Coalition force members prepare to conduct village stability operations in Khak-E-Safed, Farah province, Afghanistan, Oct. 20, 2012. Afghan National Security Forces have been taking the lead in security operations, with coalition forces as mentors, to bring security and stability to the people of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Pete Thibodeau
West Sleepwalking Into Endless War- Important New Study -- The Guardian
• wake-up call from former soldier
• distinction between war and peace dangerously blurred
• lessons from Afghanistan
• warning, too, from Tory MP
First it was Iraq, then Afghanistan. Who is next? Britain and other liberal democracies face the prospect of sleepwalking into endless conflicts as the traditional distinctions between war and peace get blurred.
This is the stark warning of an important and thought-provoking study of recent military operations. War from the Ground Up, Twenty-First-Century Combat as Politics, by a Gurkha infantry officer with experience of three tours in Afghanistan, should be read by all aspiring military commanders and their Whitehall masters.
War used to be clearly defined – brutal, decisive, and finite, said Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian military thinker still essential reading at British military academies.
Now, we have the War on Terror, and the Long War as tribal and ethnic conflict is often described.
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My Comment: So much for the dream of a "new world order".