War is Brutally Honest - Name it as Such

...war is not a game for theory...

Too many people have forgotten what war is. When one party attacks the other, and the attacked party fights back - the war continues until one party is defeated or neither party has the ability to carry on - and there is peace. Wars are not ended until then.

While capacity - a nation’s capacity is the sum of its various individual capacities - is a large part of war, more than anything else victory or defeat is decided by will. Which party has the will to fight longer and harder to achieve their minimally acceptable conditions to come to the peace table.

Sometimes, the defeated party never admits defeat. It never feels defeated. It never accepts defeat. Their opponent never completed the job of breaking their will. That formula is simply a recipe for a longer war. Take the American-Afghan War of 2001 to 2021. The Afghan people, their will manifested via the Taliban, simply had the will to win more than the Americans and their allies. Their definition of defeat and the American definition of defeat were different. The American’s knew the Taliban’s center of gravity, but did not have the will to undermine it.

In World War Two, America faced one of the most unified and well-structured nations that has ever existed in human history, the Empire of Japan.

The Japanese never believed they could be defeated. The Americans would accept nothing but complete victory. In that conflict, there was the will to do what a nation must to break the will to another.

In 2024, there are few greater partnerships in business, military, and society than that between the United States and Japan. To get there, good people had to do horrible things. The Japanese will had to be completely broken.

Good people doing horrible things, in the right circumstances, remains one of the most moral things that can be done. Often, only horror can prevent a greater horror. That is not pleasant, but thousands of years of history proves this to be correct.

Just inside the edge of living memory, this story sits. Every American should know that they own this. This is their legacy to hold in pride or horror - or simply acceptance.

We are all blessed with the clarity of those who planned and approved this operation, because they gave it a clear and honest name.

I give you OPERATION STARVATION of March to August 1945.

From Gerald A. Mason, Captain, USN’s February 2002 essay at the Air War College;

The main objectives of Operation STARVATION were to prevent the importation of raw materials and food into Japan, prevent the supply and movement of military forces, and disrupt shipping in the Inland Sea. Forty-six missions were directed against Japanese home waters with the intention of blockading the Shimonoseki Straits, through which 80 percent of the Japanese merchant fleet passed; blockading the industrial and commercial ports of Tokyo and Nagoya in the Inland Sea; and interdicting shipping between Korea and Japan by mining Korean ports and ports on the northern coast of Japan.

The Japanese islands were under siege. Little different than a city under siege. Thousands of years of history teach us that the path to victory and a quicker way to an end of war is an enemy’s empty stomach. A live hungry person at war can feed at leisure at peace. A person killed at war never has a chance to eat again.

How did it work out?

During Operation STARVATION, more than 1,250,000 tons of shipping was sunk or damaged during the last five months of the war. Approximately 12,000 mines were laid requiring only 5.7 percent of the Twenty-first Bomber Command’s total effort. Out of 1,529 B29 mining sorties, only 15 aircraft failed to return. In the five months prior to the end of hostilities, mines sank or damaged more shipping than any other agent including submarines or direct air attack by both Army and Naval forces. The Shimonoseki Straits and all-important industrial ports were almost completely blockaded. Hundreds of ships were delayed, sunk, or damaged and supplies vitally needed in industrial and populated sections were diverted to northern Honshu ports where much of it remained, waiting to be hauled over an already overloaded transportation system to its useful destination.

I could do an entire week on Operation Starvation alone, but instead of using up all of both of our times, in addition to Mason’s essay linked above, if you’d like to read more, the 1974 Rand study is simply superb.

There are two videos that flesh out some details.

For the historical and in some cases moral/ethical/personality background, try this.

For those interested in the technical details, this is a good video.

War is an ugly, brutal, and savage thing. It is also an eternal part of the human condition. Wars are best not started, as horror comes with it.

A just, compassionate nation will always ensure that it is strong and ready for war because war will surely come. Someone will win that war. It can be the just and compassionate nation, or it can be the aggressive and brutal nation. For a just nation to win, it must be prepared to be more aggressive and in a fashion, as brutal - in context and constraints - than its enemy.

The future is not granted, it is won and maintained through the successful execution of warfare.