How Will We Win This War?

A war is never good.  The misery it brings to people involved, the death and destruction, is not something human being should aspire to. However, the wars are not the same. Some are worse than the others.

Of all wars, I think of the First World War as one of the most miserable of all. It was started on a dubious pretext, and soon bogged down to two huge armies facing each other in miles of trenches. Millions of soldiers were slaughtered in the endless game of fruitless attacks on enemy lines. The boundaries stayed the same, only the number of fatalities soared to levels never seen before.

The problem was---WWI suffered from a Structural Stalemate. That is, the structure of the war prevented it from being resolved quickly.

In most wars offense and defense both have a chance of being successful. Thus, one side eventually wins and the carnage stops. In WWI, the offence had no chance, leading to an unending stalemate. This is largely because of two technological advances, barbed wires and machine guns. In order to advance, the soldiers had to successfully negotiate the barbed wires in face of machine gun fire. It was just not possible, and they got slaughtered. The break came when tank was invented and deployed. It could go over the barbed wires and trenches, finally resulting in one army advancing against the other.

I am afraid that the current “war” against terrorism is also suffering from a Structural Stalemate, except this time the defense has no chance.

Take the recent bombings in my hometown, Boston. The suspects, two misguided youths, went across the border to buy gunpowder in form of firecrackers (it is illegal to do so in Massachusetts). They learned about how to make a bomb on the Internet. All they had to do then is to brazenly walk to a crowd of people and detonate two bombs thus constructed.

How can a country defend against such incidences? Granted this is not a World War with millions of lives being lost every year, but one feels the same level of helplessness of seeing no clear pathway to victory. As neither side is about to give up, we see a complete stalemate.

The last time it was a technological breakthrough that broke the impasse. What will it be this time? What will put defense on the same footing as offence in what has thus far been a patently asymmetrical war?

I have a feeling that the solution will not be technological. There is no way to detect or prevent a person from becoming a radical. Once the person is bent on destruction he will come out with a way to cause destruction. If you close down one pathway, he will think of another.

The solution will have to come from making peace with Islam. The winding down of two wars will go a long way toward that goal. Guiding Israel and Palestinians toward a solution in the Middle East will be another step in the right direction. Finally, the moderate Muslims will have to stand up against the radical ones. These are hardly new ideas but I do not think there is much choice.

The First World War went on for more than four years.  This war might go on for decades unless something is done to break the stalemate.