Chris Mott
Large, conventional wars break old structures and change the world around them. They shatter societies and individuals in a tempest of carnage and displacement. Even if the outcome is not decisive, as it often is not, the impact on social stability always is. This is not to say that war is always undesirable, or that it cannot sometimes shake up a complacent order and force through a new order, because these events do happen in history. However, there is always a costly societal danger that more often than not introduces unexpected and sometimes devastating changes, even in times of victory. The war will always come home. Even, and sometimes especially, in times where the public believes war is a distant danger. For it is then that the disconnect between those who fight wars and those at home who remain aloof of them can most aggressively manifest. Policymakers who concoct justifications for small wars of choice are always embarking on a dark crusade for the societies they lead.
In the present Gaza War, an organization known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation employs a network of former intelligence and military veterans, many from the Global War on Terror, to explicitly support Israeli military operations under the guise of humanitarianism. This network is made up of people who dream of exporting an apocalyptic religious war both at home and abroad. Additionally, recent revelations about the organized crime networks set up on U.S. soil by ex-special forces operators have shown that even the smallest scale and most targeted operations of the War on Terror can bring massive backwash effects to the communities even in supposed peace time. This type of thinking, spawned from seemingly distant conflicts, is hardly an outlier. It is part of a pattern where the shadow wars of the past leach into and distort the policy priorities of the present. This is worth considering as we contemplate the possibility of another intervention in perhaps Venezuela or wherever else where political leadership promises minimal cost.
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