Fighting Fair and Foul

WE feed and heal Iraqi prisoners; they shoot ours—and sometimes their own who surrender. NBC and CNN reporters hector coalition generals in public press conferences; Ba’athist officers run coerced televised interrogations of our captured soldiers. American planes seek to avoid bombing civilians; Saddam Hussein uses them to shield his military targets. Our bombs are deliberately programmed to miss non-military targets; Iraqi silkworm missiles are launched indiscriminately into Kuwait City. We wear chemical-protection vests; the Republican Guard does not—secure in the knowledge that we will not do what they would. Our soldiers are careful to respect the lives of those surrendering; Iraqi irregulars feign submission to shoot their would-be captors. Marine checkpoints are designed to allow civilians to navigate the battle lines; Iraqi suicide taxis are used to blow apart the Marine sentries. What is going on?

Such asymmetrical notions of a “fair fight” derive not just from an invader’s confidence in its overwhelming military superiority versus a defender’s desperation and impotence, but also from conflicting philosophies of war. Coalition soldiers draw on an entirely different tradition of what armies can and cannot do. Where do these sometimes frustrating restrictions on our warmaking come from? The ancients believed that warfare was inherent in the human experience. Rather than undertaking the impossible and naive task of outlawing conflict, they preferred to moderate the inevitable bloodletting—in hopes that civilians and soldiers alike could count on some common humanity in the chaos of killing.

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.

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WE feed and heal Iraqi prisoners; they shoot ours—and sometimes their own who surrender. NBC and CNN reporters hector coalition generals in public press conferences; Ba’athist officers run coerced televised interrogations of our captured soldiers. American planes seek to avoid bombing civilians; Saddam Hussein uses them to shield his military targets. Our bombs are deliberately programmed to miss non-military targets; Iraqi silkworm missiles are launched indiscriminately into Kuwait City. We wear chemical-protection vests; the Republican Guard does not—secure in the knowledge that we will not do what they would. Our soldiers are careful to respect the lives of those surrendering; Iraqi irregulars feign submission to shoot their would-be captors. Marine checkpoints are designed to allow civilians to navigate the battle lines; Iraqi suicide taxis are used to blow apart the Marine sentries. What is going on?

Such asymmetrical notions of a “fair fight” derive not just from an invader’s confidence in its overwhelming military superiority versus a defender’s desperation and impotence, but also from conflicting philosophies of war. Coalition soldiers draw on an entirely different tradition of what armies can and cannot do. Where do these sometimes frustrating restrictions on our warmaking come from? The ancients believed that warfare was inherent in the human experience. Rather than undertaking the impossible and naive task of outlawing conflict, they preferred to moderate the inevitable bloodletting—in hopes that civilians and soldiers alike could count on some common humanity in the chaos of killing.

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.