What It Takes

THE comparisons between the events of September 11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years ago have been as numerous as they have been apt. But to appreciate fully the challenge we face, a different historical comparison may be in order—for the situation confronting the U.S. today bears more than a passing resemblance to the situation created when Communist North Korea invaded the south in June 1950.

That attack, too, caught the United States sadly unprepared. Like this September’s terror attacks, Pyongyang’s aggression thrust Americans into a conflict unlike any they had known before. U.S. officials scrambled to devise a vocabulary suited to a situation without precedent. (The ridicule that President Truman endured for describing Korea as a “police action” serves as a reminder of the penalty for choosing unwisely.) In this new kind of war, it was said, traditional expectations of victory did not apply. Many Americans bridled at this notion. As the fighting dragged on, they became frustrated and impatient. They seized upon the first available national election to express their displeasure, turning out of office the party they held responsible for the war’s unsatisfactory progress.

AJ

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Andrew J. Bacevich

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THE comparisons between the events of September 11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years ago have been as numerous as they have been apt. But to appreciate fully the challenge we face, a different historical comparison may be in order—for the situation confronting the U.S. today bears more than a passing resemblance to the situation created when Communist North Korea invaded the south in June 1950.

That attack, too, caught the United States sadly unprepared. Like this September’s terror attacks, Pyongyang’s aggression thrust Americans into a conflict unlike any they had known before. U.S. officials scrambled to devise a vocabulary suited to a situation without precedent. (The ridicule that President Truman endured for describing Korea as a “police action” serves as a reminder of the penalty for choosing unwisely.) In this new kind of war, it was said, traditional expectations of victory did not apply. Many Americans bridled at this notion. As the fighting dragged on, they became frustrated and impatient. They seized upon the first available national election to express their displeasure, turning out of office the party they held responsible for the war’s unsatisfactory progress.