Nothing Less than Victory

"My basic thesis is that wars begin when human beings choose to fight. Now the nature of that decision is very complicated: it has individual, social, and political levels. It is certainly the case that the average German in 1939 was trapped in a regime that he could not control. But it is also true that most of these Germans voted for Hitler, and could have risen up and overthrown him had they wanted to. As a society, however, they decided to follow him into war. This is the basic nature of a decision for war, taken on a social level. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Wars begin when two factors are in place. The first factor is the will to fight, whether in a country or a political group with political goals. For example, the Islamist groups that are waging terror wars today clearly have the will to attack. But they don’t have the second factor, which is the capacity to wage an attack. This would mean the possession of an army or effective weapons. Terrorists don’t have the capacity to drop a nuclear bomb on New York, which Bin Laden would have done if he had had one, so they crashed hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers instead. They expressed their will in this way because they had no greater capacity to attack. They are now creating such a capacity, in the nuclear program of Iran, which is also the product of their will to attack. Consequently a war must be directed at the enemy’s will to fight. To fight a war effectively you must understand clearly what an enemy’s motivations are. In my book I take seven examples from history and demonstrate how victory over the will to fight in an enemy has led to long-term peace between former enemies. For example, Carthage waged decades of war against Rome over 60 years, until it was defeated by Rome in the Second Punic War. Given magnanimous terms of surrender, Carthage was willing to live in peace with Rome. This peace lasted for two generations, until the Romans broke it."