Yet lost in all this confusion is the recognition that the essence of war remains unchanged—the use of force to eliminate an adversary, coerce an opponent to alter his behavior, or prevent annihilation. Technology, modern social theory, the ease and luxury of the West—these are simply the delivery systems that change with the ages, but do not alter or affect the substance of conflict. In our present context, all our concern about American combat casualties would vanish should there be another mass murder similar to 9/11. Like ancient man, postmodern man is hardwired to survive, and thus really will use his full arsenal when faced with the alternative of extinction. Should we lose the stock exchange or the White House, there would be almost no calls for restraint against states that harbored or aided the perpetrators, on the logic that every terrorist must sleep, eat, and use an ATM card somewhere.
All the talk of our inability to identify exactly who pulled the trigger on the bomb that destroys Charleston ignores the reality that we will destroy all the usual suspects if a nuclear weapon is detonated on American soil. We won't even need hatred to do this. The simple logic of deterrence will require us to go ballistic on those who spew hatred and inspire or support such mass murderers. Failure to respond to nukes with our own nukes would mean open season on Americans. For once we let a nuclear attack go unanswered, nobody will ever believe we'd use nukes in our own defense.
So though it may seem hard line to pursue victory over our Islamist enemies and unreasonable to kill them wherever we find them, it is really a kindness to the larger society that has spawned them. Since that society cannot suppress the jihadis, we must kill them for that society. It is for their own good, really.
