The survival of Israel succeeds or fails on the outcome of a war. The defense of America hasn't relied on the survival of any particular ally at the ass end of nowhere that we try to help resist a common enemy. But war against a great power capable of capturing important allies changes America's measure of victory or defeat to one closer to Israel's. On the other hand, the spread of nuclear weapons to Israel's enemies will push Israel away from imposing its view of what is right on an enemy.
Does America refuse to win decisively in war since 1945 because it has a flawed pattern of thought and action? Not really. Defining victory for America is different than defining victory for Israel. Israel should absolutely have its own pattern of thought and practice to define what they fight for. And in a great power war, America will no doubt adopt the Israel pattern given the much higher stakes.
Yet when America marks the 80th anniversary of VE-Day and VJ-Day next year, it will also mark eight decades since it has won a decisive victory in war. The reason is that since 1945, America has adopted patterns of thought and action that make victory impossible.
First and foremost, the U.S. has adopted a set of laws and practices which it did not, and could not, follow in the world wars. The protection of civilians is now, and has been for decades, an essential consideration in U.S. military operations. *
I think the problem is that America really has had two war standards since unconditional surrender was the objective in World War II. One after 1945 and one after 1991. In addition, I think that America's geography and position in the world makes America's standards for victory different than Israel's, which has enemies poised to invade and attack to destroy Israel.
Does America have standards of fighting that make victory impossible? Not really. Other than Afghanistan which we deliberately lost in 2021, America's battlefield record is pretty good. I think American victory is unreasonably judged by exceeding the the point spread.
Victory can't be defined by perfection.
And by the purported post-1945 standards, America's victory in the Revolution that the author cites as laudable would be called a defeat because America had to fight Britain again in 1812. And the Civil War would be judged a Union defeat because Reconstruction failed, allowing the KKK and Segregation in large parts of the former Confederacy that took another century to stop. And even World War II would be judged a defeat because in Europe we strengthened the USSR; and in Asia, the communists took control of China.
And don't get me started on how critics would savage America's post-war plan in Europe which descended into chaos and poverty for many years after 1945. Time has smoothed out the rough edges of the pre-1945 time period even more.
Still, that author is right that "Israel cannot afford to follow that example" of what he defines as a post-1945 American thought and action patterns contrary to older standard where disputes were "resolved in bloody battle, in which one side imposes its view of what is right upon the other."
We’ll see what the Israeli ceasefire with Hezbollah means for this Israeli need for clear victory. Did Israel abandon that need for this front? Or is the ceasefire a pause before destroying Hezbollah? Will Israel turn to the Houthi? That might get Egyptian cooperation to restore Red Sea traffic to and from the Suez Canal. Does Israel need some quiet to lock down Gaza? Or is Israel somehow planning to go to the source of their problems—Iran?
Still, America does operate with more restraint in its objectives. I get that preventing civilian casualties has higher priority in our military operations now. Even though technically the rules of war don't require that level of care if it interferes with defeating the enemy on the battlefield. Don't get me started on the complete twisting of what "proportionality" in war really means.
I don't want to comment on the dire effects of the cited Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan because I don't feel I have the knowledge to say if it really cripples American combat operations. How long would that plan be honored in a major war with dire consequences for losing? Not long, I'd guess.
But I would like to heartily endorse the condemnation of false compassion of civilian casualty avoidance as an objective that trumps battlefield victory. Yet it is also true that in a war where you are trying to protect allied or at least non-enemy civilians—as most of Iraq and Afghanistan consisted of—being careful to avoid civilian casualties is important to achieve the military objective. I've noted that conquering a hostile country with hostile civilians would require a very different approach than what we used.
But I think that pattern of thought the author condemns is really a post-Soviet Union standard. Well, and the pattern is really one faction of one party's influence since 1991 rather than America's as a whole.
I concur that battlefield victory to impose your view of what is right is a lesson for Israel and an ideal for America directionally even if America should back off from that high standard in particular wars. There are reasons in practice that America actually has lower standards for judging victory since 1945 that don't apply to Israel whose very existence is at stake. The fact that the two most famous refusals to impose our view of what is right were the Korean War and the 1991 Gulf War is no coincidence. Those wars are the only two approved by the UN which was created to defend the post-1945 system. The system that America established. The system that benefits America. And this requires America to pace itself militarily to defend the big objective in many places. So America did not try to impose our view of what is right lest the price be too great. Under America's post-1945 big picture objective, our individual war/campaign objectives can eventually diverge from what small allies we help want.
Still, when the struggle America is in goes from fighting over smaller countries to directly facing major enemies like China or even Russia, the lesson of imposing your view in battle on the enemy becomes an increasingly large imperative for America, too. We never had to fight that level of war during the Cold War. And even now, I'll admit Ukraine isn't strictly speaking absolutely vital to hold even though holding the line in Ukraine will be far cheaper than holding it further west in Europe should Russia defeat Ukraine.
An era of Great Power Competition means the stakes for America should we fight a great power will be as high as they are for Israel right now. Which means America must certainly again focus on imposing its view of what is right by winning a bloody war. There is no point spread. Just winning—or losing.
Although nuclear weapons limit what even a battlefield winner can impose on the loser. What will Israel do when its enemy Iran has nukes?
As a rule, if you decide to go to war, your objective should be battlefield victory and not casualty avoidance. If you prioritize the latter you are likely to get neither. Unless the real objective lies beyond the area of operations where the fighting takes place. Always consult the Definitions Section to determine what the real objective is.
*And without seriously digressing—except in a footnote—I firmly deny the author's claim that establishing democracy interfered with the military objective in Iraq. The American-led coalition crushed the Saddam military in battle and then defeated a series of irregular and insurgent enemies on the battlefield.
Democracy was a parallel post-conventional operations objective. Would it really have been superior to impose a new dictator? Another Sunni Arab? A Shia? A Sunni Kurd? How would any of that been superior? How would any new strongman have had sufficient credibility to prevent more violence? I think that strongman path would have converted narrow resistance by part of the Sunni Arab minority and part (backed by Iran) of the Shia majority into a national resistance. The Kurds would have pulled out of the fight as our ally to defend their corner of Iraq.
Further, this claim that damns trying to get rule-of-law democracy doomed us to defeat rests on the false claim that America lost the Iraq War. A new phase is defeating Iran in Iraq. But that doesn't negate the previous, albeit still-tenuous, victories.