One of my friends suggested how much nicer things would be if, instead of fighting wars, countries simply had an auction, with the spoils going to the winning bidder.
I commented that in a way, a war is an auction, with both sides raising the stakes until at least one side runs out of resources or the inclination to continue. Even if countries did agree to settling things by a purely monetary auction, the first party to run out of money has a definite incentive to change the rules. And of course, that means war.
With the UN Security Council’s passage of a cease-fire resolution that is being deservedly ignored by Hamas and Israel, the war has reached a Luttwakian phase. Edward Luttwak, the great military strategist, wrote a famous essay in 1999 entitled “Give War a Chance.” He was not kidding. The piece opened like this:An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.
A short brutal war costs less in the long run than lots of longer-lasting inconvenient wars.
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