Victories that can be won: On the 21st anniversary of 9/11

 The September 11 attacks are 21 years old today.  They are older than most of my students, and were they a person, they could drink.  Osama Bin Laden is dead, Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead, the planners and leaders are dead and scattered, and while there remains a thing called al Qaeda, few of us in the United States are in any way afraid of them.

That was not the case, 21 years ago today.  We were afraid.  We did not know whether the attacks were the first stage in a series, whether the group had more in the works, or what came next.  Thousands died, many more lost friends and family, many more worried about our friends and family who worked in New York, and for all we knew at the time, it was just the start.

The Taliban are not al Qaeda.  They harbored and aided al Qaeda, but they are not al Qaeda.  Their return to power in Afghanistan was probably inevitable.  The Taliban are not Putin's army invading Ukraine.  If Afghanistan is the Republican Party, the Taliban are CPAC.  They're just a hair to the right of the country's median, but not much, and not enough for them to put up a fight.  But they're also not the ones who attacked us.  That was al Qaeda.

And this country demolished al Qaeda, which has been no real threat to us since.  We won.

And on the 21st anniversary, we are watching Ukraine push back Russia, against all odds and against the predictions of anyone who was looking at the military capacity of either country those many months ago when Putin blew up the international world order.  Will Ukraine successfully defend its borders?  At this point, they may.  At the very least, we must say that the can.  It can happen.  It is a victory that can be won.

Russia's military was nowhere near as powerful as the world feared, and so deeply undercut by their own stupidity that a combination of intelligence, courage and fortitude on the Ukrainian side looks like it is... at the very least right now, not losing.  Also, we've got the best weapons, and that means Ukraine will be well armed.  (If 2020 had turned out differently, those guns would be pointed the other direction.)

al Qaeda had less operational capacity than in our worst case scenarios, but what operational capacity they had met the explosive capacity of American ordnance.  Dead men hijack no planes.

Some victories can be won either by taking an enemy off the battlefield, or driving him from it.  Game over.

Extrapolate.  What are victory conditions in any conflict?  Do you seek to drive an enemy from some metaphorical battlefield?  That presupposes that you define one as an enemy.  Short of that, the tension comes from the definition of victory conditions and the path to them, all of which is complicated by defining any other actor as an enemy in a circumstance in which there is no literal battlefield.

War is unique in that it forces clear definitions of victory conditions, to say nothing of clarifying the nature of enemies and allies.  Your enemy is the one shooting at you.  Your enemy is the one who invades your borders, attacks, threatens...

Move from the context of war to some other context.  What do you want?  To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women?  That probably won't happen, and the more you try, the more destruction you leave in your wake.

Thinking about a lot here.  Some very ugly and unpleasant people with whom I must interact, those who initiate conflict with no endgame...

There are circumstances in which a knock-down, drag-out fight will be won or lost with clear victory conditions.  We beat al Qaeda.  The good guys won.  Ukraine is beating Russia.  The good guys are winning.  The good guys don't always win, but it is useful to observe that even with the asymmetry of Russia and Ukraine, predictions are difficult to make in advance.

Yet I find myself looking around at conflicts that exist, not because there is a clear victory condition demanded, but simply because some fucking asshole defined another as an enemy and picked a fight.  Apply that notion.  It does not go well.  Not for anyone.

Doc Watson, "Victory Rag," from Home Again.