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Tuesday, 29 August 2006 20:56 |
 Active Image | Mark West
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Today, Israeli troops move with impunity across fields where once Roman legionnaires held sway. And there is a lesson there for us about the limitations of military might.
It is instructive to consider that the Jewish people have reconstituted their nation, while the Imperium is long gone. The German and Frankish opponents of Rome, far outclassed in terms of weaponry and civilization and any other measure you might mention, have formed nations where once they were insurgents, as have the tribes of Israel. The Christians, an insurgency within an insurgent people, came to control much of the wreckage of the Roman empire after it collapsed.
Strength of arms, a vast and sophisticated
infrastructure, and a rich and vibrant cultural life meant nothing; the
Roman Empire won wars but could not, in the long haul, win the peace.
The Romans were menaced, for example, by primitive tribes ÇƒÓ the
Marcomanni and the Quadi ÇƒÓ along the Danube. The Roman legions won
every significant battle into which they were able to draw the Germanic
tribes. But, once they suffered a disaster ÇƒÓ the ambush at Teutobarger
Wald ÇƒÓ the will of the Roman leaders slipped. They adopted a strategy
of retreating into fortresses, responding with rapid deployment forces
which would sweep out of the network of forts to any provocation.
Of course, there were plenty of provocations. The Marcomanni would raid
into Roman territory, then vanish, fading into the local population;
sooner or later, the Romans, frustrated, would respond with retributory
acts directed against noncombatants. This, of course, generated
increased ill-will among the population, who provided yet more support
for the insurgents.
Eventually, the cost of maintaining the remote fortresses and walls
became too great, even for the greatest economic and political power of
antiquity. Rome withdrew, first from the area past the Danube, then
from Britain. The infrastructure upon which Rome depended ÇƒÓ the complex
network of roads and aqueducts and shipping lines and grain
plantationsÇƒÓ had been neglected for decades, and the decline in
revenues meant fewer troops could be paid to be in the field. This
meant an increase in "barbarian" raids, more territory ceded; and once
the spiral had begun it proved impossible to stop.
History is replete with instances in which great nations won wars to
lose the peace. The Allied victory in the First World War led swiftly
to a resumption of the violence; the Napoleonic Wars resolved nothing.
Great generals, and great leaders, whose reputation came to little.
We might even make a general rule: wars solve nothing.
It is winning the peace that matters. After the Second World War, the
United States and the Allied powers didnët have ongoing trouble with
Germany or Japan. The reason was that the Allies rebuilt Germany and
Japan, restored them to functionality. The people of Germany and Japan
came to see the United States as friends, not as enemies, through the
generosity of our post-war conduct.
The epithet "the greatest generation" applies not only to the soldiers
of that war, but to its leaders. Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, Marshall
and others saw that making our former enemies strong was the key to
victory.
And what has our generation done? We have trashed Iraq, as Israel has
trashed southern Lebanon, in the process of attempting to free those
areas from the control of leaders we donët like. Well and good; we
demolished Germany to remove Hitler. But we rebuilt Germany as well,
and in the process avoided what history suggests is almost always the
outcome of imperialistic adventurism.
Whether or not our actions were just in Iraq, whether or not Israel
should have gone into Lebanon, the current course both our nations
should take is crystal clear. We must begin aid, and rebuilding
efforts, on a massive scale. Cronyism and corruption must be
eliminated; aid and assistance must begin to flow straightway.
If it doesnët, history suggests what the outcome will be. And it
shouldnët come as any surprise that the peace is harder to win than the
war; every child knows it is easier to break things than to repair them.
That is, every child but the spoiled rich child whose toys are repaired
by others. But who will repair the reputation of the United States, now
broken in the aftermath of a pointless and ultimately futile spree of
foreign adventurism? And who, if not us, will repair Iraq and Lebanon
to help them become functioning and peaceful nations?
Mark West is a professor of mass communications at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
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