The Central Paradox of the War on Terror
Unlike any prior war in American history, including the Cold War, the War on Terror has little effect on the day to day lives of ordinary people. One might respond, of course, that gas prices are really high and that we have over 100,000 soldiers fighting and dying across the globe, and that the security lines at airports are longer, etc...As I hope to show in a coming blog post, the price of oil is not related to terrorism in a material sense (although there is undoubtedly a small risk premium built into oil prices). Our military is an all-volunteer force, so if people don't want to fight they don't have to. Contrast this with, say, Vietnam, and you will see a large difference. Security lines at the airport are a little reminder of the threat we face, but we seem to have taken it in stride.
Think of the way that you felt on September 11th, 2001, and for maybe a week or so thereafter. That is what it feels like to be at war, and the American people have not felt that way for a long, long time.
Why have we not felt this way? Because of our spectactular successes in a war that is ongoing, and against an enemy that is every bit as vicious and hateful as the Nazis.
As such, the central paradox of the War on Terror is that increased success leads to decreased support for the policies led to success (i.e. made us safe).
What drives the paradox is the chasm between the dramatically quick and bloodless expectations for this war and the reality - namely, that is going to be a generational struggle more on par with the Cold War than WW2. Human nature being what it is, there is pretty much no way around it. The British angrily threw out Winston Churchill the instant that WW2 was over with, and the American people will likely throw Bush out with the same amount of vigor in 2008. He's not running again, of course, but the spirit will be reflected in the Presidential election.
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On a more personal note, this is one of the George W. Bush paradoxes that [roughly] inspired me to name this blog Catch-43 (Bush is the 43rd President of the United States, and a Catch-22 situation is a paradox of circular logic).
posted by JM @ 4:43 PM
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