‘Endless wars’ is a catchy phrase, not a reason to shift policy

Excerpt

In recent years, Americans have heard a string of top political figures declare that we should not fight “endless wars.” The phrase has punch. Shunning such wars sounds like common sense. But history often says otherwise.

Abraham Lincoln could not count on quick victory. The Civil War brought losses on a scale Americans had never experienced. Union generals repeatedly disappointed him. Political pressure mounted to end the bloodshed. Even Union battlefield success might have led to endless insurgencies in the South. Yet Lincoln understood that the bad consequences of folding — disunion and slavery — would outlast the war’s appalling costs.

Douglas J. Feith is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former under secretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration. Lewis Libby is a distinguished fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and former chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.