One of the phrases that you hear often in DoD doctrinal publications is that the current (and coming) era is one of "persistent conflict" or, in its more family-friendly iteration, "persistent engagement." What does "persistent conflict," however, look like? Ariel Siegelman argues in an article for the US Army Combined Arms Center's COIN Colloquium that Israel's experience in Gaza provides a view of the future. It is a thoroughly interesting read, mostly because it upends what we would traditionally understand as "victory" and "defeat;"
"There is no such thing as winning in this new kind of war. The war is ongoing, with periods of more violence and periods of less violence, during which the enemy regroups and plans his next attack. When we feel that the enemy is getting strong, we must be prepared to make pre-emptive strikes, hard and fast at key targets, with viciousness, as the enemy would do to us. Only then can we acquire, not peace, but sustained periods of calm."
There are, however, multiple problems with this view. The first is theoretical---it takes Israel's strategic situation and extrapolates it to a supposedly new kind of war. The larger question that Siegelman raises is this: are we doomed to an era of persistent conflict, attacked at every turn by irregular forces whom we can only hope to ward off, or is something resembling "victory" possible? If so, is John Nagl's idea of a global counterinsurgency viable? Or, to take the argument of Andrew Bacevich, is such a situation of "persistent conflict" a consequence of inept interventionist grand strategy?
These questions are at the heart of today's grand strategic debate--and the divide is much more complex than the simplistic duality of "crusaders vs. conservatives."
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