from
War Blog:
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 4, 2005
In
The Shield of Achilles, Philip Bobbitt looks the interrelationship between law, strategy and history, and how these subjects influence the course of nations. The reasons nations choose to go to war cannot merely be distilled down to greed or malice; wars are ultimately determined by constitutional issues (not always a “document”, constitutional can also mean the makeup of the nation) and the need to grant legitimacy to the constitutional order. Changes in the constitutional order of states contain “the seeds of future conflict”; the “peace” outlined at the end of World War I provided the “seeds” that led to the outbreak of World War II, and the “peace" established at the end of World War II led to the Cold War.
The primary example used to explain this idea is
“The Long War”. The Long War, which he states spanned most of the Twentieth Century, from 1914 to 1990, was fought over the legitimacy of three competing and incompatible forms of constitutional governments – Parliamentarianism, Communism and Fascism. After Fascism was defeated in WWII, the fight for legitimacy between Communism and Parliamentarianism continued during the Cold War, which included battles of the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the crises of the Berlin Blockade, Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to Mr. Bobbitt, the Long War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and the defeat of the Communist constitutional form of government.
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Retiring top soldier
warned of 'the long war'
9/29/05
Gen. Richard Myers spoke repeatedly about "the long war."
"The enemy knows very clearly they cannot defeat us militarily, so they rely on acts of terrorism to chip away at our resolve, our resolve to win," Myers said. "We are talking here about the
long war against terrorism. So consequently, we must remain steadfast against a very determined enemy."
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American Forces Press Service
DOHA, Qatar, Feb. 17, 2005
"This is going to be a
long war against a small group of people for a long time," Abizaid
said. "As long as we're wearing the uniform, things will never go back to how it was before 9/11."
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Woolsey: Expect long war on terror
November 14, 2004
His topic was the war on terrorism, which he called "the
long war of the 21st century."
"Some refer to it as World War Four," he said. "The Cold War was World War Three. And there are some similarities to the Cold War, which lasted for decades with some fighting, but not all the time."
The war on terrorism, he said, "will last for decades. For the younger people in the room, it will be to your generation what the Cold War was to mine.
It will probably last the rest of your life."
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Navy Chief: Settle In For A Long War
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
October 14, 2004
Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, reflecting on past conflicts involving Navy servicemen and women, told a Seattle gathering yesterday that the war on terrorism "is going to be a
long war."
"We are a nation at war, and this is not a war of months or even years; this is going to be a long war."
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