Just Keep Kicking the Cans Down the Road?

Ace of Spades today writes a long, thoughtful post about how we should go about fighting wars. He leads with this headline:

Trump Announces “Permanent” Ceasefire Agreement Between Turks and Kurds Along Syrian Border;
Kurdish Leader Says Ceasefire Wouldn’t Have Been Possible Without Trump
—Ace of Spades
He also lifted the sanctions imposed on Turkey, but could revive them if Turkey violates the terms of the agreement.

First, it is extraordinarily difficult to “solve” massive societal problems in foreign f–king countries. The cancer in Middle East states goes right down to the bone.

We haven’t managed to rid America of the Communist Delusion after one hundred years. And we think we’re going to cure Islam of Islamism?

It may be simply impossible to “fix” such things, and even if it is theoretically possible, it might take far more wasted men, severed limbs, and pallet-fulls of money than we are willing to spend.

Second, Americans are a bit mercurial in matters of war: They are occasionally keen on it, but quickly tire of it.

We have now had a pretty firm trial run of how many years of war America is willing to tolerate, even if offered terrific provocation (such as 9/11). The answer turns out to be “three to four years, maybe.”

… Wars must be sharply limited in goals, with clearly defined victory conditions and a firm exit strategy, and must not be permitted to endlessly mutate new goals and thus new end-points.

And we must not “nation build.”

…Future wars must have clear and limited-jurisdicaiton goals more like: “We take out these sites, bomb these government buildings, reduce their air force and tank forces to near zero and then stop.”

…I no longer consider “kicking the can down the road” to be some kind of failure. In fact, I would put it forth that Successful diplomatic and military leadership consists almost entirely of delaying problems, not “solving them.”

So this idea, if it still exists, that we will fight all these proxy wars so that we will win a proxy war with Iran instead of engaging it in a real war?

It’s absurd. It’s already been tried and it already failed.

Shall we keep on doing it, then?

I think I’d rather just eat the whole sandwich and invade Iran.

Anyway, these are some of the things I’ve learned watching what I thought would be a great and lasting triumph in Iraq (and Afghanistan) turn into the same nation-building, peace-keeping, internal-policing slaughterhouses for American boys I always thought conservatives were supposed to be against.

…I am chastened and unsure. I am ambivalent and reformulating.

Are any of the Neocon NeverTrumpers simiilarly grappling with their own claims and beliefs and the recent real-world historical record?

Or are they just taking whatever position is politically expedient to put them on the opposite side of Trump?

Are they playing political games in matters of war and death?

I think so. I really have not seen a single one of these supposed Adults in the Room and Serious Men and Expert Commentators grapple for a single second about why they were previously wrong.