Iraq, Afghanistan--Are We Winning?

Once again the question is upon us: when is a won war a lost war? When is a lost war a won war? Or when is a won war really a won war; when is a lost war really, really a lost war? They’re even trotting out the old “Mission Accomplished” banner that Bush had the Navy fly seven years ago when he proclaimed Iraq a won war.
Are we winning in Afghanistan? Are we winning in Iraq? Do you remember how people wanted to know if we won in Korea and Vietnam? What constitutes actually winning a war?
Let’s get something straight. Many of know the old saying, “War is diplomacy by other means”. That is partially true—certainly coming out with a diplomatic advantage goes some of the way toward deciding who a won and who lost.
But more importantly—war is an INVESTMENT like any other investment. You invest money, materiel, human lives—and you look for a return. You “win” by getting a decent to good return on your investment. Ghoulish sounding—but true.
Let’s go back over an instance in which the winners and losers are very clearly indicated—World War II. When the shooting stopped, British, French, Russian and American troops were all waving bottles of vodka, German beer and Saki, cheering madly, and the Germans and Japanese were standing around looking very dejected. Obviously the first four won, right?
Wrong. Let’s look at how it actually played out.
There was one big winner—the United States. For us the war was like walking into a casino, putting a dollar in the slot and finding ourselves up to our shoulders in money. We’ve lived off the proceeds of the Japanese, British, French, Belgium and Dutch empires ever since. Nobody in history ever won a war like we did in 1945.
There were two nations for whom the war was essentially a wash—Japan and Germany. In the end, they rebuilt their factories and are possibly better off today than they would have been if the war had never been fought. In the category of “winners”, they may come in a decent second to the United States.
There were two participants who really didn’t do all that well for several decades after the war and may or may not possibly be coming out of their economic funk today. Maybe. Russia and China.
Then come the major losers. Britain, France, Holland and Belgium. The biggest loser of all was, of course, Britain. Immediately after that comes France. They ruled most of the globe in 1939. Twenty years later they had about the international clout of Portugal or Rwanda. Their economies were far behind Japan’s or Germany’s.
Skip the flag waving and the cheering. Who really won is whoever got a decent return on the investment.

It’s all about the money. Just like your 401K. It’s about the money. If you made money, you won; if you lost money, you lost the war.
One of the reasons we lose sight of this reality is that—politically—you cannot say this to the people who go to the front to do the fighting and dying. So government propaganda—in all warring nations—has to obfuscate the actual causes and aims of the war.
Everybody’s national history books follow the national line on the war and reality gets lost. This is nice for the vets and the bereaved mothers—but it makes it all but impossible to take a dispassionate look at a prospective war (such as Iraq in early 2003) and weigh its pro’s and con’s as if it were any other investment. Which we should do.
Tomorrow let’s look at how we lose sight of reality when looking at the possibility of war.