Are we ready for total war/absolute war?

COL Charles Williams — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 03:44:17 -0500

In light of the events of the last 24 hours, I am wondering when will enough be enough? When, if ever, will we actually go all in?

I, personally, hope the nukes are fueled, the Tomahawks are ready, and we finally decide we are actually at war... Total War/Absolute War.

These are very sad and frustrating times... Our military leaders know what needs to be done... But, we seemed to remain largely reserved....

The concept of absolute war was a philosophical construct developed by the military theorist General Carl von Clausewitz. This concept was featured in the first half of the first chapter of his most famous book, On War. In it, Clausewitz explained that absolute war is a philosophical abstraction--a "logical fantasy"--that is impossible in practice because it is not directed or constrained by political motives or concerns, nor limited by the practical constraints of time or space. He called warfare constrained by these moderating real-world influences real war.

In his explanation of absolute war, Clausewitz defined war as "an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will". However, war itself does not contain inherent moral or political aspects. These conditions (for instance, the laws of armed conflict) are placed on war by those who fight it, and exist because the intelligence of the civilized nations involved exercises greater influence on their methods of fighting war than does their instinctive hostility.

Absolute war can be seen to be an act of violence without compromise, in which states fight to war's natural extremes; it is a war without the 'grafted' political and moral moderations. In On War, Clausewitz explains what makes up absolute war:
http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Bassford/Cworks/Works.htm

Clausewitz and His Works

Since the close of the Vietnam War, the ideas expounded by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) have come—very often in twisted, garbled, or mutated form—to thoroughly permeate American military writing (doctrinal, theoretical, and historical). His book On War (published posthumously in Prussia as Vom Kriege in 1832), was adopted as a key text at the Naval War College in 1976, the Air War College in 1978, and the Army...

Response by MAJ Bryan Zeski made Nov 14 at 2015 4:46 AM

MAJ Bryan Zeski — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 04:46:55 -0500

150+ people dead in Paris is a tragedy, no doubt. But, I don't think sending 10's of thousands of troops back into the desert is going to fix the problem. The problem may appear to be in the desert, but it's really already inside our borders - it's an idealogical problem that isn't going to be solved with bullets and bombs. Perhaps we should look at some other tools at our disposal.

Response by MCPO Roger Collins made Nov 14 at 2015 10:20 AM

MCPO Roger Collins — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 10:20:28 -0500

Do you like we did in WW1&11? The last wars won conclusively? If effectively communicated to the public how our national security is at risk perhaps our flaccid warriors in the administration would be forced to take steps to "degrade and destroy" our enemies.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 14 at 2015 10:40 AM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 10:40:02 -0500

Not to be rude, but you're absolutely insane. Advocating nuclear war? Besides, have you learned nothing from the past decade and a half? Conventional war against religious extremism does not work. We have to figure out another way, and we damned well need that way to be in line with our societies morals. Genocide is the hallmark of evil, of those who we have always claimed the moral high ground against and fought, it is not the American way.

Response by SSG Warren Swan made Nov 14 at 2015 10:53 AM

SSG Warren Swan — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 10:53:23 -0500

Sir, in going after "someone" or "something", what are we defining ourselves as and who are we fighting? I have no problems defending home turf from anyone, but I need to know who "anyone" is. I need parameters, I need an effective ROE, leaders who know what we're doing and aren't "winging" it. France will have this problem as they go about finding who did this. It's extremely wrong, harsh, and cowardly how this was done. But again WHO are they going after? Some might say it's Islam, radicalized Islam, some goatf*cker, and you still do not know WHO it actually is. What needs to be done, and it won't prevent another incident from happening, is a honest and true understanding of WHO and WHY. Not based of hatred, speculation, innuendo, or scuttlebutt from mass media. Most don't have a clue, but are quick to point fingers, or wave the flag the minute ISIS is mentioned. We don't even know if they're claiming it for propaganda's sake or that they actually did it. So who are we or they going after? Maybe we need to figure out what makes them so appealing, how is it we can send troops to formal schools for recruiting, and ISIS has no brick and mortar recruitment shops, but definitely make their quota for the month, better than our recruiters do. How can we not only "get into" the minds of the trainee's, but their trainers. We need to make a plan not based of ammo and BOG, but defeating an ideal. Sorry but NO amount of bullets can kill an idea. No bomb exists either. Move away from kinetic ops to more asymmetrical operations? IO operations, Cyber operations? None of what we've done so far has amounted to much in the grand scheme of things other than chance revenge killings like the John character. We don't want to know our enemy; we want to dehumanize them to the point where killing is easier than saving. We need that for a defined enemy. ISIS to me is worse than the Taliban is. At least we had "signs" that would help us in spotting them, or knowing they might be in the AO. ISIS is everywhere but nowhere at the same time.
To prove my point, a quick list of ideas where violence was used against an idea/ideal, and it didn't kill it, it made things stronger: Civil Rights, segregation, integration, women's and children's rights, LGBT rights, debate over religious freedom, drugs, and many more. You cannot kill an idea or belief. You can change the narrative in how it's talked about, but if you have no credibility or knowledge, no one's going to believe you. You can fight with leaflets, might get somewhere, Find real people who are respected in that area of the world, and ask them to speak out. MLK was highly respected during the Civil Rights era, and was key to bringing things together in a manner everyone could respect, even though they might not have liked him. Reagan didn't drop any bombs on the USSR; he waited them out knowing they were going to implode. He and other world leaders used back room thinking to make it damn near impossible for the USSR to exist, and it failed right on time. We're not doing that, and sending SF isn't going to help in this case. Sending a BDE, DIV or even three, won't change much. Dropping a metric assload of nukes WON'T do a thing, but I'd wager there's gonna be hell to pay here if we did. No more munitions. No more handheld weapons, let's go to war with their minds. We're not stupid, and are very intelligent. Use the brain bucket to figure out how to fight an idea, and make it seem that we're doing them a favor. Then we'll see some results.

Response by Capt Richard I P. made Nov 14 at 2015 5:37 PM

Capt Richard I P. — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 17:37:14 -0500

I'm not.

Response by MAJ Alvin B. made Nov 14 at 2015 6:03 PM

MAJ Alvin B. — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 18:03:52 -0500

I believe the current answer is no. Even with the tragedy in Paris, the US does not have the political will [and perhaps after our post 9/11 adventures, the full military capacity] to prosecute a total war against a decentralized, non-state entity.

As to your expressed personal desires regarding the use of weapons of mass destruction, I pray that we never haver to explore any of those options. If we are to retain any of sense of our national identity, our American values and the moral high ground we have to learn to fight and win without giving up on what we stand for.

- If we stoop to the level of the enemy, we lose.
- If we change our way of life in response to a threat from this enemy, we lose.

In my opinion we have already given away too much of our freedom for the illusion of security, and placed ourselves on the brink of losing both.

I do believe we can defeat these fundamental threats to our existence, however, it will take a greater commitment of national will and treasure then we have to date been willing to expend.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Nov 14 at 2015 6:13 PM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 18:13:43 -0500

We are so enamored with limited war that we will not compel the enemy to lose the ability or desire to continue fighting. We must be able to meet them on their terrain and defeat them.

Response by PV2 Scott Goodpasture made Nov 14 at 2015 7:08 PM

PV2 Scott Goodpasture — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 19:08:44 -0500

First we need to get these sumbitches out of our own country and stop that border from hemmoraging before we commit all our fighting men abroad.

Response by SSgt Alex Robinson made Nov 15 at 2015 3:51 AM

SSgt Alex Robinson — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 03:51:16 -0500

I don't think the American public is really ready. They have been conditioned to a very good life with little sacrifice I'm like during World War II when there was rationing of many items.

Response by Capt Walter Miller made Nov 15 at 2015 8:14 AM

Capt Walter Miller — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 08:14:26 -0500

I posted this on another thread.

WE DROPPED TWICE AS MANY BOMBS ON VIET NAM AS WE DID GERMANY.

How did that work out?

Conventional military force is of limited use in this situation -- even counter productive.

How many times do we have to play the same losing hand?

The type operations some people keep bandying about are on a scale equaling Operation OVERLORD in scale. Hell yeah! Why not!

Because we are 18 trillion dollars in debt?

I fudged around with the numbers. Our ground combat component is abut 10% the size it was in WWII.

We cannot conduct huge military operations any longer.

Former/active military? Archie Bunker could make better plans than many of you.

Walt

Response by TSgt John Temblador, PI, CIPA made Nov 16 at 2015 1:03 AM

TSgt John Temblador, PI, CIPA — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 01:03:48 -0500

Obama says he is God, mocks the Bible https://youtu.be/eY984VuVk_Q