* the comprehensive industrialization of war, which ensured a seemingly endless supply of the weaponry, munitions, and other equipment necessary for outfitting mass conscript armies and replenishing losses as they occurred.
Economists would no doubt add sunk costs to the mix. With so much treasure already squandered and so many lives already lost, the urge to press on a bit longer in hopes of salvaging at least some meager benefit in return for what (and who) had been done in was difficult to resist.
Even so, none of these, nor any combination of them, can adequately explain why, in the midst of an unspeakable orgy of self-destruction, with staggering losses and nations in ruin, not one monarch or president or premier had the wit or gumption to declare: Enough! Stop this madness!
Instead, the politicians sat on their hands while actual authority devolved onto the likes of British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, French Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Petain, and German commanders Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. In other words, to solve a conundrum they themselves had created, the politicians of the warring states all deferred to their warrior chieftains. For their part, the opposing warriors jointly subscribed to a perverted inversion of strategy best summarized by Ludendorff as "punch a hole [in the front] and let the rest follow." And so the conflict dragged on and on.
The Forfeiture of Policy
Put simply, in Europe, a hundred years ago, war had become politically purposeless. Yet the leaders of the world's principal powers -- including, by 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson -- could conceive of no alternative but to try harder, even as the seat of Western civilization became a charnel house.
Only one leader bucked the trend: Vladimir Lenin. In March 1918, soon after seizing power in Russia, Lenin took that country out of the war. In doing so, he reasserted the primacy of politics and restored the possibility of strategy. Lenin had his priorities straight. Nothing in his estimation took precedence over ensuring the survival of the Bolshevik Revolution. Liquidating the war against Germany therefore became an imperative.
Allow me to suggest that the United States should consider taking a page out of Lenin's playbook. Granted, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, such a suggestion might have smacked of treason. Today, however, in the midst of our never-ending efforts to expunge terrorism, we might look to Lenin for guidance on how to get our priorities straight.
As was the case with Great Britain, France, and Germany a century ago, the United States now finds itself mired in a senseless war. Back then, political leaders in London, Paris, and Berlin had abrogated control of basic policy to warrior chieftains. Today, ostensibly responsible political leaders in Washington have done likewise. Some of those latter-day American warrior chieftains who gather in the White House or testify on Capitol Hill may wear suits rather than uniforms, but all remain enamored with the twenty-first-century equivalent of Ludendorff's notorious dictum.
Of course, our post-9/11 military enterprise -- the undertaking once known as the Global War on Terrorism -- differs from The Great War in myriad ways. The ongoing hostilities in which U.S. forces are involved in various parts of the Islamic world do not qualify, even metaphorically, as "great." Nor will there be anything great about an armed conflict with Iran, should members of the current administration get their apparent wish to provoke one.
Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence. And given our reliance on a professional military, shooting citizen-soldiers who want to opt out of the fight is no longer required.
There are also obvious differences in scale, particularly when it comes to the total number of casualties involved. Cumulative deaths from the various U.S. interventions, large and small, undertaken since 9/11, number in the hundreds of thousands. The precise tally of those lost during the European debacle of 1914-1918 will never be known, but the total probably surpassed 13 million.
Even so, similarities between the Great War as it unspooled and our own not-in-the-least-great war(s) deserve consideration. Today, as then, strategy -- that is, the principled use of power to achieve the larger interests of the state -- has ceased to exist. Indeed, war has become an excuse for ignoring the absence of strategy.
For years now, U.S. military officers and at least some national security aficionados have referred to ongoing military hostilities as "the Long War." To describe our conglomeration of spreading conflicts as "long" obviates any need to suggest when or under what circumstances (if any) they might actually end. It's like the meteorologist forecasting a "long winter" or the betrothed telling his or her beloved that theirs will be a "long engagement." The implicit vagueness is not especially encouraging.
Some high-ranking officers of late have offered a more forthright explanation of what "long" may really mean. In the Washington Post, the journalist Greg Jaffe recently reported that "winning for much of the U.S. military's top brass has come to be synonymous with staying put." Winning, according to Air Force General Mike Holmes, is simply "not losing. It's staying in the game."
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