It's gone...

War has changed. Utterly. All the fossilized-in-the-70's pacifists and leftists are incapable of seeing it, but we are using the same word to refer to a different beast...

[J.D. Johannes is a former Marine Sergeant and embedded reporter]...Where I was -- with this group of marines in 2005 around the Fallujah AO -- we (the unit) would spend days and weeks trying to get into a shoot out -- attempting to get into a shoot out. I know that sounds absolutely insane, but that's the only way that you can engage the enemy. And when you have an enemy that you have to work so hard to bait out into the open, you're not dealing with a very strong enemy. You're dealing with a very annoying enemy. A very deadly enemy. But not a very strong enemy.

They would have to set up these incredibly complex ambush-bait-and-kill operations where one group would be the bait to lure somebody out so you could actually engage the enemy, and it took a lot of time to do that. What you didn't see were the days and days on end where nothing happens -- nothing more than eating some flat bread, drinking some tea, playing a little soccer, buying some soda pops at the soda stand, hanging out with the locals and getting a sunburn...

We saw it before, but we didn't see it. In Vietnam it was called "jitterbugging." Moving by helicopter from one spot to another in rapid succession, trying to get shot at. Trying to pick a fight. Think about that.

What does it mean? It's not war, by any historical definition. War is gone. The kind of war you read about in the history books, it's gone. The pacifists and anti-war activists must pretend it exists, because their world-view depends on pretending nothing has changed since 1973. But actually it was pretty much gone even then. Even then war had come to mean something different. Not armored corps being flung into Kursk, or the Bulge. Rather, small groups of English-speaking soldiers trying to prevent simple peaceable folk from being slaughtered or enslaved by sneaky commie fuck-head murderers and would-be tyrants (sorry for the language, I've had a couple of drinks) like sheriffs in the Old West keeping the bandits from taking over the town.

War is good. At least war by the Anglosphere powers. It saves lives, it improves all it touches, and it ennobles those (of us on the side of good) who participate. Think High Noon. Think Seven Samurai.

Give war a chance.

And read the J. D. Johannes interview--it's good. (Thanks to Orrin)