In this lecture, Ernie Regehr explores fundamental questions about contemporary war and whether we are “fighting to lose.” He will discuss wars fought over the past 25 years, particularly how they ended. He examines the limited utility of military force in response to the kinds of political, economic, and social conflicts that are at the root of contemporary armed conflict. Finally, Mr. Regehr explores the implications for national and international security policies in the interests of constructing stable national and international security environments.
Falluja’s Fall Stuns Marines Who Fought There
Adam Banotai was a 21-year-old sergeant and squad leader in the Marine Corps during the 2004 invasion of Falluja, a restive insurgent-held city in Iraq. His unit — which had seven of 17 men wounded by shrapnel or bullets in the first days of the invasion — seized control of the government center early in the campaign.
So when Sunni insurgents, some with allegiances to Al Qaeda, retook the city this month and raised their black insurgent flag over buildings where he and his men fought, he was transfixed, disbelieving and appalled.
WWI: Technology Led to “Total War”
Technology was supposed to be the servant of mankind — liberation would result from more technology. What World War One showed was how quickly this new technology could be put to use. In the end, it was the European idea of progress which became the victim of “improved technology.” The rules of warfare had changed — and with this change the 20th century plunged into what one historian has called, “the age of total war.”
.. Not outsiders but Europeans themselves invented the expression Age of Anxiety to describe what they thought was happening to them in the twentieth century. They dwelt increasingly not on the growing enlightenment of their times, as so many had done in the 18th and 19th centuries, nor on Europe’s continued greatness, but on the anxiety they felt about their existence, their culture, and their destiny. “Today,” said the Protestant theologian-philosopher Paul Tillich at mid-century, “it has become almost a truism to call our time an age of anxiety.” Tillich believed that anxiety infected even the greatest achievement of contemporary Europeans in literature, art, and philosophy. Europe, according to his account, had entered its third great period of anxiety, comparable in intensity to that of the ancient world and the Reformation.
The special form of anxiety that Tillich identified was the ANXIETY OF MEANINGLESSNESS. He traced it to the modern world’s loss of a spiritual center which could provide answers to the questions of the meaning of life.
US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6 trillion
The decade-long American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would end up costing as much as $6 trillion, the equivalent of $75,000 for every American household, calculates the prestigious Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
.. According to the report, the US “has already paid $260 billion in interest on the war debt,” and future interest payments would amount to trillions of dollars.