As an instrument of policy, war is a disaster. War is chaos and confusion. However strenuously rationalized as strategic it negates any coherent strategy. The imperious requirements of victory narrow freedom of action to a choice among evils. War invites corruption and subversion and demagoguery and deceit and causes nations to fail and fall, the fruits of victory hardly less bitter than defeat.
That does not matter now. We have been brought to a point where we have no other good choice. It is time for war, brutal, unavoidable war, to smash Hamas, kick the Russians out of Ukraine, destroy the Russian army, and behead the Iranian regime before it goes nuclear.
[I agree, but that’s easier said than done. We have to first elect leadership that takes all of these seriously, and it’s not clear that we’ve had that since Reagan. And even Reagan retreated in Lebanon rather than deal decisively with Hezbollah terrorists that killed hundreds of Marines in their barracks and then took a series of hostages all through the 1980s. — Ed]
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