A new war begins |
Unexpected twists and turns stalk almost all wars. The law of unintended consequences impacts their results. This is so even in wars where the power differential of the combatants is enormous. Hence, prudent statesmen seldom push their countries into armed hostilities unless they have a clear, certain and early passage out of them with their objectives achieved. In these situations too statesmen hesitate before embarking upon war. President Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister have obviously not read the histories of past wars though the US President was intimately involved in ending the US’ ‘forever war’ in Afghanistan.
They would have found it instructive if they had studied two wars in the last century and refreshed their memories of the Afghan war in this century. The First World War and the Second World War in the first half of the 20th century lasted for four and five years respectively. The course of these wars had surprises. Both changed the map of the world but the latter brought about systemic changes which none of the combatants could have imagined at its beginning. America’s Afghan war continued for two decades and ended in America’s humiliating defeat and the return of the Afghan Taliban to Kabul from where they were ousted. Who could have imagined this to happen when the war began?
The First World War was essentially a European war though other powers joined in. The war began in 1914 but its seeds were sown earlier. On the one side were Britain, France and Russia (Allied powers) and, on the other, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy (Central powers). The assassination of Austria-Hungary’s Crown Prince in June 1914 by a Serbian set in motion a series of events which drew all these powers into war which waged for four years. As it continued it drew in the Ottoman Empire and the United States. The former on the side of the Central powers and the latter the other side. The entry of the US made a material difference to the war.
The war witnessed new fighting methods on land and more importantly much larger use of air power which was first used in 1911. It also saw the senseless slaughter of millions of soldiers of both sides in trench warfare in Europe. Also, mustard gas was used during the fighting. Ultimately the Allied powers prevailed. That led to the collapse of the Ottoman and Austria-Hungarian empires and the emergence of new nations in Europe. That also witnessed the expansion of French and British empires in West Asia and North Africa. The war also led to the Russian revolution and the spread of communism. These were entirely unforeseen developments when the war began. Thus, the map of the world before and after the war was very different. The peace enforced by the victors indirectly led to the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Europe. That led to the Second World War because of Hitler’s aggression.
The principal development in war fighting which occurred in this war was the manufacture of atomic weapons. That transformed the world forever. More than the First World War the world changed after the Second in a manner which could not have been anticipated in 1939, the year when the war began. If after the First World War some empires collapsed after the Second the system of colonialism got discredited. In perhaps one of its greatest contributions to humanity, India led the fight against colonialism after defeating it in this country under the inspiring leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. And, the communist system spread in the world with the Soviet Union and later China as its two poles. But most importantly it was the United States which emerged as the world’s pre-eminent country with its influence spreading to all parts of the world. Yet even while it succeeded in winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union there were limits to its power which was witnessed this century in its two decades long Afghan War which ended in its defeat.
The Afghan war was a consequence of Al Qaeda’s terrorist attack on the US on September 11, 2001. The US launched a global war on terror. Its NATO allies joined it. The Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden lived in Afghanistan under the shelter provided by the Afghan Taliban which controlled almost ninety percent of Afghanistan’s territory. The Afghan group refused to hand over bin Laden to the Americans. Consequently, they launched a massive bombing campaign against the Taliban. The boots on the ground were provided by the Northern Alliance. Without ground troops the result of the bombing would have been at best the Taliban being pushed out of power but no one to come into power. That would have resulted in the continued factionalisation of the country.
The Taliban was ousted but not finished. It regrouped in Pakistan and launched an insurgency against the Afghan Republic which was set up by the international community. To combat the insurgency the Americans were compelled to send in thousands of troops but they could not finish it. Thus, it came to pass that after two decades Trump decided to swallow the bitter pill of defeat and withdraw from the country. That led to the return of the Taliban. No one could have imagined such a contingency when the war began.
In the case of Iran the question is whether the Americans want to hurl it into chaos with all the problems that would visit the region because of that collapse. Only time would tell.