Michel's Commentary

12/2/2001  888WebToday     The skies over Tokyo Bay were as gray as the gunmetal glinting on the decks of the massive American battleship, the U.S.S. MISSOURI.  But at the last minute, just as the instrument of surrender was about to be signed, the sun broke through, and the Second World War literally came to an end with a blaze of glory.

It would be the last time we, as a nation, would see a formal surrender ceremony.  Modern wars are not fought that way.

Five years later, when the Communist North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel, the United States went to war not only without a formal declaration of war by Congress, but also under the auspices of the newly formed United Nations. Not only were there no declaration of war and no surrender ceremony, negotiations to settle the exact terms of the peace is still going on to this very day.  In a sense, what is called the Korean War really hasn't even ended.

Congress never formally declared war against North Vietnam, either.  The war supposedly ended with the Paris Peace Talks - but then suddenly resumed again with the violation of the terms of those peace talks by North Vietnam, ending in the fall of Saigon.  While we supposedly beat Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, we are still involved in trying to enforce the peace terms
 there.

That's the way it seems to go with our modern wars.  They have no formal beginning or ending.  That went out with Pearl Harbor and Tokyo Bay.

But things are getting even stranger than that.  In the November 5th issue of The Nation, Mary Kaldor writes that the very meaning of war itself is changing. Osama bin Laden's terrorist attacks on the United States exemplify this. We are not at war against a nation but against a rather ill defined "terrorist group."  We are not even sure what victory would mean, if and when we achieve it, and apparently have no "exit strategy" since we are committed to an open ended and worldwide war with an abstraction called "terrorism."

There is, Mary Kaldor writes, only one way to wage this new kind of war. International agencies presiding over standing coalitions that cut across national borders will be necessary.  Sound familiar?  The idea, apparently, is to extend the authority of the United Nations peacekeeping forces, or something like them, to an unprecedented degree.

Collective security is really not a new idea but a very old one, that goes back to the 18th Century German philosopher Immanual Kant, and before him to the ancient Greeks. But what is new - is the creation of semi-independent entities to wage war not against other nations but against groups of rebels, separatists, terrorists and bushwhackers.  Maybe war will become
privatized, with rent-an-army robo warriors sent to do battle against the international bad guys.

Or is the kind of thinking Mary Kalbor represents merely a trap to get us to surrender yet more of our sovereignty, by sub-contracting currant wars?

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that the armed forces of the United States, supported by our makeshift coalition there, is doing just fine in Afghanistan. We don't need any international agencies to fight our wars for us - but we may need an exit strategy.

Those are my thoughts .....

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