Wars to End Wars

Friedman notes that the end of major wars frequently evokes an unwarranted euphoria.  Every war is considered not only a war to end wars, but a war that has ended war: After every major war – what we might call systemic war in which the entire international system convulsed – there was a belief that in the future war could be contained.  After the Napoleonic Wars, there was the Congress of Vienna.  After World War I, there was the League of Nations.  After World War II, there was the United Nations.  After the Cold War, there was the New World Order.”

When the Soviet bloc fell, US policymakers tended to follow some version of Fukuyama’s thesis about the end of history.  From here on out, the US’s role would be to facilitate global trade. A few rogue states remained, but they were nuisances rather than strategically important players on the global stage.  Even when al Qaeda successfully attacked the US, the attack was seen as the work of irrational fanatics, rather than a deliberate, well-planned, and brilliant strategic chess move against the US’s global position.

The US was completely unprepared for an enemy like al Qaeda: “Everything that has happened after [9/11] was a series of hastily sketched improvisations . . . . Apart from killing thousands of Americans, [the attacks] left the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment at an utter loss as to how to respond.  There was no man for defeating Al Qaeda.  Everything that followed, most especially the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was a consequence of this fundamental fact.”