The Long War

Anthony Harrigan

      Anthony Harrigan is a free-lance writer with decades of experience.

      Writing in Orbis, the Journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Walter McDougall addressed Americans as the country moves into a struggle which will engage it for years and perhaps decades to come. The questions are "Who Are We?" and "What Can We Achieve?" These are the key questions as we wrestle with enormous hostility on the part of people across the Middle East and South Asia. Dr. McDougall compares the new struggle against terrorism with the epochal struggle of the Cold War when the United States and its free world allies stood firm against Soviet tyranny and its ideological campaigns to overcome and dominate the West. The Cold War held the free world in an iron grip for decades, and it was proceeded by other decades of Communist subversion short of armed struggle. The United States was fortunate in its leadership, the courage of its soldiers and civilians, and the nerve and steadiness of its people with their strong values and traditions. The United States also committed vast resources to the battle against Soviet despotism. The end result was victory for the forces of freedom.
      The Soviet rulers were shrewd, determined, and energetic. Nevertheless, to use the words of a memorialist of Revolutionary War hero, Gen. William Moultrie, "the sheltered discipline of despots" did not prevail over freedom. Americans and their free world allies were fortunate in one respect in their Cold War struggle. The Soviets were rational.
      This is not the case in the current struggle in which we are engaged in this opening phase of the twenty-first century. We are faced with a fanatic foe, who is often faceless, who is a combination of ignorant, violent street gangs in the Third World with hatred-filled religious zealots, some or many of whom have had access to technological education, as was the case with the World Trade Center and Pentagon suicide bombers.
      The combination of religious fanaticism with technical capability is a dreadful one. It makes for a far more dangerous and unpredictable foe than the orthodox Marxist of yesteryear.
      The new enemy we face is a much more formidable figure because he is almost unknown as a type to Westerners and willing to commit suicide to bring death to the infidel. The enemy is in many countries, including the United States and other Western countries. The problem of the "sleeper" is much more real and extensive than it was in the era of the Cold War. Moreover, the Cold War was fought out in very specific areas with known characteristics. Opposing armies were massed in the heart of Western Europe. There were the challenges at sea where the two opposing forces sought geographical as well as strategic dominance. The conflict in the Third World was equally well-defined with the USSR, seeking to protect specific interests in places such as the Congo.
      Today, the threat is everywhere, and confronts everyone-military and civilian alike, young and old as evidenced by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
      Terror lurks in airplanes, high-rise buildings, sports arenas, on giant bridges, in tunnels-everywhere in our environment. And the attacks can be carried out by a handful of individuals rather than by army corps or squadrons of submarines.
      The enemy in the Cold War was in uniform or usually was blatantly political in hard left or front organizations that could be identified. The enemy has not entirely gone away, though Russia has rid itself of Communist rule and returned to many old Russian traditions and institutions such as the Orthodox Church. The West has been left with a residue of leftism manifested in disaffected and alienated "intellectuals" who have a searing hatred for America, its values and institutions, and who, as in the recent bombing crisis, immediately turn to vilification of the United States. The new enemy has many faces. He is the violent member of a mob in Pakistan or Indonesia, the technically trained religious zealot who spends years acquiring esoteric skills to bring death to an infidel, or seemingly innocent newcomers to Western societies who pass as peaceful, responsible citizens, but who secretly harbor alien hatreds and are only waiting for the day when they can maim or kill men, women, and children. And the civil liberties, traditions, and practices of free societies make it almost impossible to identify the enemy within.
      One of the principal things to remember about the terrorist war against the United States is that the front line is the American home front. Our enemies have reached across the ocean to cripple our air transportation system. They have shaken the powerful American economy. They have forced American municipalities and companies to spend vast sums on security. For as far as we can see into the future, American society will be under siege. This is an enormous achievement for a political force lacking any conventional offensive military power.
      The terrorists also have displayed long-term strategic vision as when they inserted their people into Canada, using our good neighbor's outrageously lax immigration policies to establish a base of operations in that country, turning it into a privileged sanctuary for terrorist groups. Now we have to act to massively strengthen controls on the Canadian-U.S. border.
      In the Cold War, Americans had to make many mental adjustments in order to understand the threats they faced. Before that era there only was the minimal understanding of domestic and foreign conspiracies, though many societies down through history have faced conspiratorial threats, as evidenced by Catiline's conspiracy against the Roman Republic that Cicero warned against and blocked. Communism was one of the largest and most elaborate conspiracies in history, which the organs of government in Soviet Russia organized to conduct and support subversion in many countries.
      Today, however, we don't face that precise type of threat, at least not in the same degree. The terrorist movement has financial fronts for money raising, occasionally for special operations; but not the front parties such as the Soviets organized in many countries. The terrorist network is conspiratorial but in a different way. It can't expect to have a mass of fellow travelers except among the Muslim population in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, though these populations are sizeable and serve as a host for operatives from Muslim lands.
      To date, the U.S. and NATO countries have not come to terms with this problem. Security is not simply a matter of sealing borders in order to clamp down on illegals trying to get into the United States through Canada and Mexico. The larger problem is the legal immigration from countries that are the source of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, including members of the coalition organized to support military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
      Martin Gross, writing in The Washington Times (October 17, 2001) pointed out that despite the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the United States is continuing to admit thousands of potential terrorists from the Middle East under the easiest visa process imaginable. Terrorists do not need to smuggle themselves into the United States; they just step off a plane and disappear into the American population. Gross noted that last year 60,058 visas were given to Saudis, 14,344 to Syrians, 48,883 to Egyptians, 2,993 to Iraqis, 6,685 to Algerians. Obviously, we shall never again enjoy security until we dramatically reduce the flow of people coming into the United States from countries where sympathy to anti-American terrorism is endemic.
      Eliminating or drastically reducing the threat from this quarter is eminently achievable by changing State Department regulations or by congressional mandate. It can and should be done right away. The United States, if it is to begin a new measure of security, has to focus on all the achievable steps that can be taken.
      The national goal has been determined to be the elimination of terrorism. This war aim has to be defined more precisely and the focus sharpened. As Dr. McDougall said in his Orbis essay, "The limiting factor is what the United States can achieve." He observed that

We cannot predict the course of this conflict because the enemy is so diffuse, the allies so varied and numerous, and the weapons at hand so unsure.

It would seem logical that the targets of the war campaign after Afghanistan would include the key terrorist-supporting states, such as Iraq-perhaps the greatest threat because of its long history of attempting to manufacture weapons of mass destruction-and other terrorist groups that directly threaten our closest allies.
      Our closest ally is Great Britain, and for many years British troops and civilians have been killed by Irish Republican Army terrorists operating in England as well as in Northern Ireland. The American people should recognize this threat to our ally and be fully supportive of an effort to eliminate this threat. The IRA, after all, has trained with Middle Eastern terrorists and received arms from them!
      Even as we support Great Britain in dealing with the IRA threat (which won't go away because the IRA promises the beginning of disarmament), it is essential that the United States also support Israel, which has been the target of Palestinian terrorists who won't accept Israel's right to exist. The creation of a Palestinian state would only confer sovereign powers on the terrorist groups that pioneered the suicide bomber threat.
      Obviously, the U.S. and its close partners cannot conduct anti-terrorist campaigns everywhere in the world-all at the same time. Terrorists continue to bring havoc to Sri Lanka, for example, but that is not a direct threat to the United States so that we will be limited in offering help, perhaps to intelligence.
      A danger for the United States in the war against terrorism is that the U.S. will be tempted to engage in the reconstruction of nations around the world-an impossible task. This was not clear to the Clinton administration that foolishly engaged in experiments with "nation building." The capacity of the United States to intervene in other nations is severely limited-even if we knew how to intervene politically.
      The idea of the United States creating a new government in Afghanistan, for instance, is questionable. We want to get rid of a regime harboring terrorists that target the United States and its friends, but that doesn't mean we know how to put Afghanistan together again in a way that will create a democratic government. The history of the country strongly suggests that it is an impossible task. Afghanistan will never be Switzerland!
      The focus of the war on terrorism, to repeat myself, must be on dealing with those regimes that pose a very specific threat to the United States and its core allies. And the U.S. and these allies may have to strike terrorists and their host regimes time after time in the years and decades ahead. No one should imagine that the problem can be dealt with in a narrow time frame. We need not only patience but historical understanding. Rome had to face the Carthaginian threat over a very long period. The Punic wars extended from 264 B.C. to 146 B.C. Rome ultimately lost the fight against the barbarians on its western and northern frontier but struggled to resist them for generations. The American people, with their far-flung interests, cannot expect a less arduous and demanding historical experience. Life is struggle-certainly the life of a civilization is a struggle.
      Recognition of the reality of the hugely protracted threat and challenge to the United States brings us to Dr. McDougall's question: "Who Are We?" In terms of world history, that will finally be answered by how the American people deal with the current threat and respond to the challenge. The answer, then, will be revealed over many years and decades.
      It should be understood that this question was not adequately addressed in the mid- to later twentieth century until the Cold War had come to an end. Before then, it was not self-evident that the American government and people would be able to respond effectively to a combined ideological and military challenge. The United States, despite participation and victory in World War II, had pacifist traditions in some quarters and was in danger of retreating from the world. It came very close to having an apologist for Josef Stalin succeed Franklin Roosevelt as President, a fate from which the United States escaped because the dominant politicians in the Democratic Party didn't trust Henry Wallace and persuaded Roosevelt to choose Harry Truman-a very narrow escape for the American people. Yet the United States did rise to the Soviet challenge and four decades later saw the collapse of the armed ideology of the Soviet Union.
      Even as we must be selective as to where we endeavor to combat terrorism, we have to be selective in the means we employ. President Bush, in his addresses following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, said that the U.S. response would come in a variety of forms, depending on the situation. He also said that the coalition members would provide help according to their abilities and situations. The United States, for its part, has to have a full range of options open to it, to be chosen according to its military and political needs. The coalition cannot be considered an end itself, having priority over our defense needs. And Americans should realize that when the U.S. exercises its options at various times, it is likely to have some of its fragile coalition partners pull out of the coalition. We should say: "So be it." We also should understand that there will be times-perhaps many times-when we will have to go it alone in this struggle, or with only one ally, Great Britain.
      The coalition as a whole is not a classic war-fighting team. Except in the case of America's traditional allies, it is a political construction designed in large part to bring so-called moderate Muslim states aboard to provide cover, protection against bin Laden's accusation that the U.S. is waging a war against Islam. And while the U.S. has no desire to wage such a war, it is only realistic to conceive of this view coming to prevail in many Muslim countries in light of the almost 1,400-year history of conflict between Islam and the Judeo-Christian civilization. The Muslim countries, after all, are demanding that the U.S. and its Western allies abandon Israel and permit its gradual dismemberment.
      The possibility of this happening brings us around to the question: "Who Are We?" And despite the secularization of recent decades, the United States is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition. While successive administrations have been flexible in political arrangements between the Israelis and Palestinians and have promoted peace between the two groups, the abandonment of Israel, which is what the Muslim states truly want, is politically inconceivable in the United States. This is so in large part because the country remains overwhelmingly Christian and Christianity has its roots in the Holy Land and the teachings of the Old Testament. Even in a supposedly post-Christian era, there are ties that bind and cannot be severed on the basis of political expediency. These ties are part of who we are. And the vast demographic changes in the United States won't work to cut these ties because the largest new population group, Hispanics, is made up of Christians.
      Of course, that link and commitment don't constitute a summing up of the answer to the question "Who Are We?" Dr. McDougall rightly notes that

We are a people who, being free, display the whole range of behavior to which human nature is prone, from the noblest to the most sordid.

Indeed we are endlessly arguing over what kind of people we are, what our characteristics are in these times.
      In recent decades, many influential Americans, especially in universities and the media, have argued that we are-and should be-emancipated from our moral and historical traditions, that we should feel and behave in a "liberated" way.
      Sexual license has been hailed as the new orthodoxy. The proponents of this kind of life have condemned any restrictions on speech or behavior and have described them as intolerable and contrary to our Bill of Rights. In the aftermath of the September 11 atrocities, certain professors at Arizona State University and Brown University, among other institutions, said that the murdered Americans got what they deserved, hailed the attack on the Pentagon and declared that the American flag was only useful as toilet paper. That certainly, is the view of only a tiny, hatred-filled group; thankfully, it is not the view of any significant element in America, not an indicator of who we are as a people. This tiny element is the scum on the surface of a free society.
      The atrocities also brought out what has been submerged in recent years under the cultural influence of the "hate America" groups, the American intellectual underclass as exemplified by the writer Susan Sontag. Suddenly, on September 12, there was a surge of patriotism, a word and phenomenon that has been neglected at best and denigrated at worst.
      The resurfacing of open enthusiastic patriotic feeling is a phenomenon that would have been seen as almost impossible before September 11. In many quarters, patriotic feeling was seen as something that belonged to the World War II generation and that could not be understood by Generation X. Yet it exploded in the hearts and minds of the younger generation of Americans as well as their parents and grandparents. The streets of the nation are filled with flags and flags fly from millions on automobiles. This is the most heartening development in America in decades.
      Another development that answers in good part the question "Who Are We?" is the sudden manifestation of religious faith. Churches and synagogues report high attendance. Public discourse, including the President's speeches, is full of references to God. God has even come back into many public schools and at school sporting events, presumably much to the horror and fury of the American Civil Liberties Union, which did so much to expel all religion from public schools.
      Michael Novak, the distinguished scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote October 20, that

We are the single most religious of all the advanced nations. . . . To think of Americans as materialists is to get things all wrong, upside down, crazy. . . . To think of us as secular is to mistake the most vocal eight percent for the religious whole.

      The shock and horror of the September 11 events has brought Americans together as perhaps never in our history. It has renewed feelings of community and concern for our neighbors and for citizens who are not neighbors. It has produced a spirit of unity in government and people after many decades of division. Certainly, it has kindled a new spirituality as we appreciate our vulnerability and need for one another. In short, the horrifying events have brought out the best in the American people.
      The tragedies the country has experienced also made the American people appreciate the reality of evil. For years, it was unacceptable in public discourse, including academic and media communication, to refer to "evil." Self-styled enlightened people-self-styled liberal intellectuals-treated the word as taboo. "Evil" was considered an archaic theological word and concept. In the therapeutic world of American liberalism, people who exhibited what religious people called evil were to be described as unwell and in need of counseling. President Reagan was scorned and condemned for referring to the Soviet Union as the "evil empire." But today, in post-attack America, the hideous face of evil is seen in the deaths of the thousands of innocent people in the World Trade Center. The American people know that they face another evil empire in the fanatical terrorist network that extends around the world.
      The weeks, months, and perhaps years after the September 11 attacks in time may be described-in terms of the American people-in the language Winston Churchill employed regarding his countrymen during the Battle of Britain-as "their finest hour;" the British surely deserved this description when the Nazis were killing innocent people in London and other cities under attack by the Luftwaffe, burning their homes and historic churches. And it is well to remember the British, once again our staunch allies, stood up to Hitler's evil empire for six years, suffering enormous casualties and material losses of every kind. This resistance constitutes a glorious page in Western history. The historical parallel is well to draw at this time of national agony in the United States.
      At this point in the anti-terrorist struggle we have no idea how the American people will stand up in the conflict that lies ahead, though we are optimistic. The promised mix of overt and covert counteractions, stretching over a very long period, undoubtedly will be very stressful to the American people. The World War II experience is helpful but not entirely illuminating. The U.S. was not in the world war for a very long time, compared to the British. It will take very skilled leadership in the executive and legislative branches and on-going education of the American people, as well as a degree of balance and restraint in the media. One has to wonder how much unity would have been preserved if World War II had lasted ten years or if a bloody assault on Japan's home islands had been required. The anti-terrorist war we are in is very much a religious war and such wars are notoriously protracted.
      As Dr. McDougall indicated in his Orbis essay, our chief problem may be the termination of each of the several campaigns in which we are likely to be involved. We certainly don't want to be engaged in long-term pacification of areas that harbored terrorist forces.
      As Americans think about the long war ahead, they surely will realize a number of different factors will determine the outcome of the conflict, including the strategic military situation, the strategic political situation, the stamina, nerve, and staying power of the American people, the resourcefulness of the terrorist enemy, the reliability of America's core allies, and the maintenance of patriotic unity in the face of a continuing radical drive to disunite the nation. At this time, the prospects for victory over terrorism and divisive forces at home and in Europe, appear to be very good. We need-and appear to have-the qualities Dr. McDougall said our Cold War leaders possessed: "Determination, realism, courage, prudence, patience, and faith." The American people can only pray that these qualities will characterize America's leaders and people in dealing with the threat and challenge facing them in the twenty-first century.