At its root, wars are psychological battles. They are not won by high body counts, whatever McNamara thought in Vietnam. They are not won by the destruction of tanks and ships and aircraft, whatever the Japanese High Command thought at Pearl Harbor. They are not even won by taking and holding territory, as we should have learned in Vietnam, and if not there then in Afghanistan. They are won when, and only when, one side convinces the other that further fighting is useless.
And the prevention of wars is a psychological battle as well. As the Roman author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus said way back in the fifth century, “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” (“if you want peace, prepare for war”). Or as the Japanese say “jaku niku kyō shoku” (“the weak are meat the strong do eat”). Opponents generally don’t start wars they don’t think they can win. So a big part of maintaining the peace is convincing opponents they wouldn’t win a war. Mind games again!
Why is this relevant to the present moment? Because the Western world faces major opponents again – Russia and China. In a war the West (NATO in particular, meaning mostly the US) could certainly beat Russia, which is much reduced from the old Soviet Empire (despite Putin’s valiant attempts to convince us otherwise), but it would likely be a very, very bloody war, especially if it went nuclear.
It is not clear that we could beat China in a land battle on its home territory, should we be so stupid as to attempt that, but a war with China is most likely to be mostly a sea battle for control of the seas that give China access to its resources, and we probably could win that war, though perhaps with difficulty considering the lengths of the logistic supply lines we would have to maintain.
The incredible destruction and losses of World War II might well have been prevented had the Allies shown a little more resolve when Hitler made his first moves in Czechoslovakia in 1938, so that he didn’t think his next targets would be pushovers (which it turned out they were).
Far better, then, to win the mind games from the beginning than to have to fight the wars. So it really matters what the Western response is to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine. It matters that he comes out of this convinced that it would be unwise to attack a NATO member. It matters that Xi comes out of this convinced that it would be unwise to attack Taiwan. A bit of bluster right now from the West would be a good thing – something more convincing than moving a few hundred US troops to Estonia or confiscating an oligarch’s yacht!
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