The recriminations and anguish that are dominating discourse in America in response to events in Afghanistan have roots in distinctly American ways of viewing war and peace. Those ways are part of a larger lens through which Americans have tended to perceive the outside world. That lens has been shaped by the unique history and circumstances of the United States, such as how two ocean moats have insulated it from most of the world’s threats and insecurities.
The traditional American notion of war and peace is non-Clausewitzian. It rejects the Prussian theorist’s concept of war as an extension of politics by other means. The American conception instead has been that war and peace are two distinct and separate states of affairs. According to this view, a bright line marking a transition from war to peace should be characterized by a clear-cut U.S. victory, after which Americans put down their swords and return to their plows.
