A Theory on Today

Looking for opinions on this:

What do nearly all wars in the 21^st century have in common? It is not weapons nor physical combat. It is neither victory nor defeat. In fact, they are not wars in the traditional sense of the word at all. 21^st century conflicts have created a new type of war: a war of ideologies. 

While it is certainly true that every war throughout the course of history has been conducted in an effort to put forth a belief or an idea, not every war has had a nebulous enemy. Instead of war as a direct clash of good vs. evil, 21^st century post-modernism has reshaped war into a contest in which differing ideologies compete for first place: a sort of survival of the fittest, if you will. This has redefined conflict so that it is no longer about good vs. evil, but rather it is about the most popular idea v. the least popular idea. The dangers of such a conflict is that it sacrifices truth and is never-ending. 

With a constantly changing popular idea and without a clear enemy, there is no consistent and unchanging definition of good and evil, and there is no clear end in sight. America finds itself in that very position right now through the war on terror and the war on drugs. If it is not careful, America could become mired in a constant state of war of ideologies, and unfortunately a war of ideologies is far more dangerous than armed conflict.

 Key wars of the 21^st century have demonstrated the affects of a war without a clear enemy. First, America has only been able to combat the face of the enemy, not the root cause of the problem. For example, in the war on drugs in Mexico, the US and Mexico have successfully taken out the heads of organizations, but have been unable to eradicate the drug trafficking organizations. In the war on terror, the US has taken out Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and other key terrorist leaders, but terrorism still thrives in the Middle East. 

Today, the organizational structure of gangs, cartels, and terrorists are created for the purpose of achieving multi-generational legacies. The enemy we face today is not a single leader seeking power for only himself, but rather a leader seeking power for his ideology. Thus, 21^st century organizations are united not solely by a hunger for power, but by ideologies deeply imbedded within their organizational structures.

Sadly, America has failed to recognize this new type of war that it faces. While the US has gone after the clearest thing they could attack, key leaders of violent organizations, they have not recognized the new way in which they must engage the world. No longer will the strategy of taking out a single leader achieve the desired result. And in fact, armed combat, while often crucial, is not necessarily the best strategy in these conflicts. 21^st century terrorists and cartel leaders are savvy. They engage in irrational behavior for the sake of an ideology; perhaps making it the most rational thing they can do. Rather than entangling America in long wars that miss the enemy rather than engage them, the US must take on a strategy that attacks the core of the problem: the ideologies themselves.

Unfortunately, post-modernism has caused America to lose its set definitions of good and evil. In a world that believes that good and evil are subjective terms left up to the individual to determine, America has lost its most important weapon: truth. When everything is left up to vague definitions, survival of the fittest is all the world has left. In this sense, we have reduced war to a mere competition, a competition no longer between good and evil, but between the most popular idea at the time and the least popular idea at the time. In reality, America has effectually eliminated the idea of evil so that it can artificially win a battle. 

But the fact of the matter is… we haven’t won. We just think we have. The artificial boosts of confidence that we receive from victoriously killing Osama bin Laden only last in the moment that we think we’ve defeated the least popular idea. We haven’t. We’re merely waiting around for the next leader to rise so that we can defeat the next least popular idea.  Thus, the biggest danger in the 21^st century is not armed combat, but instead the monster of post-modernism: that nebulous, ever-changing most popular idea, something that is never ending and never dies…unless we restore truth.