I just ran across this item on NEXIS, from the October 15, 1943 New York Times:
President Roosevelt announced today that the Allied forces are withdrawing from Italy. "Regrettably, our forces have now killed over 24,000 Italians, both soldiers and civilians who died in attacks on military targets," the President said in a prepared statement. "This puts Italian deaths at ten times our deaths at Pearl Harbor — and the Italians weren't even the attackers there, though they declared war on us after the Japanese attack. More importantly, while no exact figures are available, we suspect that Italian civilian deaths caused by our invasion are now roughly ten times the number of our civilian deaths at Pearl Harbor.
"We feel that continuing the invasion of Italy, which will likely incidentally kill more civilians, will cause harm disproportional to the harm Italy's allies have inflicted on us. We therefore feel morally obligated to declare a ceasefire. We are sure that the Italians have learned their lesson and that they won't engage in unjustified attacks again; and in any event, international law and simple morality require us to desist. Only an evil Zionist nation would ever retaliate against an act of war in a way that creates civilian casualties disproportional to those that were inflicted on it.
"Naturally, if the Italian military had had the foresight to place its forces chiefly interspersed with the civilian population, we would have had to stop even earlier, because we would have long since passed the acceptably proportional level of incidental civilian casualties. And of course if we find that we have killed a comparable number of Germans and Japanese civilians, we will promptly cease fire as well. We're sure that the world will thank us for our humaneness."
I did not know that!
Israel has the right to defend itself, and certainly has just cause to strike against Hezbollah, but there's not anything particularly illuminating about analogizing the kidnapping of two soldiers to, say, the invasion of France. The present conflict has to rise or fall on its own merits.
In certain political quarters, every enemy of the U.S. is Hitler. Everyone who urges something less than total war is Neville Chamberlain. And every civilian death is Hiroshima. I don't know what anyone really hopes to prove with these ludicrous comparisons other than to show that they read their 8th grade history book.
Or that there even was such a thing as a “Zionist nation” in 1943.
Other than that, good spoof!
Moreover, the arguments against disproportionate responses to terrorism are not just legal and moral, but practical as well. Indeed, one might suggest that the lack of an enemy state which can do things like declare a war on behalf of its people, but also declare a surrender and change of allegiances on behalf of its people, significantly alters the necessary calculus.
But who cares about such nuances?
WWII is the most easily accessible historical instance for urban warfare- many Americans were alive when the war was being fought, or, at least, are personally acquainted with people who were.
Additionally, far more so than Korea or Vietnam, World War II was an urban war (in the European theater, at least) - there's a reason that, apart from Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima, the war in the Pacific isn't often referenced. Have you heard anyone say anything like "That is Country X's Midway?"
Of course EV could pull out something like the various ancient wars with all their slaughters and enslavements of women and children, but, really, what's the point? To show how much more clever his is because he didn't use the banal World War II reference?
As to there "need[ing] to be" a rule that bars any analogies to World War II, I'm not sure quite where you get that. World War II is a pretty big and important historical event; it seems a mistake to somehow categorically foreclose all analogies to it.
Is is just me, or do others think there something way too handy about these quotes? It presses the buttons, says the right things in the right order, makes a couple of gratuitous remarks. Almost seems terribly prescient on the part of FDR, does it not?
http://www.worldwar2history.info/Italy/
Introduction to the Italian Campaign
...The Italian Campaign (September 3, 1943 - May 2, 1945) ...
On September 16 [1943], the British Eighth and the U.S. Fifth Armies united their fronts southeast of Salerno. On October 7, the British took Naples with its fine port. Meanwhile the British had captured the airfields of Foggia near the Adriatic coast on September 27, and by mid-October had moved north to a line extending from Larino west to Campobasso, where they were abreast of the Americans on their left. The Allies were in Italy to stay....
Having paused a few days after taking Naples and Foggia, the Allied force in Italy renewed its offensive late in October 1943. ...
The VI Corps made an amphibious landing at Anzio, behind the German line about 30 miles south of Rome, on January 22, 1944. ...
In the spring of 1945 the Allies pushed across the Po Valley and, when German resistance began to crumble, made spectacular advances which ended with the surrender of the German forces in Italy on 2 May 1945....
Israel has an enemy state here. It is Lebanon, with which Israel is in a declared state of war. Can a state not be held accountable for utterly failing to control military agression by extra-military elements among its people?
Furthermore, I believe this piece here was not meant to be an expansive defense of Israel's actions. It only makes a simple point: demands for a mathematical equivalence of civilian casualties in a war, instead of analysis of the morality of a side's motives and methods, are silly at best.
Are you concerned that, to make an analogy to Israel's current efforts, you have to use an example of a world war?
BTW, I seem to recall the CIVILIAN deaths related to Pearl Harbor were measured in the dozens. As surgical strikes go, the Japanese did a fairly good job.
How about the assination of an Arch Duke?
the American Entitythe United States. Israel is in a more threatened position here than the U.S. was, it seems to me.Likewise, that the civilian deaths related to Pearl Harbor were relatively small similarly cuts in my favor: If civilian deaths were in the dozens, than the U.S. likely ended up killing many thousands more enemy civilians as side effects of raids on Axis military targets. So if one accepts the "X's response against Y must be proportional to Y's attack on X" position, then the U.S. actions must have been bad indeed.
JohnW: Pssst, let me let you in on a secret: FDR was actually psychic, and his secret writings (of which this is the only item to have leaked out) accurately predict the political and military history of the following 117 years.
America being linked to Israel, is perhaps the greatest compliment that could be given a nation of gentiles, like myself.
Truman and Israel
How clever. Israel could easily annihilate Hezbollah by nuking the areas it operates in. That's a clear objective. So that's OK in your view, right?
I think it is a little much to say "utterly failing to control. . ." So if any paramilitary group kidnaps a citizen of another nation that justifies an aggressive military response? I guess now I am waiting for a Minuteman to detain/kidnap a Mexican citizen leading to a Mexican military response along the Southwest.
I think it is fair to say Israel's "reason" is pretextual. So I think the real question is if Israel's response is proportionate to the general threat Hezbollah presented to it. I think civilian deaths are fair to input—on both sides. But I don't think there is magical ratio, which might be inferred from the statement in the article.
Please state a single example of Lebanon attempting to thwart Hezbollah in any way.
That would be silly, since the US Government would put all their resources into finding the kidnapped person and punishing the perpetrators.
Has Lebanon lifted a finger to look for ANY Israeli kidnapped over the border?
Actually, no, Lebanon did not declare war on Israel. And just as importantly, if not more so, they couldn't surrender to Israel even if they wanted to.
As for whether the government and people of Lebanon should be held "accountable" for failing to control Hezbollah--that strikes me once again as viewing this solely as a legal or moral question. However, my point was that there are practical considerations behind the doctrine of proportionality, and the actual inability of Lebanon to order Hezbollah forces to cease fighting--something the Italians, in contrast, were able to do when they surrendered--makes this a very different situation.
In general, there has actually been quite a bit of study of these problems. As I understand it, the basic conclusion is that in symmetric, state-on-state, wars, using overwhelming force tends to be the most effective course, because in fact the war can be ended by surrender. In contrast, in asymmetric, state-on-group, wars, the exact opposite tends to be true: the state forces have to consciously limit their responses to provocation precisely because the war can only be ended by the group's complete loss of popular support. And of course, even majority loss of support in a nation is not enough--a group can keep fighting an asymmetric war with only a small minority of support.
Anyway, at a minimum it should be obvious that these analogies to WWII are more misleading than helpful.
No, it's not a clear objective; it's a tactic. It would not annihilate Hezbollah because their organization is widely dispersed. Most important, it would not bring any final resolution to the conflict. We must keep our eyes focused on the political objective, not the military means.
It seems to me that there is plenty of outrage over the ongoing violence in Iraq, which is probably a large part of why it seems to be spiralling out of control.
Dear John,
Your analogy does not hold because it lacks critical details.
Posit that we (for years) had kept all our troops back from the Mexican border, and allowed the minutemen to operate freely in that area, while arming themselves with submachine guns and rockets, which they periodically fired into Mexican border cities, while constantly calling shrilly for the elimination of the "evil Proto-Hispanic entity".
Posit that these same minutemen had bombed the military barracks of one of Mexico's allies, killing over 200.
Now imagine that, after the kidnapping of two Mexican soldiers from Mexican territory, we completely washed our hands of any responsibility, while allowing Canada to sent trainloads of rockets through our country to support the minutemen in their efforts, and while refusing to do a thing to help the captured Mexicans.
Would we, -could we- ever be so morally bankrupt? Would we dare say a word when Mexico moved in to protect its own, against the internal militia that we refused to control?
If so, I'd move to Mexico.
(I might even rename myself Ron Mexico. But I digress.)
Not to change the subject too much, but why is it that detractors of the Israeli military plan insinuate that the Minutemen are somehow comparable to Hizbollah?. Did I miss the NY Times article where the Minutemen were firing rockets into Mexico? Or perhaps the Minutemen were driving truck bombs into Mexican barracks. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that the Minutemen have been supporting Mexican separatist factions in Mexico to help force Mexico to give up land for peace. (No wait, that hasn't happened either).
You don't have to like the Minutemen or agree with their goals to know that, just as you claim that WWII is a bad analogy, so is yours.
Furthermore, the "proportional response" argument completely ignores one basic tenet of military strategy - incapacitation and deterrence of future attacks. By its actions of 2 weeks ago, Hezbollah announced its intent and ability to carry out attacks against Israel. Surely Israel is justified in seeking to ensure that an openly hostile group is rendered incapable of further attacking its soldiers, (and civilians).
OK, but how do you think Mexico invading the United States would affect the popularity of the Minutemen's cause in the United States (and I guess Canada), given the setup you described? And what do you think would happen over time if Mexico was killing United States citizens who were not directly aiding the Minutemen (even if the Minutemen were using them as "human shields")?
Again, it seems to me that whether Mexico was acting morally or legally in this scenario does not answer the question of whether they would be acting prudently.
But if one views Israel's operations as having broader purpose and reason, then there may be a justification for its conduct. Perhaps a similar justification was the US invasion of Afghanistan. In some ways it MIGHT be fair to characterize Lebanon=Hezbollah with Afghanistan=AlQaeda.
Except I think that Lebanon has much less capability than the Taliban. It is more democratic, has a very large non-Muslim minority, and is fairly Western. And Hezbollah is also different in that is not actively supported by Lebanon, but rather several other nations. And Lebanon lacks the military capacity to adequately deal with the group.
Lebanon is easily the most democratic, most pluralist, and least militaristic of Israel's neighbors. Plus, until recently, it was partially occupied by a foreign power. So what struck me were the posts showing an antipathy for Lebanon. Of all the Arab governments in the region, it is probably the most Western and least hostile.
I think David Bernstein tried to illustrate in his posts the Israelis were targeting the Party of God not Lebanon. While that may still be true, at some point the collateral damage inflicted on Lebanon will be too great to justify continued operations, I think.
And if your basis for justifying the war (or continuing it) is based on the kidnapping of two people, then this thing should have stopped along time ago.
Oh, all they did was declare war on the United States. I guess that's a big nothing.
Why bring up France? I suppose it would be because Italy was quite formally allied with Germany, the nation that invaded France. Both were quite formally allied with Japan, the nation that bombed Pearl Harbor. It seems quite silly to draw a bright line between them by saying Italy hadn't attacked us; and in any event, it's certainly an analogy with no applicability to the present conflict. You can't just pretend that we were at war with Italy in some kind of vacuum.
WWII analogies are largely useless because there is a fundamental divide between those who think WWII is a perfect analogy to the current state of world affairs and those who think such analogies are so preposterous as to automatically brand the speaker as unserious. In such a context, the analogy offers no hope of actually advancing the debate.
Again, I think that what you described as a "basic tenet of military strategy" is not in fact a basic tenet of military strategy for asymmetric warfare. And that is true in part because it is extraordinarily difficult to actually render a terrorist group with significant popular support (and perhaps significant outside support) "incapable of further attack[s]".
Medis: I'm not sure what you meanwhen you say:
As far as I understand it, Lebanon declared war in 1948, along with Israel's other neighbors, and this state of war has never been broken.
And I'm not sure why Lebanon could not surrender. THey could, if they could stop hezbollah from killing people.
I'm assuming you're referencing your practicality point - that the Lebanese government has no ability to control Hezbollah. Alright, that's fine. But then a strong case exists for viewing Hezbollah as the de facto government of southern Lebanon. When a government can no longer control the use of force in a region, and another organization with an extensive political and military infrastructure does control the use of force in that region, why not consider this group the new government?
Where does this lead? What exactly would lead to Hezbollah losing popular support in southern Lebanon? Hezbollah's goal is the end of the Israeli state. It seems that many in southern Lebanon share this goal. Hezbollah's tactics include intentionally targeting civilians. Thus far, it seems that most in southern Lebanon aren't disowning them over this either. By your reasoning, is Israel supposed to limit itself to surgical strikes and just wait for the Lebanese people to come to their senses?
I don't really see your distinciton. You say that a proper (in the British sense) government is a good target for "overwhelming force" because a governement can surrender, whereas a guerrila group is not a good target for such force because for guerillas to lose they must lose "popular support." Isn't the threat of losing popular support the thing that makes a proper government surrender in a war?
I believe that Israel's current strategy has as good a chance of reducing Hezbollah's "popular support" in Lebanon as any I've heard. What's a better idea?
The reason there were few civilian deaths at Pearl harbor has nothing to do with Japanese interest in a 'surgical strike'. Look up Nanking some time to learn about the care Japan took to prevent civilian casualties. The Japanese were able to target military facilities because the US didn't hide its military among civilians. If Hezbollah strongholds were as clearly marked and civilian-free as Pearl was, Israel would be more than happy to shoot exclusivly at those.
It seems if I should have said something like sufficient provocation or threat. No, it is silly to say for every 1 of mine you take, I'll take 3 and stop.
HLSbertarian: I re-read your post, and perhaps I took too narrow of a view of what you meant. I thought you were simply referring to the kidnappings. But re-reading that and later posts it may have been that you were referring to a broader historical context. In which case, I may not disagree with you.
Bottom line: I think viewing the totality of Hezbollah's past, present, and threatened future action Israel has sufficient reason to have responded with some level of military action; for example, destroying the rocket batteries.
If you are looking for me to offer a three-step strategy to a quick peace in the Middle East, unfortunately, I don't have one. My only point was that the doctrine of proportionality is based on practical concerns as much as moral and legal concerns. But in that sense, as unattractive as it may be, it might in fact be the best strategy for Israel "to limit itself to surgical strikes and just wait for the Lebanese people to come to their senses." Because I see little reason to believe as yet that they can do any better--and it is not like this is the first time that Israel has tried invading Lebanon.
Mike BUSL07,
The problem is that "significantly reduce operational capability" is a short-term goal, and the tactics used to achieve this goal may end up being counterproductive with respect to the long-term goal (permanently eliminating the threat). Again, this is nothing new--I am simply parroting the people who have studied asymmetric wars. Indeed, we helped prove all this in Afghanistan by aiding the Mujahadeen.
What is the full bibliographic cite (title, page/column #, etc.)?
As to whether my comments strengthen or weaken your point depends on what point you want to make. If your point is: "Israel, not as bad as the US under Roosevelt," perhaps you're right. Commenters at the time who favored limited government deplored Roosevelt's attempts (despite campaign promises to the contrary) to manipulate an unwilling America into another world war, and much has been written about his successful manipulations of Japan into firing a first shot. Those favoring limited govt. also at the time deplored FDR's determination to have an unconditional surrender policy as opposed to a negotiated peace, which many estimate to have prolonged the war at least an additional year, with the resulting extra death and destruction.
As to Mr. Gates, it is nonsense, sir, to suggest that because the Japanese engaged in war crimes elsewhere and at other times, that therefore civilian deaths at Pearl Harbor were not limited. They clearly were, and obviously they did not have to be. That implies a choice made by the Japanese commander. A somewhat different choice than that made by Truman in '45.
If our disagreement now comes down to the best practical way to proceed given the facts on the ground, I'm happy to leave it at that. I'm neither an expert in the local geopolitics nor a clairvoyant, so I'm in no position to debate the practicality point in detail.
Given my limited knowledge, my position comes down to: As a legal matter, Israel is justified in either ascribing Hezbollah's actions to the government that has failed to control them or treating Hezbollah as the de facto government of souther Lebanon. As a moral matter, I believe the culpability of the Lebanese grows with each day they do not reject Hezbollah (and yes, individual culpability varies greatly, and yes, males might more and less culpable at the tail ends of the Bell Curve, I don't want to start a side debate). As a practical matter, I believe Israel's current strategy of avoiding but not eliminating civilian casualties is a reasonable way to go forward (and it's debatable that, given Hezbollah's tactics, more "surgical" options exist without great risk to Israeli ground forces).
STO,
The problem with military bases -- is that they are full of military personnel, and precious few civilians, particularly in those days. The fact that there weren't many civilian casualties at Pearl Harboer speaks to the fact that we staffed our ships with sailors - not schoolteachers, and did not hide the AA batteries behind swing-sets.
More importantly, no one made the argument you are trying to refute. No one actually argues that "because the Japanese committed atrocities at Nanking, they also killed many civilians at Pearl." Clearly enough, they didn't. The point is that their actions elsewhere indicate that they would have, given the chance.
Back in '48 "the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq, supported by others, attacked the newly established State of Israel."
They lost.
An invasion is a commencement of hostilities under international law.
Lebanon and Israel negotiated a peace treaty in 1983 (under some duress) but it never went into effect.
This means (guess what!) like the US and Iraq from 1991-2003, Israel and Lebanon are still in a state of war which either can resume at any time.
BTW, Lebanon remains under the same constitution and general government as existed in 1948.
Actually, the Lebanese government invaded Israel ofter its declaration of independence uin 1948, and was beaten back. My relatives in Kibbutz Matsuba recall being surrounded by the Lebanese army until they broke the seige.
Lebanon, unlike Egypt and Jordan, has never made peace with Israel. Hizbollah, which seeks the destruction of the State of Israel, is a party participating in the current government, and nas acted free of restraint by the Lebanese government along the Israeli border.
Their firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli cities suggests that they are freer to act than, say , the Minutemen on the Arizona border.
I continue to see, on this blog and others, the argument that Israel's strategy may be legal and moral, but is not prudent. Yet, none of the people saying this are ever able to posit an alternative strategy that has any hope of success. Proportional response has never worked with Hezbollah, and the rocket attacks have only gotten worse with time, not better. Time to try something different.
The question posed by this post is whether it is consistent or reasonable to criticise Israel for a "disproportional" response when that is the norm for most wars, including the best known of recent wars, when disproportional response does not usually provoke such criticism, and when past proportional response has not deterred additional attacks and kidnappings.
I would suggest that if we're to negotiate with Hezbollah and the Iranian clergy, as everybody worth listening to on the world stage seems to be demanding, a "split the baby" solution, a 50/50 compromise, is perfectly reasonable and fair. Our immutable demand is that they stop attacking Israel (and occasionally Americans) and their immmutable demand is the total liquidation of Israel and the U.S. So a 50/50 split would require Hezbollah to reduce their attacks on Israelis and Americans by 50%. In turn, we'd be required to liquidate 50% of our population, and 50% of Israel's. We could let Hezbollah do it if we were too squeamish to massacre our own people, I'm sure they'd be willing to bear the transactional costs and I sense that for them, it's about the journey, not the destination anyhow. Alternately, they *might* spare some of that 50% whose heads are on the chopping block if they were willing to undergo conversion to violent, fundamentalist version of Shia Islam and then promise to wage jihad against the West, but I'd be presumptious to assume Hezbollah is open to that sort of compromise, since as I understand it, we Western swine are basically subhumans and below Allah's mercy. Of course we can't open the negotiations by offering 50%/50%, they'd totally abuse us. So we'd need to open negotiations with some combination of concessions - perhaps they can slaughter 20% of our population, another 15% will accept forced conversion, 10% of us will agree to lecture the remainder of Americans ceaselessly on how we bring it on ourselves, how Israel sucks, how Jews run the world and why Bush is a moron. (I suspect we could even get a movie star to lead the effort). In return, we'll ask the Hezbollah freedom fighters to agree to reduce rocket attacks on Israel by 80%, and ask them to kill 20% fewer U.S. Department of the Navy personnel using kidnap/torture and suicide bombings. We could compromise further from there.
Some people would foolishly insist that you don't negotiate with people whose unchanging position is the liquidation of your country, but they are just cowboys.
The connection you are looking for--and I'd describe it as Old Right or classical liberal rather than "conservative" as the term is currently used--is found in Randolph Bourne's aphorism that "war is the health of the State" and John Quincy Adam's classic statement that "we go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy". It was the recognition--really quite common in the first century and a half of our Republic--that getting involved in foreign wars leads to growth in the military, often to a draft, increased government power, restriction on civil liberties, higher taxes. It is, frankly, not possible to have a "limited government" whose purview is policing the entire world. One cannot have a limited government at home and an empire abroad, with the American military encamped in over 100 nations throughout the world. The belief our safety demands this is what Old Right journalist Garret Garrett called " a complex of fear and vaunting," one of his signs in recognizing when a society moves from Republic to Empire. This is also in keeping with Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial conflict, well discussed in the recent documentary (available on DVD) "Why We Fight".
Of course there was no one who was going to bring war crimes charges against the US for those actions at that time. Just as now there would be no war crimes action brought against Iraeli commanders regardless of what action would be taken short of a nuclear attack on Lebanon. The US would stop such in every imaginable way. Even the question of whether the nuclear sterilization of southern Lebanon would be prosecuted is questionable. But I have seen no postings justifying the proportionality "ratios"in Lebanon that would preclude such an attack.
But leaving that aside, there is a difference in the nature of civilian casualties inflicted when a declared and recognized state commits itself to war, and civilian casualties inflicted when guerillas are the target.
I would not be surprised if MS-13 and the Latin Kings committed as many murders last year as HZB (although feel free to correct me with hard numbers). But I would be opposed to bombing the neighborhoods in which they operate.
My point was never that Israel is necessarily being imprudent, although I have serious doubts. My point is that any discussion of the doctrine of proportionality--including the implied discussion in the original post--that does not consider the practical reasons for the doctrine in light of the various studies of asymmetric warfare is ignoring important considerations.
jgshapiro,
As an aside, I would note that invading Lebanon is not trying something different either.
Also, I would note that my precise point is that not all wars are the same, and that there is an entire literature devoted to the unique problems posed by asymmetric warfare and how entirely different doctrines apply in asymmetric wars. It seems extremely unwise to me to ignore that literature and to instead insist on applying the model of WWII to what experts who have studied the issue believe is a very different kind of war.
In any event, it seems to me that if you are going to use the process of elimination to justify a strategy (this strategy must be good because no other strategy people have suggested is good), you first have to assume that there is in fact a "good" strategy available. And I see no reason to assume that. For example, there may in fact be no strategy that will make things better immediately, and indeed no strategy that will avoid making things worse in the short run. Indeed, there may be no strategy that is more likely than not to work in the long run. It could just be an all-around terrible situation, with the only choice being the proverbial lesser of evils.
In general, I think the process-of-elimination approach to military strategy is a common cause of unwise military actions. Indeed, the desire to do something, anything, to remedy a poor situation can often motivate people to act unwisely. But precisely because that is such a universal human temptation, people need to be particularly cautious about falling for this temptation.
PS For my own personal reasons I'm not going to comment on EV's posts, except, to put it kindly, that I agree with those who think the comparison is inapt.
And a lack of of appreciation of the context in which tenets of International Law have come into existence over the past sixty years.
From a historical perspective, the entire European Continent experienced roughly thirteen years (1912-1918; 1938-1945) of concentrated full-out war during the last century which resulted in civilian deaths in the tens of millions, not to mention the millions of combat deaths and non-fatal casualties.
Some of us remember this kind of war because we were alive and school age during the tail end of the last one like that.
It is not irrelevant to today's world, in spite of snide comments to the contrary. Why? Because the lessons of history still inform us by providing context to the present and the future. It has always been so. Human nature has not changed as much as some think it has.
But history contains a lot of different lessons, and again, my impression is that those who have studied these matters have noted that asymmetric wars require different tactics.
The problem with analogizing modern events to WWII is that the analogy tends to disrupt debate, by changing the topic of discussion from the event in question to the issue of whether WWII is an appropriate analogy. Prof. Volokh's satirical post will not convince a soul who is not already in agreement with the implicit point; it will merely lead those who disagree to respond "but the present situation has virtually nothing to do with Italy in WWII."
If my understanding of the thinking in 1941 is correct, the Japanese felt that the US was simply weak and self-obsessed, and as unlikely to look at the big picture as a puppy. The explict puporse, then, of Peral Harbor was to whack that pubppy on the nose with a newspaper with the expected result that the US, the one challenger to Japanese hegemony in the Pacific, would retreat from all its Pacific Territories, perhaps including Hawaii, and to leave the Pacific to the Pacific states, i.e., to Japan.
For this reason, the Japanese High Command opted for a quick surgical strike to emascualte tall American Response, causing the US to abandon the Pacific. That this was a miscalculation, or whether US diplomacy encuouraged this miscalculation are points for another time. What is clear is that the Japanese were trying extra hard to not annoy the Americans while removing them from the Pacific.
For clarity, though, it should be pointed out that there is another, proven successful counterinsurgency doctrine. It involves applying brutaltiy and terror against civilians who don't play ball with the counterinsurgency. This is how Assad the Elder broke the Muslim Brotherhood, the Guatemalan government wiped out its insurgency, and after early ineptitude, how the Russians may be getting somewhere in Chechnya..This doctrine is not suitable for the US or Israel, of course, but that is because of the nature of the relevant polities, not inexorable laws of war.
That does indeed seem to be the principle that Israel is working with.
Had nothing to do with FDR or oil. Japan had been expanding militarily in Asia since 1894, and the 1941-45 war was just a continuation of that.
This is actually relevant to the status of Lebanon in 2006, because the military expansion of Arab states into UN mandated Israel since 1948 (much less effective than the Japanese moves up to 1945, though) is a continuing -- shall we say? -- criminal enterprise.
Does anyone believe that if Israel were to stop being attacked, it would be sending its armies across its borders? In other words, does anyone believe that the Eretz Israel fanatics do or even could direct the policy of the Israeli state?
On the other hand, suppose Israel made an agreement with any or all of its Arab neighbors, or even further afield, its Persian foe? Does anyone believe these Muslim states could or would even try to control the non-state antagonists of Israel?
A one-word answer will suffice.
Regarding your question,
Well, I haven't noticed anybody from Egypt or Jordan attacking Israel in the last few years. Certainly, the carrot of US aid motivates the Egyptian &Jordanian leadership to crack down on any would-be terrorists. I would endorse similar US aid for peace deals Israel might sign in the future with Lebanon, Syria, etc.
It's true that at the same time, planning for an invasion of the USSR was also under consideration in Japan.
Like I say, it was a continuation of a national policy that began with the invasion of China in 1894. It was all one war.
I went to ProQuest Historical Newspapers, which includes the full text of the NYTimes, and did searches for "withdrawal", "prepared statement", "zionist nation", "ceasefire", and several other words/phrases from the quote, over the date range 10/14/1943 to 10/17/1943. I couldn't find the article at all. (In fact, the phrase "zionist nation" doesn't seem to appear at all in the NYTimes for the whole year of 1943.)
What is the full bibliographic cite (title, page/column #, etc.)?
ZZBILL,
I've been looking through the 1943 NY Times and can't find any references to "Hezbollah" or Condi Rice either.
Something about Eugene's quotation looks fishy to me!
Jim Lindgren
I'm not qualified to assess individual cases, but I don't think that is quite right (that these doctrines depend on the limits of liberal sensibilities). My impression is that people have studied illiberal regimes too, and concluded that disproportionate force is often (although perhaps not always) counterproductive for them as well.
In fact, speaking of WWII, I believe that one of the prominent cases is Nazi attempts to institute civilian reprisals in occupied territories for things like acts of sabotage. My impression is that these efforts ended up being largely counterproductive, actually increasing participation in resistance movements. I gather part of the analysis of cases like this is that when nonparticipating civilians are subject to retaliatory violence, civilians end up figuring that they might as well participate, since nonparticipation does not offer safety.
Unfortunately, that might be a lesson applicable to civilian casualties in southern Lebanon today--I would worry that former nonparticipants might end up actively supporting Hezbollah, figuring that nonparticipation has not offered them safety.
Is there greater coverage for other accounts, or am I missing something here?
Unless one is arguing that the use of nukes would have been more acceptable if those cities had been attacked previously, it doesn't follow that nuking them is less acceptable because they weren't previously attacked.
Damage assessment is a normal part of war. In fact, accurate assessment an essential part of any proportionality evaluation. Therefore, conducting it can't be a violation of "proportionality".
1) we do not condemn american killings of civilians in world war ii as "disproportionate."
2) therefore, we should not criticize israeli killings of civilians in lebanon as "disproportionate" today.
can we say non sequitur? assuming american actions in world war ii were morally acceptable, premise (1) establishes is that civilian killings in war are not required to be "proportionate" to enemy civilian killings in acts that sparked the conflict in all circumstances.
The Nazi's biggest problem was starting insurgencies against themselves in the first place by preemptive brutality in the Communist areas they conquered. Racial ideology was not politically practical. Lots of people there were initially thrilled that the Red government had gotten driven off, only to discover that the Nazis were even worse (although even so the Germans were able to recruit enough locals to put together an anti-Communist army).
The key to effective brutality is not to be indiscriminate in the sense of randomly killing but only in response to acts of resistance or noncooperation. This leads to peer pressure within the civilian community not to piss off the counterinsurgent force, and to insurgents getting ratted out. In rural combat, combining some sort of "strategic hamlet" approach which protects/isolates the civilian population from the insurgents magnifies the effectiveness of the incentive structure. The balance of fear moves decisively in favor of the counterinsurgent force.
You say: "The Nazi's approach was usually horrifically effective in stamping out resistance."
That isn't my understanding. Rather, my understanding is that resistance activities tended to increase, not decrease, after Nazi reprisals.
Similarly, you say: "The key to effective brutality is not to be indiscriminate in the sense of randomly killing but only in response to acts of resistance or noncooperation. This leads to peer pressure within the civilian community not to piss off the counterinsurgent force, and to insurgents getting ratted out."
Again, my understanding is that such reprisals have actually tended to make it harder, not easier, for the force engaged in reprisals to obtain useful intelligence from the civilian community.
But, of course, these are empirical questions which I am not really qualified to debate. Again, my point has just been that these are matters which various experts have studied in depth, and it makes little sense to see this as a purely moral and/or legal question.
Incidentally, you also say: "In rural combat, combining some sort of 'strategic hamlet' approach which protects/isolates the civilian population from the insurgents magnifies the effectiveness of the incentive structure."
My understanding is also that isolating and protecting civilians from the insurgents where possible has often proven to be a relatively effective tactic. But obviously, that is a very different sort of strategy from what we have been discussing, and seems to fit precisely with the general idea that minimizing "collateral damage" to the civilian population is one of the keys to success in an asymmetric war.
It made great propaganda to talk about brave Maquis and such blowing up trains, but I've never read any reputable military history that suggested that anti-Nazi insurgents sped up the conclusion of the war in Europe. The Battle of Kursk, bombing raids on the oil fields, D-Day and the breakout, yes. Partisans...not so much.