Warrior Ant courtesy of http://faxprincessandfamily.blogspot.com
I am beginning to think that ant colonies mimic human society as a whole. If you ever observe an ant colony, you can see thousands if not millions of ants going about their individual and collective lives, depending on their role in the colony. There are some charged with gathering food, others are feverishly working to maintain the physical structure the colony lives in, some have the sole responsibility of protecting and caring for the queen, still others are responsible for waging war on other ant colonies. Despite what other ants in the colony are doing, these warrior ants can fan out and wage war against other ants based on their own reconnoissance and assessment of the threat at hand. None of the other ants in the colony have the ability to stop or prevent the warring ants from going on their rampage.
Similarly, our nation’s forces can be sent into an armed conflict irrespective of the collective whole’s desire of whether or not to go to war. We may have a majority of the population totally against a particular combat operation yet they can only stand idly by as troops are sent into harms’ way. Once a war machine is activated and placed into motion, the kinetic energy alone of such a movement can prove too difficult to stop or turn around. A familiar analogy is that of trying to turn the Titanic; its mass alone makes it too difficult to to so expeditiously.
The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have such enormous commitments of time, money, equipment, troops etc. that it would be impossible to pull out arbitrarily and end the conflicts. Moving the military vehicles alone out of Iraq, for example, would take 18 to 24 months. Add to that the generators, troop housing, aircraft, computers, medical equipment, weapons, combat gear, not to mention the contractor managed, government owned equipment and you can see that it would take 24 to 36 months just to move the equipment out of there. In addition, you will then have all of the troops and contractors to move out of Iraq. You are then left with the concrete “T” walls that are present nearly everywhere in Iraq. These are tall concrete barriers that were erected to keep religious factions separate from each other as well as to protect the U.S. Forces from insurgent attacks. Clearly, reversing the war machine that is in place takes a large amount of effort and resources to turn the “Iraq Titanic” around.
This amount of equipment and personnel are in Iraq and Afghanistan irrespective of the collective conscious of our nation’s citizens. Granted, it has been said that if the President loses the support of the American people, we cannot be at war. However, it is clear by last fall’s election, that the American people want the war to end. Why is it, then, that our troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan? Again, despite what its citizens collectively want, governments have the ability to wage war indiscriminately and ending such conflicts take more than just a change in leadership through an election. It takes every citizen voicing their active approval or disapproval of their nation entering into war.
Think about the events a couple of years ago when the Russian government invaded Georgia. I dare say that if the Russian people bore the decision whether or not to invade, that Georgia would not have been invaded. People around the world are growing weary of armed conflict. As I mentioned in my other entries, what sense does it make for one nation to destroy another nation’s desire of its people to live and make a better life for themselves in order for the invading nation to perpetuate that same desire? Why is one country’s strategic objectives better or superior than another’s?
Finally, as with the ant colony analogy, if we as citizens allow our governments to wage war indiscriminately, then we will always bear the cost in lives and money of the actions of our governments. This does not mean that we cannot and should not defend ourselves when attacked, as we did in Afghanistan. Rather, it means that we cannot allow our governments to wage war indiscriminately without the express will of a large majority of its people agreeing to enter into that conflict. Also, I do not think that a simple majority is enough; why should 49% of a nation share in the costs of a war that the other 51% wish to enter into? Perhaps war should only be waged when, say 60 or 70% of the nation’s citizens agree to enter into an armed conflict. The power to wage war should no longer rest on a select few within government or with a simple majority. The price is far too great for any nation to bear without the express agreement of most of its people to pay that price in lives, money and opportunity costs.
The Audacity of War.
Coming soon: Why we should go to war.
theaudacityofwar
