Foreign Policy: America Behind the Curve in New Rules of War

Love| Peace Foreign Policy’s The New Rules of War argues that America is totally behind the curve in our assumptions that ‘shock and awe’ and the concept of ‘overwhelming force’ win wars in today’s worlds. Author John Arquilla rejects the argument “The bigger the hammer, the better the outcome.”

The assessment that makes some sense to us, and it explains our own frustration with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

’ … the U.S. military, which has used these new tools of war in mostly traditional ways, has been staggered financially and gravely wounded psychologically. The Iraq war’s real cost, for example, has been about $3 trillion, per the analysis of Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes — and even “official” figures put expenditures around $1 trillion. As for human capital, U.S. troops are exhausted by repeated lengthy deployments against foes who, if they were lined up, would hardly fill a single division of Marines. In a very real sense, the United States has come close to punching itself out since 9/11. Read on in Foreign Policy