Take two people, Joseph Cop and John Soldier. Call them Joe and Johnny for short. Each of them has their job to do and each of them does it well. And in some circumstances, that job, unfortunately, causes someone to die. Let us look at a case in point.

Joe Cop is walking down a city street when a person begins firing at him from the second floor of a house. Since it's probably only this one madman, he takes cover, calls for backup and waits for the SWAT team to arrive and burn down the house. Or, hopefully, bring the poor deranged gun-nut to trial and eventual commutation far away from his guns.

Johnny Soldier is walking down a city street when a person begins firing at him from the second floor of a house. He first tries to determine if he can engage and destroy the sniper with direct fire. Determining that he cannot, he has a choice of maneuver to close or call for heavy fire. Since there are snipers all over the place, he calls down two battalions of artillery fire, F-16s with five hundred pound bombs, a wall of fuel air explosives and a B-52 arclight strike. That way the sniper dies, or at least quits shooting, and Johnny can go marching home again hurrah, hurrah. Or at least drive on with the mission.

Now, let's take a look at "Operations Other Than War." Bosnia is a great example. I recall, vividly, the image of a British major talking with a CNN crew as the major and the fighting vehicle he was with came under very poor quality sniper fire. The major kept the proverbial English stiff upper lip and noted that there were usually only a few rounds and then the sniper would go away. Pling! Pling! Duck! He also noted that they knew, pretty well, where the sniper was. Pling! Pling! But they preferred to let him continue firing rather than try to drive him off or kill him. Pling! Finally, after this went on for a bit and they took a casualty, the major ordered the gunner of the fighting vehicle to fire a few rounds of cannon fire at the sniper. After that the sniper either died or gave up, they did not send a patrol up to find out which. They might take casualties.

So what we have here is Johnny Soldier being Joseph Cop. And the two are clearly incompatible. As a cop, you want to contain the position and minimize casualties. That is an "operation other than war." As a soldier, you have to advance to take and hold territory by closing with and defeating the enemy. That is war. Unfortunately, if we prosecute the war on terrorism as "Operations Other Than War" we'll be breathing anthrax on a random basis for the next thirty years. Or until they find a way to really annoy us.

So we need to fight it as a war.

War means closing with and destroying the enemy. I can't say that enough. It means destroying his means to fight and his will to fight. It means killing the enemy using any reasonable force. There is nothing clean or surgical or pretty about it; as one Civil War general said: "Mars is not an aesthetic god."

One of the reasons for the high level of restraint in OOTW is the treaties that hem our troops and the care of the surrounding civilians. In a real war, though, you have to think first of your national survival, second of the survival of your forces and a distant third of "laws." That does not mean becoming death-crazed criminals, it would take much to bring Americans to that. But it does mean ignoring the convenient boundary. It will mean civilian casualties among the populace of wherever we are fighting, especially since the enemy will place its positions among civilians for that very purpose. And it does mean using overwhelming force and not "moderate" or "minimal force." William Slim during the Burma campaign preferred to have five or six to one odds. When a senior staffer commented that "That's a bit like crushing a walnut with a steam-press", Slim replied: "There's nothing wrong with that if you have a steam-press to hand and don't care about the condition of the walnut."

Slim, and Grant, and Sherman and Patton, all saw instances in which other officers attempted to use "appropriate" or "minimal" force to achieve an objective. And were soundly trounced for it. From this all of them came to the conclusion that the right way to assault an enemy was with the most force you could bring to bear, as fast as you could get it on target. In other words, "there is nothing wrong with smashing a walnut with a steam-press."

But that, as it should be, is anathema to "Operations Other Than War". And "Operations Other Than War" was what all our officer corps was told would be the future. We decided to study war no more. And what we get is…

Joe Cop. With no backup.

It's time to study war some more. Or at least find some "rough man" who has.