Where war can lead

On February 3, 2006, the Washington Post writers Josh White and Ann Scott Tyson started their article “Rumsfeld Offers Strategies for Current War” this way: “The United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.”

Mr Rumsfeld was responding to a year-long Pentagon study which resulted in the Quadrennial Defense Review or QDR. The QDR stated bluntly, “The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war”.

Despite his many critics, Donald Rumsfeld seems to have exhibited a deeper understanding of war than most. Reporters howled at some of his press conference remarks, which frequently seemed evasive. In Congressional hearings, his language and approach frequently frustrated Senators and their staff.

“As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Donald Rumsfeld delivered this line during a Pentagon news conference on February 12, 2002.

Mr Rumsfeld was far from the first to utilise some obscure sounding language to deal with the difficult subject of war.

In about 500BC, Sun-tzu, wrote in The Art of War:

In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realise the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war who can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.

Sun-tzu was a Chinese military man who lived in the state of Wu in the 6th century, BC His book, The Art of War is still required reading at military war colleges around the world. Sun-tzu’s many observations, it seems, are still relevant today.

He wrote, “Those skilled in warfare move the enemy, and are not moved by the enemy”.

Sun-tzu also believed that, “Water’s formation adapts to the ground when flowing. So then an army’s formation adapts to the enemy to achieve victory.”

Without overstating this case, there are two observations that may be made about war. First, what men envision at the beginning is seldom found to be true at the end. And, second, adapting to the changing situation and forcing the enemy into bad situations for him is often a key part in achieving success.

The United States is believed to be at a turning point in the war in Iraq. A large segment of the American community wants to get the troops home quickly.

Yet troops returning from Iraq would do so with the knowledge that they had not “moved the enemy” the way Sun-tzu demanded. And what, do you think, would our troops and their leaders say about America’s ability to, like water, “adapt to the enemy to achieve victory”?