A recent comment by one of our readers argues something that we hear all the time in the media: that all wars, in this case, the recent battle between Israel and Hamas and Hezbullah, are futile because they just create more wars. This comment gives me an opportunity to address this idea, at least briefly (because I am quite busy now revamping our on-line training sites). The argument, especially in George's version, confuses the difference between crime--especially crimes pursuing pleasure--and war, especially the state-support form of terrorism. It argues that all battles, all enemies, and all struggles are the same and that the use of force in any of these battles is futile. Exploring these ideas are useful because they explore the importance of understanding incentives in pursuing strategy. Of course, I cannot argue against the mindset that says "every struggle is futile" because it is belief system, and as such, not subject to argument, logic, or proof. Someone who wants to believe that everyone who believes in struggle is evil and that all struggles, whether against crime or enemy states, are futile, will continue to believe no matter what the evidence. Whether or not that belief is "grounded in reality" or not depends on what you have faith in. However, we can reasonable ask whether or not just because "wars on crime," such as the "war on drugs," are really "wars" in the same sense that regular wars and terrorism are. We can also discuss whether all or not all "wars," properly understood, have been futile in human history. First, while I do not agree that "wars" on crime are futile, such "wars" have very little in common with traditional wars between standing armies of states and the very similar nature of state sponsored terrorism. The line gets more blurry when you get down to random killings for philosophical reasons (like we just had here in Seattle), but the basic differences between crime and what is going on in the Middle East is large and similarities quite small. Physical crimes like theft exist because if they can get away with it, it is easier for some people to take things from others than to make them for themselves. This fact is why states exists and why we pay: to prevent anarchy, or, as I have described it before, to create an area of control where you can make plans. Laws against "moral" crimes, such as laws against drug abuse and prostitution exist for another reason: to help keep people from paths that, while rewarding in the short term, are highly destructive in the long term, even if there were no laws against them. In both cases, the incentive for crime is inherent in the crime itself. Criminals are immediately rewarded for committing a crime. Law enforcement must provide a disincentive of potential punishment to balance gainst those immediate rewards. However, most crimes will always go unpunished. All children will steal their first candy bar and many will get away with it. Law enforcement cannot be everywhere watching everything. What law enforcement tries to do is make it so that people cannot live a life of crime without eventually paying a price. In other words, if you keep committing crimes, you will eventually be caught and the price you will pay in the long term will not be worth the benefit you have gained in the short term. Physical crimes are easier to enforce and prosecute than moral crimes because there is a clear victim for the physical crime, while everyone is rewarded for the moral crime. Organized crime such as the drug cartels are always based on moral crimes because, no matter how good the enforcement, the desire for short-term gratification remains among the users remain. My criticism of the war on drugs is that it misunderstands the financial incentives for moral crimes. Criminal organizations are different from individual crminals because they are not based on the anarchy of the weak dominating the strong but on economic forces. The better the law enforcement in intercepting drugs, the more the prices of drugs go up, creating more incentive for drug providers. It is not that the "war" against drugs is wrong, but you cannot base a war on fighting the law of supply and demand. As we often point out here, you cannot legislate against the forces of nature, including human nature. That is why I have proposed that the war on drugs must be fought in a very different way to undermine the economic incentives. However, are wars between states and state supported terrorists the same as controlling crime? No, the most basic difference is the timing of the rewards. Individual crime is about short-term rewards. All wars are fought for long-term rewards, which is why their basis is usually philosophical as opposed to physical. Nobody wins immediate gratification from fighting a war. Everyone fights real wars for longer term goals about the nature of society and who controls the power of the state. Such state wars are also different from organized crime because organize crime seeks to prey upon society, that is, get their rewards from the economics of society itself, rather than replace the philosophical basis of society. Iran can provide funding to incent Hezbullah and Hamas in the short term, but Iran must get back something from these acts of terrorism in the long term without getting punished for it. So, if we understand that wars between states are about power and about which people and philosophy controls the state, we can ask: have wars ever successfully determined the winners of power? Or have all wars simply created more resistance? The simple facts are, that no matter how the "war is futile" crowd tries to spin it, every square foot on the planet earth is controlled by those who either clearly won a physical battle for control or who were given power voluntarily by those who won a physical battle for control. If you look at the world objectively, most of the instability in the modern world arises in places where the local people were given control rather than having to fight for it and the contest between underlying philosophies of the resulting society was never resolved. We are seeing this problem play out right now in Iraq. Treaties and ceasefires have never created anything but temporary respite between the philosophical divisions that lurk below the surface. The temporary respites always create a larger conflict down the road as the contestants rally their resources. On the otherhand, real war has settled the long-standing philosophical issues and created the basis for long-term peace. WWI and WWII offer object examples. WWI was settled by treaty only to erupt again in a more deadly form in WWII. WWII itself started with a long period of ceasefire during the "phony war" where France and England tried to talk out issues after Germany's invasion of Poland rather than fight them out. The result was the Germany was given the opportunity to win its battles in the east, signing a "treaty" with Russia, and move its forces to the West, where it quickly conquered France. Its success in the West gave it time to move its armies east again and violate the treaty with Russia. A war doesn't end with a treaty. The underly desire for power remains. It just allows the one who wished to pursue power more time to organize and reorganize. Treaties, short of absolute capitulation of the ruling forces, especially economic conquest, always work to the benefit of the weaker party. They give the weaker party time to rebuild and focus its forces. Treaties are never honored as long as underlying philosophical issues remain and the economics that allow conflict remain intact. The treaty in Vietnam is a perfect example. N. Korea is another example, though the complete failure of its economic system has limited the damage until recently. Certainly the treaty with Saddam and the end of the first Gulf war settled nothing and we are paying for it now in a larger battle. Certainly the settlement with Iran after the return of the embassy hostages settled nothing and left the problem to fester and grow more dangerous. Every problem place on the face of the earth is the result of a misbegotten treaty to avoid the costs of war. What about the idea that war creates more enemies by killing women and children? This idea is the terrorist’s chief weapon on the media battlefield on which terrorism is really based. Terrorism is based on that manipulation of the media and that manipulation would not work without the way the media reports war. Indeed, George's ideas about the futility of war wouldn't exist anymore than terrorism does, if the media didn't disregard all of history's lessons about the nature of war and strategy. Terrorism hides behind women and children because it knows those innocents will be killed by anyone who battles against their terrorist organizations and those deaths will be trumpeted in the Arab media and in the traditional media as the fault of those who defend themselves against terrorism. At the same time, terrorists know that their strategy of hiding behind one group of innocents in order to attack another group of innocents will be ignored by the Arab media and the traditional media. However, despite the role the media plays, state-sponsored terrorism and terrorist-sponsoring states can be defeated. However, the states behind it, namely Iran, must be target directly and not allowed to use innocents as a shielf. States can be physically destroyed to the point that they have no hope of winning further power and certainly no incentive to continue supporting terrorism. The problem right now is that Iranian support of terrorism goes unpunished. Hamas is punished. Hezbullah is punished. Lebanon and Palestine are punished. For Iran, however, supporting terrorism remains a good investment. It is not the death of women and children that create more terrorists, it is the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing out of Iran that support terrorism. As long as that financial incentive remains, terorrism will remain. As long at spending that money takes the pressure off of the Iranian regime, it is a good investment of their oil wealth. Since it even raise the price of their oil, it makes the same type of economic sense the drug sales do. The states sponsoring terror can be destroyed and must be destroyed to stop terror. Iran must pay or the war will continue. Their economic infrastructure can be destroyed. If real wars are given the opportunity to play out to their real end, expanding to the real forces behind them, rather than being halted by phony treaties, those who support losing philosophy can eventually wake up and look around to see the destruction that those philosophies brding. Irans leaders will eventually be forced to surrender or die. The people of Germany, Japan, and Italy at the end of WWII did not blame their conquerers for that destruction, but their previous leaders and their failed ideas of power and glory. In other words, real wars have real winners when they are fought to be won. Though Muslims have now fallen into line against Israel, you see the growing awareness of those in the Middle East that the problem is not Israel or the US, but the terrorists and their philosophies, no matter how the media reports it.