In increasingly complicated security dilemmas and threats, some nations are finally and overtly coming to grips with the reality that blunt military responses are the path to progress and victory whether it is against jihadists or Somali pirates. The engagement in an attempted “kinder, gentler war” to quell and restrict unconventional warfare is simply not working, nor should it have ever been expected to work in places such as Afghanistan (except the fall of 2001). After all, war is not the realm of benevolence — it is the realm of violence, and the whole point of engaging in war is to subdue the enemy’s will to fight to bring about a better situation than previously existed and achieve Victory over the enemy - to neutralize any threat to the United States and its people. War is not, despite what many experts are putting forth, some form of bridge and nation building contest.
