Thursday, October 23, 2003

WHAT KIND OF WAR?

There is an intereting comments thread over at Maderblog relating to the nature of the so called War on Terror. The discussion along with Mader's subsequent post on the topic are all very usefull and bring up several issues in relation to the war.

What I found most interesting, however, was the assumptions behind the two arguments that questioned whether or not the U.S and perhaps the democratic nations of the world are actually at war. This thought reminded me of a question that respected military historian Desmond Morton asked of my Military History class in early 2002. He asked, "does anyone here feel as if they are at war?" No one in the class of fifty put up their hand.

Admittedly it was a class taking place in Canada comprised of mostly, if not completely, Canadians. His point, however, was that in the past when a nation went to war the citizens of that nation felt the affects in real, tangible, personal ways on a day to day basis. I think that the sentiment of my class is at least partly transferrable to the U.S. As an outside observer of America it seems that in a lot of ways, a lot of Americans do not feel as if they are at war.

I know the nature of 21st century warfare creates dramatic differences from the way wars were waged in the mid to latter 20th century and certainly the current campaign in Iraq has made the presence of this war much more closely felt. It seems however that if the U.S administration believes it is at war it should be trying to engage its citizens with the war effort to a greater degree.

I don't know how this should be done but it seems to me that there is a growing disconectedness between the citizenry and the administration's waging of the war. And if a government can wage a war with relatively little day to day impact incurred on its citizens what are the larger implications of this? On the one hand the fact that the U.S government can wage a war with relatively little disruption to life at home is a testament to the results of freedom and wealth. However, if the citizenry is isolated from realizing the full affects that a war incurrs, both abroad and at home, I think that in the long term this is potentially dangerous.

Posted by Matthew @ 12:41 p.m.