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Some people have come to the conclusion, perhaps through recreational drug use, that a modern military force is fairly unnecessary in the wake of having access to long range nuclear weapons. And for the sake of argument, there is some theoretical reason behind this conclusion. After all, who needs to have a standing army, when you can essentially incinerate your enemy’s entire country or region, and pretty much take them out in a way that ensures that they will never come back? Of course, after you get over the initial rush of ultimate power such a mental image may grant you (or perhaps it’s more of a rush of sickness that such a thing is even possible), you have to realize how utterly silly such an idea is.
After all, the concept of completely anhilating an entire country is both logistically absurd and inhumanly cruel. Any military strategist who would seriously consider destroying an entire country and irradiating its soil should not be allowed to command anything (even including the sharp objects used to issue orders). And even if a maniac of that ilk were able to command our military (heaven help us all), even the attempt to take out an entire country would undoubtedly exhaust our entire nuclear arsenal. At that point, we would be both vulnerable to attack from other (more sane and humane) countries, and guilty of a war crime.
The simple fact is, there are many types of military scenarios which extend beyond merely protecting ourselves within our own borders. And of these scenarios, almost none among the group call for the use of nuclear weaponry. And in cases such as those, this usage is to be severely limited, as was the case in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the most part, our military needs to have a strong human element, and a very substantial non-nuclear element, unless we want to devote ourselves to essentially ruining both our international relationships and environment.
History of the Conflict
The War in Afghanistan is a tragic reality for millions of Afghans and thousands of American troops. But besides defeating insurgents, the most important change that is currently taking place is the drive to improve Afghanistan’s infrastructure. In a country that was allowed to disintegrate for over twenty years due to bloodshed and bad governance, the building of a working civil society and physical infrastructure is of vital importance for the future of the nation. Economic development and political maturity will only evolve with the aid of such institutions. Telecommunications, roads, energy, education, and health systems need to be rebuilt or created. The future of Afghanistan is not only dependent on military security and political stability, but a stable infrastructure than will enable a good standard of living for the millions of people living all over the country.