To appreciate this inadequacy of a “proportional” military response consider the early days of the Pacific war. On December 7th, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, our major Pacific naval base. Eight U.S. battleships were damaged, four of which were sunk. Three cruisers and three destroyers were also sunk or destroyed along with an anti-aircraft training ship and a minelayer. Destroyed were more than 180 aircraft, along with military infrastructure such as fuel storage facilities. The U.S. suffered 2403 killed and 1178 wounded. On the other side, the Japanese lost 29 airplanes, five midget submarines, and 130 men.
Six months later from June 4th to the 7th the U.S. “evened the score” in the battle of Midway. Thanks to decoded secret Japanese communications, the U.S. surprised a massive Japanese fleet and virtually annihilated it. All four Japanese carriers accompanying the fleet were sunk along with a heavy cruiser. Critically, the Japanese lost 3000 men, including highly trained pilots who were never replaced. Though Midway occurred early in the war, the loss of the carriers and its pilots was a crushing blow from which Japan never fully recovered. The U.S. lost one carrier and a destroyer. Historian John Keegan called the battle “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.”
From a tit-for-tat” perspective, the “game” was essentially even. Both nations had sustained serious damage, and a “scorekeeper” might have argued that both sides should end the conflict immediately. Indeed, a clairvoyant would have counseled the Japanese that far worse was to come if they persisted. For example, 100,000 were people killed during the massive fire-bombing of Tokyo on March 9th, 1945, while 214,000 Japanese killed in the two A-bomb attacks. That clairvoyant might have also told the Americans that they were about to suffer 132,000 killed and 218,000 wounded. In other words, by the proportionality standard both sides would call it quits to avoid far worse carnage. Nevertheless, no American leader called for a ceasefire on the grounds that we had achieved “proportionately” after the Pearl Harbor attack. Midway only energized a greater war effort.
Carl von Clausewitz argued, the purpose of war is to make the enemy comply with one’s will. Campus protests or speeches by non-combatants are an irrelevant sideshow.
U.S. leaders in 1942 thought like today’s Israelis. They knew that Midway did not set the table for a negotiated peace with Japan just as Israeli know that killing 1200 Hamas terrorists does not end the military campaign. Such accounting ignores national survival, and Israeli leaders undoubtedly know that if Hamas survives, they will never stop, and if they fail once more, they will try again and, perhaps they will eventually succeed in killing all the Jews. Next time Hamas might use biological weapons and succeed.
American leaders in 1942 understood that no matter how great the Midway victory, Japan would keep trying and perhaps due to a technological breakthrough or American ineptitude, they would finally triumph, and in war, a single great success can erase every past failure. Recall that even after the two A-bomb attacks, a few Japanese leaders rejected surrender in the hope that they might still win. Japan’s demonstrated tenacity is what motivated President Roosevelt’s 1943 demand for Unconditional Surrender since anything less would allow Japan to keep trying.
Insisting that Israel acts “proportionately” is likely a duplicitous way of telling Israeli to stop inciting those Muslims residing in the West. War means defeating enemies intent on destroying you even if that entails horrendous costs to one’s own side, not a game in which victory comes to those who win in the court of public opinion.
Image: US Navy
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