America at war is more aptly reflected by the diplomat trying to keep a shaky and corrupt government in power

Rethinking the American Way of War

By Daniel Greenfield
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the War in Iraq and Afghanistan was never a quagmire. Both wars were concluded with comparatively lightning speed and relatively few casualties. It is not the wars that became a quagmire, but the reconstructions and the occupations, the various euphemisms for the long process in which US troops and civilian contractors spend years trying to rebuild and stabilize the country they just invaded.

And this has unfortunately become the American way of war. While to many people the bomber or the fighter jet may embody American fighting power, the practical reality is that America at war is more aptly reflected by the diplomat trying to keep a shaky and corrupt government in power, or the infantrymen killing long days waiting for an insurgent attack. But it was not always this way, because what we now think of as the American way of war, would more accurately be considered the diplomatic way of war.

But it might be time to reexamine some of the underlying assumptions behind the American Way of War. The first assumption about the American Way of War is that we fight wars in order to stabilize regions that have become unstable. This is of course a very “diplomaticâ€