After The Guns Are Silent

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One does not normally expect a Republican American President to confirm the wisdom of a Chinese communist, but if ever proof were needed of Mao Zedong's maxim that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," the war in Afghanistan waged by George W. Bush's Administration has just supplied it. To the shock, it might be added, of those Americans who, but the day before yesterday, still did not appreciate how awe-inspiring their country's military had become. At the end of October, as the forces of the Northern Alliance seemed to shirk a fight and the residents of Kabul left town each night for the Taliban's front lines (where they knew they would not be bombed), the usual code words were to be found all over the media: quagmire, stalemate and, of course, Vietnam. Within two weeks, the Taliban had been routed from the cities of Afghanistan's north and turfed out of Kabul. Three weeks later, the Taliban deserted its stronghold in Kandahar, while its leaders, together with the fighters of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, were in flight, exile or caves.

This stunning victory was won by a military machine that, while not the largest the world has ever seen, is man for man the most powerful. There is no single factor that sets the U.S. armed forces apart from others, says Terence Taylor, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. There is rather "a full range of technical military capabilities, from ICBMs to 'feet on the ground,'" in which American power is unparalleled. From aircraft carriers (the U.S. has more than all other NATO members combined) to Tomahawk cruise missiles (so good that Washington allows their export only to Britain), the American military is better equipped and more technologically advanced than any other. To an extent, all that was true after the Gulf War 10 years ago. But the gap between American military capability and that of the rest of the world was obscured back then because the American economy was considered ailing, while the German and Japanese ones (remember?) were the bee's knees. In any event, since then, European defense budgets have stagnated, and the once mighty armed forces of the Soviet Union have rusted away, so the weight of American military might is greater than ever.