OPINION:
On Thursday, June 6, politicians all over the land will wax rhapsodic about the heroism of the American fighting men in Operation Overlord, the Allies’ successful effort that started on June 6, 1944, to dislodge German forces from France and bring about the eventual surrender of the Nazi regime.
Such speeches are important and welcome reminders of what free and brave people have accomplished and can accomplish.
These same politicians, however, have yet again successfully ignored another, much less happy anniversary. April 30 was the 49th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the American loss in Vietnam.
Not surprisingly, though, few of our leaders chose to note that date.
That’s unfortunate, because the fall of Saigon — and the pathologies it plainly exposed — are much more relevant to our current situation than the skill and decisiveness of American leadership in June 1944.
The truth is, of course, that the United States has not won a shooting war in the 80 years since those men who landed in France on D-Day moved remorselessly toward the destruction of the Third Reich.
Our failure is certainly not for lack of trying. The United States has been at war in various places for at least half of those 80 years. Nor is it for lack of resources. We spend more than $1 trillion annually on “defense” — more than the nearest 10 nations combined. It is certainly not for lack of courage. As anyone who knows them can attest, present-day American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen are as brave, resourceful and committed as any of their forbears.
Part of our inability or unwillingness to win wars must be laid at our officer corps’s feet. At some point, the next step in the career became more important than truth-telling. If flag officers had made it clear that the war in Vietnam was being prosecuted poorly by an overmatched president, it is likely that the citizenry would have demanded changes. But for reasons professional and personal, they were happy to confuse body counts and bomb tonnage with progress, and we lost.
Change the names and a handful of other details — and add 10 more years of futility — and the story is the same in Afghanistan.
When was the last time a general officer — or any field grade officer, for that matter — said anything in public to indicate that we were losing whichever war we were involved in at the moment?
The more significant part of the problem is that we have gotten out of the habit of declaring wars. For the last three generations, both parties have used vaguely worded resolutions or authorizations to expand American military presence in various places.
The problem with that approach should be obvious: If the nation is unwilling to declare that it is at war, it will not be willing to do what is necessary to win. If the United States’ voters are not fully committed to victory, the government will not be either.
Let’s try a thought experiment. Do you think anyone could endure the horrors of World War II if they had not committed to see it through to a victorious conclusion?
What makes victory possible is clarity of purpose for the combatants and their support systems back home. War is too absolute, too terrifying to allow anything else.
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower knew this. On the eve of D-Day, he sent the following message to his troops: “You are about to embark on the Great Crusade. … The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. … You will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”
Until our leaders can and will provide that kind of clarity to the citizenry and seek their commitment to absolute victory, our military efforts will continue to fail.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and a co-host of the podcast “The Unregulated.”
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