On U.S. strikes against Iran, Pete Hegseth says, “this is only just the beginning”
With U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in their second week, tonight, you will hear from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. According to the Pentagon, more than 50,000 members of the U.S. military are involved in the execution of what it calls “Operation Epic Fury.”

Our CBS News colleague Major Garrett spoke with Hegseth about the war with Iran. 
The U.S. military said it had already struck 3,000 targets inside Iran when we met with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Friday. 

Major Garrett: The speaker of the House said late this week, “The mission is,” and I’m quoting him directly here, “nearly accomplished by all estimates.” Is that true?

Pete Hegseth: Oh, we’re very much on track, on plan. I was down at CENTCOM– yesterday–

Major Garrett: Someone might hear that and think it’s almost over–

Pete Hegseth: Well, there’s no– we’re not flying a mission accomplished banner– like George W. Bush on– on an aircraft carrier. We’re not doing that and we haven’t done that. But we can be clear with the American people that this is not a fair fight.

And that’s on purpose. Our capabilities are overwhelming compared to what Iran’s are.

And frankly, when you combine our Air Force with the air force of the Israeli Defense Forces, it’s the two most powerful air forces in the world. 

The ability for us to be up over the top and hunting with more conventional munitions, gravity bombs, 500-pound, 1,000-pound, 2,000-pound bombs on military targets– that– we haven’t even really begun to start that effort of the campaign, which is gonna showcase even more how– how we will execute on those objectives.

Major Garrett: President said recently there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. What does that look like, unconditional surrender? How will you know it’s real?

Pete Hegseth: It means we’re fightin’ to win. It means we set the terms. We’ll know when they’re not capable of fighting. There’ll be a point where they’ll have no choice but to do that. Whe– whether they know it or not, they will be combat-ineffective. They will surrender. 

Major Garrett: Typically the understanding of a surrender is person-to-person. Is that what would be required in a matter like this?

Pete Hegseth: Well, there’s a lotta different ways. Whether they want to admit it or not, whether their pride lets them say it out loud or not– it’s President Trump who will set the terms of that. 

The president of Iran said yesterday that the U.S. demand for unconditional surrender is, quote, “a dream that they should take to their grave.”

Major Garrett: There was a very long war between Iran and Iraq, almost eight years, and they never surrendered in that war. And I’m just wondering if that factors into your calculus or the president’s calculus as well–

Pete Hegseth: I mean, there was a really long fight that I was a part of, that my generation was a part of.

Major Garrett: Yes. I know that, sir.

Pete Hegseth: In Iraq and Afghanistan– where a lot of foolish approaches were used. This is war. This is conflict. This is bringing your enemy to their knees. Now, whether they will have a ceremony in– in– in Tehran Square and– and– and surrender, that’s up to them. 

There are varying versions of how and why the war started when it did. Some normally enthusiastic supporters of the president have criticized him suggesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled the U.S. into a war that to their minds did not put American interests first. 

Major Garrett: Do you want to address that criticism?

Pete Hegseth: All I know is, I’m in the room every day and I see how President Trump operates and what he’s putting first, and it’s America, Americans, and American interests

Major Garrett: It has been said that the Israelis, through Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, provided on February 23rd key information about intelligence they had developed about the likely whereabouts of Ali Khamenei and many in his inner circle.That the U.S. then checked it out through the CIA, confirmed that, and that was an opportunity that presented itself to the president. And that is the precipitating factor for this war.

That’s the way it’s been reported. Is that accurate, Mr. Secretary?

Pete Hegseth: President Trump’s approach has been our interest in advancing those interests from the beginning. And so the fact that intelligence was gathered, whether from Israelis or ours, and always checked by our intel agencies to make sure– it’s accurate– a lotta times the best way to start operations is a trigger-based or condition-based moment.

And you can work together on whether that makes sense. But we were always controlling the throttle about whether or not we go or not go. And ultimately, to advance American interests, and protect American lives.

Major Garrett: Some might look at that sequence of events and say, well, that it was an opportunity more than an imminent threat.

Pete Hegseth: I mean, I think much of that discussion is– silly and academic. They’ve been killing us for 48 years– 47 years. They have unabated nuclear ambitions. 

And when we obliterated their nuclear program at the end of the 12-Day War and Operation Midnight Hammer— they should’ve come to the table and said, “Okay, we get it. You mean business. We’re not gonna have nukes.” And they haven’t.

And as a result, when the president looks at it, generationally he sees a threat that would continue to gather.

Despite the administration’s claim that it obliterated Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in June, international monitors estimate that Iran still has more than 970 pounds of nearly bomb-grade uranium.

Major Garrett: Is it possible to achieve the objectives President Trump has set before you if we don’t locate and obtain and extract the highly enriched uranium?

Pete Hegseth: There’s a lotta different ways we can get after that. They’ve used a conventional umbrella of– of missiles that was growing every single day, their production cap– capacity, to try to cover over their nuclear blackmail ambitions. As far as how you get at that nuclear option, we’ll make sure– that their nuclear ambitions are never achieved.

Major Garrett: Will we take it out ourselves?

Pete Hegseth: Oh I would never tell you or anybody else what our options are. That’s another thing. People keep asking–

Major Garrett: It’s not really–

Major Garrett: It’s a legitimate question.

Pete Hegseth: Very fair question. People ask boots on the ground, no boots on the ground, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, go in, go in? President Trump knows, I know, you don’t tell the enemy, you don’t tell the press, you don’t tell anybody what– what your limits would be on an operation. We’re willing to go as far as we need to in order to be successful. 

Major Garrett: Do we have any overt or covert forces inside Iran now?

Pete Hegseth: I wouldn’t tell you that if we did.

Major Garrett: Only reason I ask is, earlier this week you said no. Is that still the answer?

Pete Hegseth: Yeah, that’s still the answer. But we reserve the right. We would be completely unwise if we did not reserve the right to take any particular option, whether it included boots on the ground or no boots on the ground.

Major Garrett: CBS News has three sources telling us that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on U.S. positions and movements. The average American might hear that and think that’s a big and dangerous deal. Is it?

Pete Hegseth: Well, we’re trackin’ everything. Our commanders are aware of everything.

We have the best intelligence in the world. We’re aware of who’s talkin’ to who, why they’re talkin’ to ’em, how accurate that information might be, how we factor that into our battle plans, our CENTCOM commander. So– so we know what’s goin’ on. And the president– d– has an incredible– knack at knowing how to mitigate those risks. And so the American people can rest assured– their commander-in-chief is well aware of who’s talkin’ to who. And anything that shouldn’t be happening, whether it’s in public or back-channeled, is being confronted and confronted strongly.

Major Garrett: The American people can therefore expect conversations with the Russians to stop this?

Pete Hegseth: Well, I– President Trump, as people have seen, has a unique relationship with a lot of world leaders where he can get things done that other presidents, certainly Joe Biden, never could have. And through direct conversations or indirect, through him one-to-one or through his cabinet, messages– definitely can be delivered.

Major Garrett: Does this put U.S. personnel in any more danger than they otherwise would be?

Pete Hegseth: Well, no one’s–

Major Garrett: The Russian involvement?

Pete Hegseth: No one’s puttin’ us– us in danger. We’re puttin’ the other guys in danger, and that’s our job. So we’re not concerned about that. We mitigate it as we need to. Our commanders factor all of this. But the only ones that need to be worried right now are– are Iranians that think they’re gonna live.

Six U.S. Army reservists were killed in an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait last Sunday.

President Trump and Secretary Hegseth attended the dignified transfer yesterday at Dover Air Force Base. One more service member’s death was announced this afternoon.

Pete Hegseth: The president’s been right to say there will be casualties. Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties. And no one is– I mean, especially our generation knows– knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets. It’s– but that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say this is a fight we will finish—

So far, more than 1,600 Iranians have been killed, according to a group called Human Rights Activists in Iran. That includes 168 people, mostly children, at a school in the southern part of the country, an area the U.S. was attacking at the time.

Major Garrett: Have you made any conclusions about whether or not the United States, inadvertently or not, was involved in any military strike at that school?

Pete Hegseth: Well, we’re still investigating and that’s where I’ll leave it today. But what I will emphasize to you and to the world is that, unlike our adversaries, the Iranians, we never target civilians.

Major Garrett: There was a report late in the week from two officials that it was likely U.S. involvement. Is that report false?

Pete Hegseth: I’ve already said we’re investigating.

Major Garrett: If you could tell the American public, “It definitively was not us,” you would tell us, wouldn’t you?

Pete Hegseth: I would– I would say that it’s being investigated, which is the only answer I’m prepared to give.

Tonight, Iran announced that a son of its slain leader would replace him. President Trump said this morning any leader picked without his approval, is, quote “not going to last long.” 

Major Garrett: You said this is not a regime-change war, but the regime has changed, that’s obvious. Can you square the two?

Pete Hegseth: Sure.

Major Garrett: Go ahead.

Pete Hegseth: I meant what I said. It’s not a regime-change war in a conventional George W. Bush context of hundreds of thousands of troops. I mean, in Afghanistan what I watched as a young captain was Americans thinking we were gonna remake– a society that was basically biblical times with AK-47s and cellphones.

The hubris of, “We’re gonna take Afghanistan and turn it into a Jeffersonian democracy by building western-style forces and western-style institutions,” it was never gonna work.

“And I saw it and watched it play out. And it doesn’t dispel the courage of the Americans who fought there, who I know there.” But this is not a remaking of the Iranian society from an American perspective. We tried that. The American people have rejected that.

President Trump called those wars dumb. And we’re not fighting that way. 

Major Garrett: President Trump also said this week he would like to protect some of the people who he would like to come to power in Iran. Is that a new mission for your department?

Pete Hegseth: No.

Major Garrett: How would you protect people that are inside the country that he might think could rise to the level of leadership there?

Pete Hegseth: Well, the best way to– to protect them is what we’re doing right now. What you see right now between– American efforts and Israeli efforts is a generational opportunity for the people of Iran.

This past week, Iran launched missiles and drones at nearly a dozen Middle Eastern countries including American allies Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. 

Major Garrett: There’s reporting from our Margaret Brennan that not us, but allies in the region are running very low on interceptors. Is that true, number one, number two, how prepared are we to help them restock interceptors to protect them as we continue this campaign?

Pete Hegseth: Very prepared. We– we plan for that. As you heard Admiral Cooper yesterday lay out, CENTCOM commander, their missile projection is down 90% from that height. So if– excuse me, missile shots. So if they can’t shoot anywhere near that volume– our projections of munitions are– are– are well beyond what we would need.

And we can crossload for allies if need be, always ensuring that our forces and our troops and our bases are taken care of first. But where we can help allies– we will.
Since the war began, oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil flows, have stalled. U.S. gas prices are up an average of almost 50 cents a gallon. 

Major Garrett: President said this week the Strait of Hormuz will be taken care of. How will that be taken care of and how will the ships that are there, that are not moving, start to move and be moving with a degree of confidence that they will not be inhibited by what remains of the Iranian either boats or gun emplacements along that strait?

Pete Hegseth: Well, we’re takin’ care of a lot of that.

Major Garrett: How?

Pete Hegseth: Well, American firepower. What was the– Iranian Navy is largely no more.

There’ll be more boats to be sunk, for sure. So their ability to project any power in that area in a naval sense is being–

Major Garrett: Is diminishing–

Pete Hegseth: Diminishing and will be increasingly diminished. Again, what I– what I want your viewers to understand is this is only just the beginning.

Note: I (@paulbrowntx) wrote this in 2014, and self-published it on Amazon, where it is still available. To be honest, I’ had more-or-less forgotten about it at some point, but with all the war we have going on lately, it popped back into my head, and occurred to me that it may be a good read for our time.

12 years is a long time. I was just 28, with no children, just 4 years after leaving the Marine Corps when I wrote this. Now I’m 40. Some of my thoughts, perspectives, and beliefs have changed since then, and there are parts of this I might not write the same today as I would have back in 2014, but I believe the general crux is absolutely true, and has been proven to be even more true by the events that have transpired since then.

Total War: America’s Roadmap to Victory
By Paul Brown
© 2014 Paul M. Brown. All rights reserved.

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War, (~500BC)[1]

The United States has a problem. We wield the greatest, most powerful military in the world[2][3], in history. We have superior training, superior technology, superior equipment, far superior funding, and superior esprit de corps to every other military on the planet. Furthermore we love to fight. General George S. Patton said, “Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.”[4]Yet with all that strength and bravado we have an astoundingly poor win-loss record over the last 70 years. To make matters worse, we have failed to recognize this fact. Every conflict in which we enter we expect to exit victorious, while embracing the same failed methodologies of past conflicts, and ignoring our last major victory: World War II. Despite knowing our own capabilities, we do not know ourselves, because we do not recognize it is our own policy that continues to keep us from winning.

That cannot be emphasized enough. Our own military strength has not kept us from winning. Our enemies’ strength has not kept us from winning. Weather, terrain, and other circumstances on the battlefield have not kept us from winning. Our own decisions, our own policies, and our own blindness are what have kept us from winning since 1945. Our commitment to limited war and our inability to commit to total war has kept us from winning.

Winning is important. Winning swiftly is also important. Prolonged wars are expensive, and are damaging to internal and external goodwill. Prolonged wars that we lose are senseless wastes of time, money, and lives. Committing the lives of troops to a war you are not committed to win is cowardly and immoral.

World War II is unarguably the last conflict in which the US utilized the method of warfare known as total war. Since then every conflict we have entered has been a form of limited warfare. Rather than setting clear objectives and choosing to win at all costs we have chosen to set nebulous objectives and have failed to seriously commit to winning. So what is total war?

What Is Total War?

What is total war? Encyclopedia Britannica Concise has quite a hefty definition:
Military conflict in which the contenders mobilize all of their civilian and military resources in order to obtain a complete victory. It is distinguished from the partial commitment of lives and resources in limited wars. The modern concept of total war is traced to Carl Von Clausewitz, who stressed the importance of crushing the adversary’s forces in battle and described wars as tending constantly to escalate in violence towards a theoretical absolute. The classic 20th-century work is Erich Ludendorff’s The Total War(1935). World Wars I and II are usually regarded as total wars. After World War II, especially during the Cold War, the prospect of an all-out nuclear war made the major powers reluctant to engage in full-scale international warfare or allow their client states to do so.[5]

Dictionary.com provides a more concise definition of total war as, “a war in which every available weapon is used and the nation’s full financial resources are devoted.”[6]
This second definition is useful for highlighting two separate components of total war.

First there is the actual combat side, which encompasses the kinds of weapons, tactics, and strategies used. The other component is the industrial side, which modifies the extent to which a nation’s economy and productive power is devoted towards a war effort. This delineation is important to consider because of necessity. Although there have been many instances since WWII in which total war should have been utilized on the combat side, there are few instances in which there would have been a necessity for the industrial side of total war to be pursued. During WWII the productive might of the US economy was fully devoted to the war effort. Factories that had once built cars, passenger planes, and garden equipment were converted to build tanks, bombers, rifles, and ammunition. Fuel, food, and other essential goods were rationed across the nation. This industrial commitment to winning the war was essential, and without it we may not have defeated the Axis powers. However we have not faced such powerful adversaries since the Second World War, and to devote the same percent of our industrial power towards war would not have been necessary for victory in any conflict we have entered since. For that reason, when referring to total war I am referring specifically to the combat side and not the industrial side unless otherwise stated.

Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition highlights an important consideration, which is that the US and the Soviet Union were both terrified of starting a nuclear war. Whether or not those fears were warranted is debatable, nevertheless that is how it happened, and it shaped the West’s modern thoughts on warfare. In the Korean War our objective was not to defeat North Korea and China at all costs. It was to keep North Korea from taking over South Korea. In Vietnam our objective was not to defeat North Vietnam at all costs. It was to keep North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam. In Iraq and Afghanistan our objectives have not been to defeat insurgents and their sponsors at all costs. Our objectives in those places have been somewhat nebulous, but something along the lines of nation building, and winning hearts and minds while fighting terrorism and the spread of Islamic extremism.

But in every one of these conflicts our enemies have embraced total war at least to a certain extent because their objectives have been to defeat the United States at all costs. To illustrate the absurdity of such an imbalance of intent, consider two men fighting. One man is 6’2”, 220 pounds, and very athletic. The other is 5’6”, 145 pounds, and somewhat athletic. What if the big man decided to only strike at the small man’s arms and legs since those are the appendages that are attacking him, and he does not want to commit too much damage to the other man by possibly damaging his internal organs? Furthermore, what if the larger man places several other rules on himself such as no choke holds, and no strikes until the other man strikes first. He only uses his fists (no elbows, knees, feet, shins, or head butts). At the same time the other man has decided to win at all costs. He embraces choke holds and strikes to the neck, groin, kidneys, and solar plexus. He will always strike first, and will employ all available resource, even his teeth or weapons of opportunity such as rocks or barstools. The small man’s goal is to kill the large man. The large man’s goal is to keep the small man from hurting him.

The larger man might feel confident going into such a fight because of his size, and because he may not be aware of the smaller man’s intent to go out. Because of his size and strength he may still be able to hold his own, and the fight may even last a while, but after several rounds he will not be able to defeat the smaller man, and eventually he will retreat.

Perhaps it would be reasonable for the larger man to conduct one fight in this manner, but after being beaten once it would be reasonable to expect that man to change his fighting style. But to go into fight after fight after fight, leaving beaten and bruised each time and to notchange his method of fighting would be utterly insane. It is quite clear that the man should change his fighting style or stop fighting altogether. There is absolutely no reason for him to continue to get beaten up.

To push the analogy just a bit further, consider this: These are important fights. Most of the time the big man is defending someone who is weaker than his adversary. In many cases the outcome of this fight results in more security or less security for the big man’s family. These fights matter.

Although it was fear, possibly even a certain amount of merited fear, which shaped our policy of limited warfare during the Cold War, our continued reliance on such an ineffective method is a result of ignorance and hubris.

The average American is sadly very undereducated when it comes to foreign affairs, foreign policy, US military policy, world history, geography, the history of warfare, and how war actually works. For example, according to National Geographic, in 2003 most Americans aged 18 to 24 could not find Iraq, or Afghanistan on a map, and nearly half believed that India (a majority Hindu nation) was made up primarily of Muslims.[7]This may not seem like a big deal, but how do you even begin to understand the complexities of war when you cannot even find the location where it takes place on the map? One may sooner play chess without knowing where the pieces go.

What Americans do know about the rest of the world they tend to get from 30-second sound bites on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC. Far from illuminating the complexities or context that should go along with such information, these incredibly shallow simplifications of the issues are also generally packed with bias that is passed on to the viewer who unwittingly swallows the message hook, line, and sinker. What many Americans know of war they learn from playing Call of Duty or watching movies and television, most of which is highly fictional, and do not give people a truly accurate understanding of warfare.

And as the reader knows, the United States is a Constitutional Democratic Republic. The President and members of Congress are elected and put in place to make decisions for the benefit of the nation. As a result, elected officials have an incentive to do whatever is popular at the time in order to be reelected. So even though these elected officials have access to intelligence reports and meetings with generals, their decisions are still heavily influenced by popular opinion. And popular opinion is formed by 30-second sound bites on cable news. Therefore, even though many of our elected officials may not be ignorant (though many of them are ignorant) their decisions are influenced by relatively ignorant popular opinions.

And then there is hubris, AKA arrogance. It is one thing to hold back in a fight where the other nation is holding nukes. A healthy fear of the genuinely possible catastrophic is entirely logical. But when fighting the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan, to not embrace total war in our fight against them means we believe we can defeat them when we are not trying and they are trying. As a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, I understand pride, confidence, and a can-do attitude. Equip our military with machetes and rocks and most of them would probably still plunge headlong into the fire of combat. But we must admit that humans of any kind have the capacity to fight, and almost all of them are truly worthy adversaries when they have a genuine will to win. To believe we can defeat the Taliban, or Al-Qaida, or the Viet Cong, or Hezbollah, or the North Korean Army without trying at least as hard as they are is the very definition of hubris.

Quality Over Quantity

Quality over quantity is a fairly simple concept. If you purchase a set of very good-quality tires they will last longer and they will be more effective than poor-quality tires. Total war vs. limited war works in a similar fashion.

Surgical. Fast. Pinpoint technology. Conflict. Special operations. Targeted bombings. These words and phrases surround limited warfare and people like them. The idea of our elite, professional military personnel expertly and efficiently eliminating a threat in some far off desert or jungle gives us a sense of pride. The black and white videos of target screens from stealth fighters, drones, and attack helicopters watching some remote building blow that we see on television are essentially good warfare marketing for the American public. What’s the harm in killing a few bad guys if no civilians will be harmed, and there is minimal risk to US personnel?

This is not to say that there is not a time and place for such operations. Limited war could also be referred to as “Small Wars.” The 1940 Navy Marine Corps Small Wars Manual defines the term small war as:

A vague name for any one of a great variety of military operations. As applied to the United States, small wars are operations undertaken under executive authority, wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or external affairs of another state whose government is unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the foreign policy of our Nation. As herein used the term is understood in its most comprehensive sense, and all the successive steps taken in the development of a small war and the varying degree of force applied under various situations are presented.[8]

Whether or not interfering in the affairs of other nations is right, moral, ethical, or prudent is debatable, but the effectiveness of foreign intervention through “small wars” certainly varies. It has not always worked out, but it has not always failed. From 1801 to 1805 the US fought the First Barbary War against the Barbary Pirates, a legitimate action fueled by their unwarranted hostility that resulted in a net positive outcome for the US. In 1900 US troops defended the lives of Americans and other foreigners in China during the Boxer Rebellion. Countless deployments of Marines to US embassies during times of crisis have saved many American lives and helped restore balance to unstable regions.

US involvement in the Colombian government’s struggle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been extensive, and have also produced favorable results for the people of Colombia and the US.[9]

The problem is that we have adopted limited war for every situation. In 1991 the US invaded Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The Iraqi military was swiftly and soundly defeated, and following a complete withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, US forces exited the region and returned home. Despite devastating the Iraqi military, the damage done was clearly not enough to dissuade Saddam Hussein from going toe-to-toe with the US again 12 years later. And another decade of fighting was apparently not enough to complete our objectives. Since our withdrawal insurgent activities in Iraq have increased greatly, and the now infamous jihadist group calling itself the Islamic State (IS) has taken vast swathes of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria. With even murkier objectives and even smaller commitment than before, the US is now redeploying troops to the region with numbers reaching around 3000 as of November 2014, opting to counter IS primarily through support for local opposition groups and with air support.

Throughout the war in Iraq the debate often focused on how much longer we should remain in Iraq. Some commentators, analysts, and policy-makers opined that the US simply needed more time. In 2008 John McCain said that pulling out of Iraq at that time would be reckless.[10]

But I would argue that another decade of occupation in Iraq would be no more helpful than the previous one unless we drasticallychanged our method of fighting. More time is not what was needed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, from the very start we should have pursued and destroyed the enemy with extreme aggression, and continued on such a course until all pockets of resistance were completely wiped out or had surrendered unconditionally. To do this we would have needed to utilize every weapon, tactic, and strategy available, and it would not have been pretty.

With a statement like that, one might wonder what we actually did in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. If not pursuing and destroying the enemy with extreme aggression then what were we doing? For one our numbers were all wrong. In order to effectively fight an enemy insurgency, it is widely accepted that the anti-insurgency force should have a strength of at least twenty soldiers per 1000 civilians in the region.[11]In Iraq this would have been around 660,000 troops, and in Afghanistan this would have been around 600,000. At our height of operations in Iraq in October 2007 there were only about 166,300 US troops on the ground.[12]In Afghanistan we maintained a painfully small troop presence from 2001 to 2009, ranging from about 10,000 to 20,000 throughout that time period. From 2009 to 2010 numbers surged dramatically to 100,000.[13]Despite the publicity these surges received, they were half measures at best.

Beyond the numbers, our method for waging war during most of this time period could be described as tame. Although the rules of engagement were fairly loose at the beginning of both fights, they quickly tightened once each nation had been “conquered.” Forces in both nations quickly transitioned to police action, and eventually counter insurgency (COIN) when it became apparent that we had insurgencies on our hands in both nations.

Because of the presence of civilians US troops were forced to exercise restraint when fighting the enemy, rather than being able to use the full range of weapons and tactics at their disposal. This came from a prevailing concern of causing collateral damage. Not everyone wanted a war, but those who did wanted a clean war.

But I would argue that there is no such thing as a clean war. Estimates vary significantly from around 132,000 over 1 million civilian deaths in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.[14][15][16][17]Even the more conservative estimate of 132,000 is a significant number. The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan is far lower at around 21,000.[18]Between both conflicts the US has lost over 5,000 troops. All of these numbers are significant. The high cost to the US, our allies, and the Middle East should prompt us to ask whether or not our efforts were worthwhile. What would make them worthwhile or not? Wars are fought to be won. Did we win in Iraq? Have we won in Afghanistan? The answer to both of these questions is clearly “no.” Our enemies are now stronger, more experienced, and more determined than ever. The Islamic State controls land, people, and resources equivalent to an entire nation. This is, at least in part, a direct result of decisions we made in Iraq.

So in order to decide if something is worthwhile look at the result. If you spend $100 on a pair of boots, and they are comfortable, fashionable, provide good support, and last 10 years, then those boots were worth the cost. If you spend $100 on a pair of boots and they are uncomfortable, provide little support, and fall apart while you are in the middle of a hike a few days after you purchased them then they were not worth it. In this scenario you can at least hold the boot maker or seller responsible. You can return them to the store. In our case we are responsible, and there are no returns. We chose how we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the fact that neither outcome has been positive means that they were not worth the cost. This is most unsettling. There are wars worth fighting. On September 11, 2001 members of Al-Qaida hijacked four US airliners, crashing two into the World Trade Center towers, and one into the Pentagon, while the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania, resulting in the deaths of 2,977 victims and 19 terrorists. This action was absolutely heinous, and more than enough to genuinely justify a war. Al-Qaida was hosted by the Taliban government of Afghanistan, and when the Taliban refused to give up Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaida subordinates, they declared themselves enemies of the United States. But if it was worth it to go to war against Afghanistan, then it was worth doing it right. Fighting a total war, bringing overwhelming military force to bear and killing the enemy mercilessly until they are wiped out or surrender unconditionally would have been the correct course of action. Though it arguably may have resulted in a large amount of collateral damage, it may have even saved lives in the long run since we probably would not still be fighting there 13 years later.

But what about Iraq? What about other conflicts in which the US has gotten involved, such as Lebanon in 1982 and 1983? There has been much debate about whether the US should have entered conflicts in these and many other regions at all. If we have been on the fence, one argument forgoing in has often been the temptation associated with limited war. Having embraced the false premise that it is possible to wage war with little or no collateral damage, it made the prospect of going to war seem that much more attractive.

Therefore my argument is that if the US would embrace a total war policy for major conflicts, it would actually decrease the number of major conflicts in which we enter. When a nation accepts that the only way to win will cause massive damage to the enemy, civilians, and probably its own troops, the nation has less incentive to enter that conflict.

And this is where quality over quantity really earns dividends. In addition to winning the wars we wage, we should also end up getting involved in fewer total conflicts. This strategy has the added benefit of giving our enemies less incentive to willingly fight the US in a conflict. Our reliance on limited warfare has been noticed, and consequently our enemies take us less seriously as a threat. Case in point, Saddam Hussein did not take the US seriously because he was more afraid of Iran than the US when we decided to invade again in 2003.[19]He had already fought a war against the US in 1991, and had come out of that conflict relatively unharmed. Hussein had been allowed to stay in power, his military had been rebuilt, and he maintained control of Iraq’s oil fields. Alternatively, a war with Iran would have been devastating. An Iranian victory would have spelled utter doom for Hussein personally and would have likely resulted in massive Iraqi casualties, damage to infrastructure, and maybe even an indefinite occupation by the Iranian military. In Hussein’s mind, he could afford a war with the US, which he thought would only last a few weeks or months, and the US would leave after completing its limited objectives.

Though Hussein was ultimately wrong in several ways, our recent decade of fighting in Iraq has still sent the wrong message to our enemies. Even if we are willing to stick to the fight for ten years, we are still not willing to commit to winning at all costs, which means if the enemy holds on long enough we will eventually exit the theater, allowing the enemy to do what they will. This has been playing out with the Islamic State’s expansion in the region, and will likely play out with the Taliban when the US completes its exit from Afghanistan.

It is undeniable that our reliance on limited war and reluctance to utilize total war in any situation is harmful to our security and national interests. Clearly it would be beneficial to change this, but what steps must we take, and what would it look like when we got there?

How It Looked In World War II

Before discussing how total war could or should look now, let’s talk about what it looked like during World War II. Make no mistake: The targeted killing of civilians was no accident. It was not incidental to other tactical objectives. For many raids it was a major objective for the purpose of devastating the enemy. The modern spectator prefers to separate the Nazis and the German people. Though the particularly evil influence of the Nazis was understood by Americans at the time, the war we fought was against Germany, not just the Nazis. Germany included the German military, the SS, the government, the civilian population, and infrastructure. Rather than separating it into parts and attempting to wage war against one part, while ignoring the others, we wage war against its whole.

So to be clear, the US policy of targeting civilians in Germany and Japan during the Second World War was purposeful, and acceptable as a legitimate strategy from the lowest private, to the highest general, to politicians, and civilians in the US. There are many specific examples of this taking place as well. Aside from the two most historically recognized examples of dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US took part in many bombing raids in Japan and Germany targeting civilian populations over the course of the war.

In March 1945 US bombers dropped around 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo for 48 hours straight, incinerating nearly 16,000 square miles and killing 80,000 to 130,000 Japanese civilians.[20]Throughout the course of the war, similar bombings destroyed an average of 43% of Japan’s 66 largest cities, and the estimated number of Japanese casualties from these bombings alone were 1.3 million wounded and 900,000 killed.[21]

Similar firebombing occurred in Germany. One notable example is the city of Dresden, which was bombed heavily from February 13-15, 1945, killing as many as 25,000 people.[22]The total number of casualties as a result of these bombings was also quite high. It is estimated that Allied bombings inGermany resulted in the deaths of as many as 600,000 Germans, 80,000 of which were children.[23]

Although these numbers are high, consider that Germany and Japan were bitter enemies of the United States and our allies. But these numbers only scratch the surface when it comes to understanding the resolve of the Allied nations. In France over 67,000 French were killed by US and UK bombings targeting occupying German forces.[24]Those were allied civilians that were sacrificed for the good of the war effort, in order to achieve total victory. But what of each nation’s own sacrifices? The United Kingdom lost 383,600 troops.[25]The United States lost 416,800.[26]Though estimates vary, the Soviet Union lost a staggering number of troops: between 8.8 million and 10.7 million, with around 15 million civilian losses.[27]China lost anywhere from 20 million to 50 million people.[28]