80 years is due in part to our inability to fight like our enemies.
The story of the Tower of Babel tells of those who sought to reach up to heaven and challenge God, yet they were unable to understand one another. In “confusing their tongues”, God created a situation where a guy on a scaffold asked for some hot rivets in Swahili, and the guy below responded in Chinese by bringing him corned beef sandwiches. We oftentimes project ourselves, our value,s and our way of life onto others, including our enemies—and that can be a very serious mistake.
When World War I began, the British were the unquestioned rulers of the seas. They were shocked when the Germans started to sink ships with their new U-boats. They considered it simply unsporting to use such a vessel in warfare, and it took them a long time to realize that submarines were kosher weapons of war, ones that they should develop fully themselves. The same was true of eavesdropping on the enemy. While Germany was intercepting British military codes, the English said that gentlemen do not read each other’s mail. When they realized the military importance of knowing what the enemy was up to, they joined the race and two decades later had Bletchley Park as the crown jewel of Allied cryptography.
When two sides fight, they need to be on a level playing field. If in a boxing match, one pugilist comes out as normal while the other has weighted gloves and an electric shocker, we would consider the fight unfair. Since the Korean War, Western armies have decided to fight not like their enemies but rather as some mythical, pure fighting force for good. While enemies used torture, booby-traps, and human shields, such actions have consistently been considered beneath us. And, what is our success rate since 1950? One win in the Iraqi desert and the rest stalemates and outright losses. We lose not because the other side is better. We lose because we tolerate asymmetric warfare that favors our weaker enemies. If I owned a lousy football team but could get 15 players on the field against the other team’s 11, I would also win most games against the rest of the league.
When I hear people, including self-appointed experts, discussing Hamas, I realize that one needs a college degree to be a fool. “Hamas must realize….” “Hamas must give up its weapons…” “Hamas must promise not to rule in the future….” They act like Israel is fighting the Harvard debating team. Hamas is a group of psychotic Islamic lunatics. In Israel, they incinerated families alive and whole. They cut off women’s breasts. They used anti-tank missiles on civilian cars. They raped dead women tied to trees. We are talking about the outer limits of what can biologically be considered human. Yet, people act as if the group’s leaders are Oxford-trained lawyers who both respect international laws and accept the rules of warfare. Hamas has no plans or interests in laying down its arms. It has no interest in giving up the remaining hostages, as they will then be without any meaningful leverage. They do not plan to give up power when the war ends. The Israelis and Americans should understand these points, but they think that Hamas is like professors at the Army War College.
When Donald Trump gifted General Soleimani several American missiles, the Iranians were in shock. Blowing up people in their cars is from our playbook, they thought. Where did Trump get that one? Hezbollah was shocked by the exploding pagers and the assassination of untouchable honcho Hasan Nasrallah and many of his henchmen. When the West plays by the bad guys’ rule books, the terrorists are caught off guard. Hamas was shocked when Israel killed top leaders, whether in the heart of Iran or tents filled with Gazan civilians. The UN, EU, press, and international kangaroo courts make it all but impossible for Israel and the West to fight like they mean it. Any deviation from norms or civilian deaths can lead to a legal complaint and bad press. But if one wants to defeat a ruthless enemy, then one must fight ruthlessly. Nobody negotiates with cancer or takes it out for lunch. High-energy x-rays or brutal chemical agents are deployed to wipe out the cancer cells—even with significant collateral damage near the tumor or in one’s brain. Islamic terror for decades has been a cancer on Western society. But the West refuses to understand its enemy and tries to contextualize its behavior based on Western thinking. They refuse to fight the brutal fight needed to bring victory, and the bad guys both know this and plan accordingly. If you want to win, the norms are put to bed until victory is secured. There will be plenty of time for humanity when the threat has been crushed.
General Curtis LeMay burned a quarter of Tokyo in one night. 100,000 died. He wondered at times if his napalm-based incendiary attacks on 60 Japanese cities were justified. Then, on his way to the surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri, the general drove through Tokyo. He saw many burned-out houses, but he also saw lathes and other industrial equipment used in these houses to advance Japanese war production. He realized that he had acted properly and helped to bring an end to the war. His victory would be the last for America for over 40 years.
Nobody wants to go out and kill civilians for no reason—that is the world of Islamic terrorists. But the presence of civilians should be irrelevant to the destruction of legitimate military and terror targets. Fight like you mean it. Surprise the enemy with your ruthlessness and lack of care for decorum. The less asymmetric a war is, the faster it is over and in favor of the good guys. Stop fighting like you’re wearing tuxedos. Fight as if you want victory, however it can be achieved. The Allied air forces killed 50,000 Frenchmen to bomb the German positions in France. The French were unhappy about their dead farmers, but they were delighted when they regained their country.
When we think about World War II brutality, we generally focus on the Germans and the concentration camps. But most know that the Japanese were the definition of ruthless, lopping off heads of foreign pilots and torturing POWs, killing any that could not keep up on long, brutal marches. When the US bombed their major cities into oblivion and dropped atomic bombs on two of them, the Japanese began to understand that the US also knows what the word ruthless means. The Japanese scuttled a planned drop of bubonic plague bacteria on Los Angeles for fear of the potential response; they got the reaction without their attack. Temperatures of the sun on the Earth with people vaporized, and only leaving shadows of where they were when the atomic bombs went off.
Israel needs to destroy Hamas without any thought or concern for providing food or the presence of civilians. When Israel goes crazy on the battlefield, Hamas and its patrons in Qatar and Iran will know that the jig is up. As long as the Jews fight like nice Jewish boys, there is zero chance for total victory. Hamas is banking on this state of affairs.