Max Boot: Let’d Us Do a Waterloo
By Mona
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Commentary’s Max Boot approvingly quoting Napoleon, my emphasis:
“In war, moral considerations account for three-quarters, the actual balance of forces only for the other quarter.†If we set a withdrawal timetable [from Iraq], the moral balance will tip against us even faster than the actual balance of forces—with deadly consequences..We can avoid that problem by sticking with the “surge”…
Er, morality aside, does Boot not know what happened to France under Napoleon leading that nation?
Comment by Derek Copold —
July 30, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
As others have noted, there’s a lot of similarity between our involvement in Iraq and Napoleon’s problems in Spain.
Comment by Hesiod —
July 30, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
Cue Abba.
My my, at waterloo napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself
Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo – couldn’t escape if I wanted to
Waterloo – knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo – finally facing my waterloo
My my, I tried to hold you back but you were stronger
Oh yeah, and now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight
And how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose
Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo – couldn’t escape if I wanted to
Waterloo – knowing my fate is to be with you
And how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose
Comment by Rob —
July 30, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
Well then again invading Iraq is only slightly more stupid than starting a land war in Russia.
Comment by stm177 —
July 30, 2007 @ 9:20 pm
What’s the context for that quote from Napoleon?
Napoleon did some awful things in Egypt even before he led a coup to take over France.
Comment by SKapusniak —
July 31, 2007 @ 3:18 am
Not certain of the context, but I am pretty sure that quote is usually read taking ‘moral’ == morale, not ‘moral’ == good vs evil.
I haven’t actually clicked through to see whether Max is using it like that tho’.
Comment by Carlos —
July 31, 2007 @ 8:41 am
It seems like he is, but what he’s not considering is that the “morale” balance is already tipped in the Irakis’s favor. Let’s face it, who do you think is more determined and motivated in the Irak war, an Iraki Sunni who is fighting for the very life of his ethnic-religious community or an American proffesional soldier who is fighting essentially because his boss told him to?
Comment by Monte Davis —
July 31, 2007 @ 9:07 am
Surely we can do better than Abba:
Wasn’t there a thread here recently about the Kristoloid conviction that we can’t lose as long as our Will is firm (aka turgid)? Or was that in some other den of America-haters?
Comment by Raenelle —
July 31, 2007 @ 1:10 pm
The reality that trumps all the others is that the commander-in-chief is G. W. Bush. He is stupid, naive, and incompetent, and above all else he has lost the “mandate of heaven.” He can’t lead anymore. He has zero credibility–within the country, and outside it. Even if he were competent and sane, even given that, he can no longer produce a victory, anywhere. It’s over for him, except for the damage. Napoleon, Schmoleon. Bush is much more like Chiang-Kai-Shek–corrupt, isolated, more obsessed with internal enemies than external ones, unable as well as unwilling to unite the country or produce any reform; possessing only sufficient power, really, to hang on to it for its own sake for just a while longer.
Comment by Northern Observer —
July 31, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
NeoCons should not be so careless as to openly compare themselves to Napoleon. I mean besides the ultimate military defeat of napoleonic france you also have the terrible political consequences that followed, specifically the repression of political liberalism in Europe for the next 50 years. One of the reasons Germany had such a twisted political culture up until the end of WWII, ties back to liberalism being introduced there at the tip of a French bayonnet.
Sometimes it feels like we never learn.
Comment by JP —
July 31, 2007 @ 9:01 pm
Carlos speaks to the significance of the quote: morale is potentially the deciding factor on any battlefield, and for that matter any war. My only nitpick is that the vast majority of Sunni Arabs aren’t (yet) fighting for the survival of their ethno-religious community, though some certainly see the war in those terms.
Napoleon’s maxim is fundamentally correct – may I suggest the Battle of Ulm as a case study on the importance of moral factors before the notorious (but here mischaracterized) Waterloo?
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
July 31, 2007 @ 10:44 pm
It’s a mis-quoting of Napoleon (or maybe a mis-translation). It is usually cited as “morale” not “moral”. Otherwise the good guys would never lose, which they quite clearly do with alarming regularity (see “Poland, 1939″ for example).
Comment by The Sanity Inspector —
August 1, 2007 @ 9:29 am
It’s no dopier than the Dems keeping Jimmy Carter around as an elder wisehead on foreign policy matters.
Comment by Barry —
August 1, 2007 @ 10:41 am
IIRC, ‘moral’ was used where we’d frequently use ‘morale’, now, for that particular meaning.
Comment by JP —
August 1, 2007 @ 10:49 am
I’m not so sure. Clausewitz wrote of “moral factors” as well, and he wasn’t referring to delicate ethical or philosophical concerns about roughing people up. He meant moral in a much broader sense. “Moral factors” included things like discipline, will to fight, intuition, excellence of leadership, etc., not so much matters of right and wrong.
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 1, 2007 @ 11:14 am
TSI: I’m stumped what connection your standard right-winger’s free-floating resentment of all things Jimmy Carter has to do with anything discussed in this thread. Had it simply been a couple days since you last let loose with a Carter bitch, and it had to go somewhere?
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
August 1, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Michael Moore is fat.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
August 1, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
Maybe TSI’s got Tourette’s?