“What can you tell me of the Prussian-Russian War?”
“Not much. Mainly that the Prussians got their hides nailed to the barn when the smart money
figured them for winners.”
“Suppose I tell you that twelve people won that war — seven men, five women — and the
heaviest weapon used was a six-millimeter pistol.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever lied to me. How?”
“Friday, brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value. Any human
organization can be rendered useless, impotent, a danger to itself, by selectively removing
its best minds while carefully leaving the stupid ones in place. It took only a few careful
‘accidents’ to ruin utterly the great Prussian military machine and turn it into a
blundering mob. But this did not show until the fighting was well under way, because stupid
fools look just as good as military geniuses until the fighting starts.”
- from “Friday,” by Robert A. Heinlein, 1982
I’ve been wondering how the War will be fought, given the history of
invasions of Afghanistan in the past. (See
this
story on Slate for a brief history of Great Power attempts to invade
Afghanistan.) This snippet from Heinlein’s novel keeps popping into my
mind.
We will, I think, likely fight two wars simultaneously. The Big War,
consisting of war planes and infantry troops and viewed by millions on CNN,
will be launched because America needs to show (both to our allies and our
foes) its resolve and might in the face of these attacks. The President must
be seen by the American people as Taking Strong Action. As much as possible,
the President will build an international coalition to support this war, and
maybe even send troops to fight it.
But the President doesn’t appear to be interested in setting up a new
government in Afghanistan, and several writers have made the point that
Afghanistan is so battered and poverty-stricken that bombing the place will
be redundant. So we may also have the other war, which has a chance to be
the more effective one. Several small teams of independently-operating
commandos, targeting key individuals, may be sufficient to
topple the al-Qaida organization. Given the “cell” organization of
al-Qaida (see this
Slate explainer), the number of individuals you have to target may be
limited to the Operation Commanders. Without them, the local cells
probably cannot be put into action.
There are some problems with this plan. To target the right
individuals would require much better intelligence than we apparently
have available. That executive order prohibiting assassination would
have to be rescinded, and the assassinations would probably take place in
countries all over the world, not just places like Afghanistan. And even if
you succeed, it’s unlikely the government can really tell the American
public about the victory - something the President alluded to in his speech
last Thursday night. (”It may include… covert operations, secret even in
success.”) The President will need to show some visible response to these
attacks or risk the loss of public support; thus the Big War. But
fifty years from now, when history teachers raise the topic of the War for
their students, the conversation may read a lot more like Heinlein.
