AIN’T GONNA STUDY WAR NO MORE

Deyan Ranko Brashich

The world is in a state of war. Read any newspaper still being published, turn on the television, the radio or power up your iPhone, get on the internet and you are confronted with dispatches from conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Ukraine, Kashmir, Mali, Nigeria with Boko Haram, Sudan, South Sudan, Darfur, Kurdistan, Chad and Yemen. Have I forgotten someone or someplace? I am sure that I have for there are so many out there.

After the First World War, the one that was to end all wars, Leadbelly, the black African-American murder convict turned folk singer, sang we “ain’t gonna study war no more” and a lot of people believed him. That war had been a conscript fueled conflict. The draft dragooned young men to fight a war of attrition by machine gun and mustard gas. Nine million soldiers, sailors and marines died. During the war sporadic reports of rebellion were reported including the spontaneous Christmas Truce of 1914 which ended with British officers threatening summary execution of soldiers not willing to return to the abattoir of the trenches.

That war did not abolish universal military conscription. Compulsory military service was an economic measure to counter the Great Depression as was the arms buildup which resulted in the Second World War. The draft again provided the raw fodder for war. Few had the courage to object.

That war taught France not to rely on conscripts to wage its foreign wars. The Indo-China [Vietnam] War 1947-1954 was fought by French and local mercenaries and the French Foreign Legion. The Algerian War, considered a domestic civil war, was fought by conscripts and resulted in defeat. Civilians turned part time soldiers had not stomach to fight and die.

The United States tried to fight its Vietnamese War 1955-1975 with a military made up of civilians. The result was equally disastrous. Not only was the war lost but the government faced unified opposition and revulsion to the war. Had the war dragged on and the draft continued armed rebellion would have taken place.

The point was made. A civilian population was not prepared to sacrifice its young to foreign wars. That was the role of paid “volunteers”, paid surrogates who would wage war in their stead. The concept of a modern “professional army”, an army of mercenaries, was born which continues to this day and is embraced by one and all. But it is based on the concept, now discredited, that the military industrial complex can defeat all.

The all “volunteer” armed forces in the United States are led by a cadre of professional officers, mainly graduates of West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy. The education of this officer class has been funded by the taxpayer and is track to a middle class future in or out of the military.

The enlisted rank and file, the “grunts”, are the poor and disadvantaged young with little education and with little prospects for a future beyond a menial job at the prevailing minimum wage and a life of poverty. Enlisting at the age of 18 in the armed services ensure secure employment, medical and other benefits and a retirement plan upon completion of 20 years of active duty. That is the goal the soldier strives for certainly not for guts and glory.

The same is true for the participants in the ongoing conflicts that now rage. Take Syria – the armed force that is propping up the murderous genocidal Assad regime are in it for the money or the power that will come with victory. Russia and Iran have fielded their professional mercenary armies in support, the United States and its allies have done the same. It is true that there are still pockets of true believers on the battlefield, believers in a pluralistic democratic Syria but they are few, greatly outnumbered by the mercs.

The only players in the Middle East game of war not motivated by money, power and greed are the Kurds. They are intent in establishing a Kurdish state, a country where they will not be a dismissed minority but able to control their own destiny. Once the shoe is on one’s own foot it will be interesting to see how the Kurds treat minorities.

In Iraq, Syria and now Libya you have the war against ISIS or ISIL while in Nigeria, Niger and Chad you have the war against Boko Haram. Marginalized Islamic European youths living on the dole are not joining ISIS in Iraq and Libya intent in joining a religious jihad. They are there to enjoy the sense of power, entitlement, recognition they crave, all a form of compensation as is the rape of girls and pillage in rural Nigeria.

Europe’s recent wars, the breakup of former Yugoslavia and Ukraine’s civil war, are cases in point. The Yugoslav People’s Army stood down and abandoned its posts at the outbreak of the conflict. The void was soon filled by mercenaries, the Serb’s Arkan’s Tigers, the Croat’s International Brigade and the Muslims’ Green Berets. In the Ukraine even with a brokered peace the war drags on.

World leaders have declared war on ISIS. War is not what it once was when power and brute economic force could defeat your opponent. The French learned that lesson in Indochina and the United States in Vietnam, same country with a different name. Russia and the United States did not learn from Afghanistan adventures and the United States continues a lost war in Iraq. Rather than just “ain’t going to study war no more” the world better study war some more and come up with a new tactic to defeat ISIS because the present one just ain’t working.

Deyan Ranko Brashich is a contributor writing from New York. He is the author of Letters from America, Contrary Views and Dispatches. His contact and blog “Contrary Views” is at www.deyanbrashich.com