Sunday, October 09, 2005

Sacrificing Our Security

I've often belittled the idea that we need to impose sacrifices on our people to fight this war. First of all, I think our casualties, the heightened security, and higher gas prices are all sacrifices. Really, those who call for sacrifice only mean higher taxes and I think they want higher taxes to erode support for a long war and not to make us all share the burden. This isn't 1942 and we can't all donate our pots and pans to be melted down, stomp on the enemy to occupy their capitals, and then demobilize and come home.

This essay from the Strategic Studies Institute notes that it is precisely our home morale that places our long war at risk and not the capabilities of any of our enemies:


The costs associated with these small wars and interventions transcend straightforward accounting. Their human, physical, fiscal, political, psychological, and even moral demands challenge what is proving to be a very vulnerable grand strategic center of gravity for the United States—the population and its willingness to accept the high price of great power. Indeed, political elites and opinion leaders must either inure the body politic to the costs associated with exercising great power or face the consequences of diminished U.S. influence.

And retreat would create a whole host of problems. So before people lightly call for sacrifice, consider how long we must fight this war and how much we must do globally to keep the world in a condition that allows our freedom and prosperity to flourish. We have the power to keep going. We don't need sacrifice to generate power. But excessive sacrifice can erode our morale and chisel away at our weak point.