Short Stack: Lessons from September 11
What about our sitting President? What do our enemies think of him and his administration? What of the next President?
This is the morning of September 11. For those of us who were alive and old enough to remember that day in 2001, who can forget?
Who among us can fathom that it was 23 years ago? Really? 23 years already?
Indeed, it has been 23 years since that day. Hard to believe, I know. Time is constant, yet it can feel painfully slow sometimes, cruelly fast others.
Let us take a moment, here, now, and pause to reflect on what September 11 means as we consider some key questions.
Enemies
Who are our enemies? It would be naïve to the point of foolishness to assume we have none. Of course, we do.
Certain regimes have grand strategies that are incompatible with a free, thriving United States that provides a model of what can be for what the rest of the world to see. The national interests of countries like Russia, China, and Iran require that the United States either ceases to exist or becomes an unfree place where fierce independence is replaced by dependency, submission, and slavish compliance.
How far down that path have we already traveled? I leave it to you to judge.
Additionally, religious zealots worldwide perceive the United States as morally bankrupt, steeped in a culture of nihilism and fixated on shallow sexual hedonism. They’re not entirely wrong. Yet, the remedy they propose—Sharia by force—is far worse than the disease they claim to diagnose.
Moreover, there are those who harbor hatred for America out of one of the oldest human sentiments—envy.
We have enemies. Until the day comes when human beings cease to hate—which won’t happen until they stop loving—we will always have enemies. Where there is love, there is hate; and where there is love and hate, there are friends and foes.
Willingness
Of our enemies, who is willing to attack us? What might dissuade them from doing so?
Let us be clear: On September 11, 2001, our enemies were not deterred by President George W. Bush. They attacked the United States in broad daylight, turning our own commercial airliners into weapons of mass destruction.
In recent years, while there have been no direct attacks on the United States, some of our friends and allies have suffered brutal attacks. The world is now inflamed by wars.
Are these proxy wars against the United States? Are they intended to draw us into conflict, or are they simply wars initiated by those who don’t fear us because they know we often respond with little more than inaction?
What about our sitting President? What do our enemies think of him and his administration? What of the next President? With an election approaching, who among the likely candidates would be most feared by our enemies—feared enough to discourage them from threatening or attacking us?
These questions are challenging but unavoidable when contemplating September 11.
Victory
If we find ourselves at war again, what should our purpose be?
The classical answer is: Victory. True victory means not merely winning, but ensuring that our enemy knows, without a doubt, that they have lost.
War should be avoided whenever possible—especially when U.S. citizens are safe from foreign violence—yet if and when we must go to war, our goal should be clear: Victory as quickly as possible in a manner that is painful for our enemy so that their defeat is clear and decisive to them.
Victory for the United States should leave our enemies with no inclination to wage war against us again. Victory should mean they change their way of life; we don’t change ours.
This, however, is not the postmodern progressive way of war. It’s not the way of bureaucrats within the Department of Defense.
The former Department of War was reorganized into the Department of Defense shortly after World War II. This change signified more than a mere name change.
The Department of War was active during, well, times of war, when Congress’s Constitutional authority “to declare war” meant something. During times of peace, it was a much quieter place.
Transforming the War Department into the Defense Department was part of the broader bureaucratization of the federal government. Unlike a War Department, a Department of Defense is busy and active at all times—whether the United States is at war or not, regardless of whether Congress has declared war or not.
The Defense Department is staffed by unelected bureaucrats—not soldiers—who enjoy the equivalent of lifetime tenure. Their purpose, unlike ours, is to make themselves seem relevant and valuable, which is why our Defense Department is incentivized by continuous global conflicts and international tumult, not peace and stability.
Those on-going conflicts become leverage when the Defense Department demands bigger defense budgets, more resources, and more power. The endless quagmires that Americans have come to accept—Korea, Vietnam, the entirety of the Cold War, and the 20-year debacle in Afghanistan—reflect the progressive way of war directed by progressive bureaucrats within the Defense Department: prolonged conflicts with no clear victory or even conclusion.
And we don’t call them “wars.” The most recent declaration of war by the United States Congress was more than 80 years ago, during WWII. Rather than declaring war—which might prompt some citizens to ask what is the plan for victory—Congress now passed pieces of legislation that “authorize” the “use of military force,” along with measures like the Patriot Act that expand permanently the bureaucratic state and turn U.S. citizens into potential enemies to be surveilled by the federal government.
Concluding Thoughts
Meanwhile, our Navy has half the ships it did during the Reagan years and it has no pants for sailors. All the branches of the U.S. military are placing more emphasis on being woke and DEI compliant than being ready and able. Our military, especially the top brass—which is thoroughly progressive brass—is increasingly unserious, as the world becomes smaller and increasingly dangerous.
The 23 years since that fateful September 11, 2001, have flown by in a flash. In some ways it seems like yesterday; in other ways it seems like a lifetime ago. We should remember, and more: We should reflect on what lessons we should have learned from that day. Who are our enemies? What are they willing to do? And what must we do to secure victory when liberty-loving Americans have no option but war?