War Is Like Rust

War seems to come out of nowhere, like rust that suddenly pops up on iron after a storm.

Throughout history, we have seen that war can sometimes be avoided or postponed, or its effects mitigated -- usually through a balance of power, alliances and deterrence rather than supranational collective agencies. But it never seems to go away entirely.

Just as otherwise lawful suburbanites might slug it out over silly driveway boundaries, or trivial road rage can escalate into shooting violence, so nations and factions can whip themselves up to go to war -- consider 1861, 1914 or 1939. Often, the pretexts for starting a war are not real shortages of land, food or fuel, but rather perceptions -- like fear, honor and perceived self-interest.

To the ancient Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Plato, war was the father of us all, while peace was a brief parenthesis in the human experience. In the past, Americans of both parties seemed to accept that tragic fact.

After the Second World War, the United States, at great expense in blood and treasure, and often at existential danger, took on the role of protecting the free world from global communism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, both Democratic and Republican administrations ensured the free commerce, travel and communications essential for the globalization boom.

Such peacekeeping assumed that there would always pop up a Manuel Noriega, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden who would threaten the regional or international order. In response, the United States -- often clumsily, with mixed results, and to international criticism -- would either contain or eliminate the threat. Names changed, but the evil of the each age remained -- and as a result of U.S. vigilance the world largely prospered.

Such a bipartisan activist policy is coming to close with the new "lead from behind" policy of the Obama administration. Perhaps America now believes that the United Nations has a better record of preventing or stopping wars -- or that the history of the United States suggests we have more often caused rather than solved problems, or that with pressing social needs at home, we can no longer afford an activist profile abroad at a time of near financial insolvency.

Yet the reasons for our new isolationism, analogous to early 1914 or 1939, do not matter, only the reality that lots of bad actors now believe that the United States cannot or will not impede their agendas -- and that no one else will in our absence. Americans are rightly tired of the Afghan and Iraq wars. Yet we left no monitoring force in Iraq and are winding down precipitously in Afghanistan, and thus have no guarantees that our decade-long struggle for postwar consensual government will survive in either place.

Much of North Africa is beginning to resemble Somalia. Our tag-along strategy in Libya resulted in sheer chaos, with an American ambassador and three others killed in Benghazi. The Muslim Brotherhood, headed by anti-Semite Mohamed Morsi, has turned Egypt into a failed state. Islamists killed dozens of Western hostages in Algeria. The French are unilaterally trying to prevent an Islamist takeover of Mali. Meanwhile, 60,000 died in Syria, with thousands more fatalities to come.

The common theme? Middle East authoritarians and Islamists expect that the United States will probably lecture a lot about peace and do very little about war.

China and Japan appear to be on the verge of a shooting incident over unimportant disputed islands that nonetheless seem very important in terms of national prestige. A more muscular government in Tokyo and an expanding Japanese navy suggest that the Japanese are running out of patience with Chinese bullying.

Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan all have the wealth and expertise to become nuclear to deter Chinese aggression, but so far they have not -- only because of their reliance on a previously engaged and military omnipotent United States.

A near-starving North Korea, when not threatening South Korea, periodically announces that it is pointing a test missile at Japan or the United States. Few believe that the present sanctions will stop Iran's trajectory toward a nuclear bomb. The more the Argentine economy tanks, the more its government talks about the "Malvinas" -- replaying the preliminaries that led to the 1982 Falklands Islands war.

In the last four years, tired of Iraq and Afghanistan, and facing crushing debt, we have outsourced collective action, deterrence and peacekeeping to the Arab League, the French, the British, the Afghan and Iraqi security forces and the United Nations. Does America now believe that our weaker allies, polite outreach, occasional obeisance and apology, euphemism, good intentions -- or simple neglect -- will defuse tensions that seem to be leading to conflict the world over?

Perhaps, but there is no evidence in either human nature or our recorded past to believe such a rosy prognosis.

We have nothing to fear...John F’ Kerry now runs the state dept...who by the way served in Vietnam....

Obama though his brilliant leadership of “golfing while contemplating National Security” will play a few more rounds to fix the world...and keep America and her allies safe...

North Korea is developing EMP weapons and delivery systems. One weapon successfully detonated 200 miles over Kansas will effectively destroy the electric grid and fry all of the computer enabled technology on which our society relies. Back to the 18th century for us in a nanosecond. Hundreds of millions will die of starvation and the anarchy that ensues.

Our government is doing nothing to stop this even though the technology exists to harden the grid and an ABM system to protect the homeland. It is much more important for our Congress and President to argue over immigration, guns, and healthcare. Meanwhile the North Koreans are declaring their intentions and diligently working away at perfecting their weapons.

All it takes is one.

"Our government is doing nothing to stop this even though the technology exists to harden the grid and an ABM system to protect the homeland. It is much more important for our Congress and President to argue over immigration, guns, and healthcare. Meanwhile the North Koreans are declaring their intentions and diligently working away at perfecting their weapons."

Perhaps, this would fit with Obama's long range plans. He views the US as the cause of most of the world's evils and deserves to be brought down. He is pushing the US toward collapse in a myriad of ways every day. Which combination of actions will ultimately cause the collapse or destruction of the US is unknown, but Obama will see it as justice.

As robots take over war fighting, wars will be more likely. There is no political cost to losing a robot airplane or soldier. Currently it’s robot vs. human, but once it’s robot vs. robot we’ll see the technology evolve at much higher speed. Humans evolved on the battlefield, and so will intelligent machines. The machines will eventually be smarter than us. Hopefully they will keep some of us on as pets.

“Perhaps, this would fit with Obama’s long range plans.”

I think you nailed it. Obama is an extreme Leftist. The Left is an organization that believes if there were not any military there would be no wars, or at least they promote that idea, as well they believe the United States as VDH has premised in this article is the major roadblock to the perfect World they envision, thus the necessity for them to take the U.S.A. out.

Ultimately the long range plan of the Left is to remove from their path the obstacle, the guardian of the Free World which is the U.S.A., or rather was, and in a way there remains something for their use Post America.

In all fairness, the days of the US creating a “Pax Americana” are, and should be, drawing to a close in favor of a different arrangement.

After World War I and World War II, and the development of nuclear weapons, the US gave up on the idea of demilitarizing between wars and going into an isolationist mode, which it formerly used to recover after a period of internationalism.

We no longer had the enormous barriers of the Atlantic and Pacific to enemy attack, because of bombers and missiles. Nor did we feel that we could ignore foreign wars that could escalate, and especially we could not ignore the expansionist Soviet Union.

But times change. We have hopelessly overspent ourselves, and cannot continue acting as the world’s policeman. Over time this will mean that we will ignore more and more conflicts as “not really our business”, and concentrate on the most dangerous of threats.

So, who picks up the slack? My guess is a coalition of southern Asian nations, specifically India and Japan and perhaps others, will evolve into at least a regional policeman. At first, just to counter China, but later to keep a lid on regional crises that could impact them.

In all fairness, the days of the US creating a “Pax Americana” are, and should be, drawing to a close in favor of a different arrangement.

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