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 merica
now enjoys a level of global military and political influence not
seen since the Roman Empire in the age of Trajan. Besides the obvious
preponderance of carrier battle groups, strategic bomber wings,
and tactical fighters unrivaled by any other military, much of the
current power of our armed forces is attributable to the Western
military tradition itself. The Western way of war is a natural expression
of the core values of our European heritage that derive from the
Greeks, and have evolved through the Roman imperium, the
Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the European Enlightenment. Consensual
government, individual freedom, secular rationalism, free markets,
egalitarianism, and self-criticism and self-audit, when applied
to the battlefield, result in better-disciplined, better-equipped,
better-supplied, and better-spirited armies — whether now or
at Salamis, Lepanto, or Midway.
But in the
last two decades America, for better or worse, has evolved beyond
the traditional Western paradigm, in reaching the theoretical limits
of freedom and unbridled capitalism to create a technologically
sophisticated, restlessly energetic, and ever-changing society —
whose like has never been seen in the history of civilization. Unlike
the more staid consensual nations — such as Japan, or those
of Europe — America has no real class system. It has transmogrified
from a nation of European immigrants into a truly multiracial society.
Despite the energy of the contemporary race industry and the efforts
at disunity by multiculturalists and separatists, America is emerging
more united than ever — if not by a vision of shared values,
at least more pragmatically through intermarriage; the vibrant popular
culture of music, television, fashion, and sports; and the shared,
breakneck quest for material security and affluence.
The result
of such an open, pulsating society is a sometimes weirdly insidious
civilization that drives our enemies crazy. Write polemical diatribes
about the West from your unfree university on the West Bank? As
a reward for your anti-Americanism, Harvard or Stanford is likely
to offer you a cushy year producing subsidized invective firsthand
— making the freedom and affluence of the modern American university
campus hard to give up when your annual tenure expires. Do Middle
Easterners allege that we are European crusaders? It won't fly when
the troops who are blasting apart the al Qaeda terrorists are Americans
who look like Asians, Mexicans, Africans, Europeans, and about every
combination in between. Need analysis about Iraqi bombs, Russian
germs, or Afghani politics? Most likely just those native experts
who were knee-deep in such deadly businesses are living right now
in northern Virginia or New York, well paid in government, universities,
and foundations, and eager to share the insights of their checkered
pasts for the benefit of their newly adopted leaders.
Having problems
locating an Afghani cave in one of bin Laden's videos? Somewhere
there is an American geologist who wrote his thesis on — what
else? Afghani caves. And his knowledge will be corroborated, supplemented,
challenged, refuted, or modified by an array of botanists, engineers,
and anthropologists who will add that the background flora, the
type of the terrorists' clothes, and the nature of his video transmission
suggest he is not in Place A, but rather at B or even C.
We have seen
just such flexibility in the deadly evolution of our military response
— a strike force unlike even what we saw in the Gulf or Kosovo.
Quite literally the entire nature of our present war-making has
been reinvented through a novel four-step formula. In its first
stage, indigenous resistance is encouraged by gifts of arms and
supplies; these are immediately followed by precision bombing, leading
to a third phase of special forces using new laser and GPS technology
to "shoot" bombs even more accurately right into the laps
of their enemies a few thousand yards away — followed by a
fourth step in which larger groups of highly trained Marines and
Mountaineers set up base camps to facilitate hunter-killer patrols,
launch helicopter attacks, and interrogate and process prisoners.
But —
unlike the Soviet infantry and armor doctrine of the 1960s and 1970s,
which had changed little from World War II — our new tactics
are not static. We are just as likely to see armored divisions on
the ground in Iraq, storms of cruise missiles in Lebanon, or covert
assassination teams in Somalia — or the return once again of
the Afghani mode — depending on the changing nature of our
adversaries.
Why are we
so deadly? Like European armies, American weaponry and special forces
reflect the fruits of secular research, the bounty of capitalism,
the discipline of civic militarism, and the spirit of egalitarianism
sanctified by America's real concern, both spiritual and legal,
for its soldiers in the field. But there is also something rather
new in our military that makes it even more lethal than the forces
of our European cousins, and it is a dividend of America's much
more radical efforts to destroy the barriers of class, race, pedigree,
accent, and any other obstacle to the completely free interplay
of economic, political, cultural, and military forces.
Our secretary
of state and national-security adviser are African Americans; our
president is a proud Texan, but also the son of an Ivy-League blue
blood. Geraldo, the ultra-liberal defender of Bill Clinton in the
dark days of impeachment, is now reinvented as Fox News's new, patriotic
Ernie Pyle come alive — to supplement the stories of the once-indicted
Ollie North, himself hardly a pariah, but now a national hero beloved
by Marines in the field. One's past in America fades before the
present, as ideology, degrees, parentage, and breeding mean little
in the here and now — the present pulse of the market of ideas
and consumption being the sole arbiter of success. No wonder most
of the world fears, envies — and is dumbfounded by — us.
I was recently
reminded of the unique nature of this topsy-turvy country in a brief
car trip to Los Angeles, witnessing first-hand the terrifying energy,
resilience, and power of the United States. Driving south down Freeway
99, I passed myriads of self-employed truckers, linoleum installers,
plumbers, salesmen, and electricians, their various vans and trucks
weaving in and out at high speeds — fleeting reflections of
thousands of private agendas scurrying for the next dollar, flags
waving — and their drivers of nearly every race on the globe.
Arriving at 5 PM in downtown Los Angeles, which purportedly has
neither an efficient transportation system nor an impressive skyline,
I was instead struck by the beauty of its massive skyscrapers and
the ingenuity of the freeways: At rush hour, I drove into concrete
canyons, from the orchards of the Central Valley to a dinner at
the Jonathan Club, in less than three hours.
There I was
asked to speak to a group of Navy and Army alumni. Few countries
in the world could collect more educated, disciplined, diverse,
and spirited men and women in a single room. Their questions were
far more astute than those asked by university professors, their
ideas about the present war far from one-dimensionally bellicose,
but instead deeply embedded in culture, history, and philosophy.
The next morning, on the way home, we stopped at UCLA — and
were once again reminded that Los Angeles's premier university is,
in fact, a stunningly beautiful place, to the unaccustomed eye more
a horticultural park than the nexus of 30,000 students. Across the
freeway, we visited the Getty Museum, a strange mix between Hearst
Castle, the Gardens of Babylon, and a receptacle of civilization's
great work — spotlessly clean, meticulously manicured, staffed
by hundreds of professionals from every class, and all privately
subsidized for the public good. As we left, a Mexican-American docent
was lecturing on the Old Masters in Spanish to a small group of
immigrants, while two staffers not over 20 were politely escorting
aged German tourists through the museum bookstore, everybody speaking
heavily accented English.
Twenty-five
hours later we drove into our farm-which, like every one in this
area, produces so much fruit that it sells below the cost of production
— amazed at the military, cultural, educational, economic,
and aesthetic restlessness of this civilization in a period so often
pronounced to be in decline. I have seen such unchecked energy eat
up open spaces, devour family farms and traditional rural communities
alike, and change overnight the way Americans eat, shop, and think;
critics of the new economy and culture may lament that at times,
such change is godless — but no once can deny its power.
I came away
with the impression that September 11 has supercharged rather than
short-circuited this multifaceted engine of America. What were bin
Laden, the mobs in Pakistan and the West Bank, the nuts in al Qaeda,
and their opportunistic supporters in the Middle East drinking?
We shall never know, but their attack on a country such as this
was pure lunacy. Thank God we do not have to fight anyone like ourselves.
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