War has always appeared to me that wisdom comes after the fact. After the destruction and the mourning. Afterwards, summation reports appear to outline just how stupid we were, books are written about all the mistakes we made, and about just how we allowed ourselves to be dragged into a trap it will take 10 or 20 years to extricate ourselves from.

In both places there is a vacuum of leadership. Leaders are confused and arrogant, and security forces are sitting with itchy fingers and looking for action.

It's difficult to see how the United States can win the war on terror given it's strategy thus far. The enemy that the U.S. faces is both intelligent and ruthless, with the latter of those two qualities giving them an advantage over their American enemies.

The last war that the United States won in which an overthrow of a country was the requirement for victory, was World War II. In that war, the United States defeated Japan, and to some extent Germany, by basing it's strategy on the concept of "a quicker win, means fewer American deaths". Ever since then, the United States has shied away from that idea as critics of the strategy have labelled it as too ruthless.

The military leaders of the U.S. during the second world war knew that in order to defeat determined enemies like Japan and Germany, they needed to sap the will of the opposing side to carry on the fight. To quote Admiral Halsey, "Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill More Japs." The phrase is crude to be sure, yet effective in driving home the point of how the war could be, and was, won, simply destroy as many of the opposing side as you can and eventually, they will give up the fight.

Contrast that idea with that is currently ongoing in Iraq. The United States leadership has decided on a strategy that calls for installing a democratic government which, in some manner not quite understood by the author, is supposed to stop the terrorists from trying to kill members of the U.S. military. The idea that killing as many terrorists as you can seems to make more sense than the plan that is currently in place now.

The biggest obstacle faced by the U.S. leadership in the current conflict is fear of public opinion. The idea of appearing as or being labelled as ruthless or civilian killers has cause them to hold back the full force of the military and, helped contribute to the deaths of many American soldiers. Take for example the Iraqi city of Ramadi in the western Anbar province. A phrase that you may hear to describe it is "Insurgent Stronghold" or "Terrorist Hideout". If it wanted to though, the U.S. military could easily retake the city, however, that action would no doubt incur the loss of civilian life. It is this inevitability that is causing the U.S. leadership to shy away from large scale operations such as the recapturing of a city due to the probable backlash it would trigger from the public at large.

If the U.S. really wants to win however, it needs to take lessons from it's own history. As the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in combat, the nation that fire bombed Tokyo, and the nation that had a hand in the fire bombing of the city of Dresden, it should know that it takes ruthless acts to settle conflicts.