Still Fighting the Civil War in the 21st Century

General Winfield Scott, still working for the USA military to this day

It has become an almost banal observation that the United States has not won a serious war since World War II. The question that we have all asked ourselves at one point is, “why?”

Why can’t the foremost superpower on the planet win a war against a bunch of primitive savages from Afghanistan? Why can it not bring the Middle-East to heel? Why can it spend untold trillions on war with nothing to show for it at the end of the day?

The answer to all these questions lies in an old adage, “when all you have is a hammer…”

This hammer you see is a very old one, designed by a genius to be used by morons in the Civil War. To make a long story short when the USA split into two the divide was not simply between the Union and the Confederacy, it was between the army and the navy.

The Union found itself bereft of decent generals, the only good one to be found being too old and infirm to take to the field and actively command. General Winfield Scott would instead be relegated to planning out the Union war effort. Thanks to Lincoln’s failure to find a good field commander for the Union forces early in the war Scott was faced with a problem.

You see all militaries study the strategies and tactics of prior wars, hoping to apply these lessons to new wars. The previous great war had been the Napoleonic conflicts, and the prevailing wisdom gleaned from them was that a strong, intelligent general was absolutely crucial to success.

What do you do then if such a general could not be found? Simple, you construct a military strategy that makes victory inevitable, regardless of the tactical screwups that occur within it’s confines. This resulted in the Anaconda plan, the hammer which the USA has used to break (or at least try to) every enemy it has fought since the Civil War.

The strategy is simple, first one must cut off the enemy’s lines of supply and movement. The Union would achieve this by blockading the entirety of the Confederate coastline, the conquest of New Orleans (the Union’s first victory in the war, achieved entirely by the navy), and the eventual subjugation of the Mississippi River.

Secondly one must assemble a force that will outnumber the enemy in men, reserves, and material. Once said force is assembled one will attack relentlessly, heedless of causalities or even tactical victory. Eventually, no matter how brilliant the enemy commanders may be victory is achieved.

This is how the Civil War played out, a killing field that effectively presages and initiates second generation warfare. This is also how America has waged every war since the Civil War. It must be noted that despite it’s tactical simplicity (and often, stupidity) the Anaconda plan is strategically infalliable...so long as all it’s parts and conditions can be brought into play.

Witness that in both World Wars the United States was able to successfully blockade it’s enemies (both with it’s navy on the sea and with allies on land) and was able to recruit mind boggling numbers of men, arm them to the teeth, and reinforce/resupply them with nearly miraculous speed.

This is also why America has lost the wars that it has lost, the United States could not bring the first factor into play. There was simply no way to effectively blockade Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, or Korea; without the ability to corral the enemy’s movement and logistics the second part of the Anaconda plan is sand being poured into a bottomless box.

But the United States government and military continue to use the Anaconda plan, the force of past inertia is so great that the USA doesn’t even realize the mallet’s head (superior numbers and industrial production) has broken.