More in Response to Totten’s Instapundit Post

August 2, 2006

Comments from Thomas Barnett’s most recent entry in his weblog about whether this is state-on-state war:

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: WWIII is the wrong metaphor

Second, World Wars were wars between states. We have none of those here. No State A on State B. The "war" that revives all this talk is Israel going into Lebanon against non-state actor Hezbollah. Wasn’t a state-on-state war when Israel did the same to the PLO in 1982. Isn’t a state-on-state war today."

 This is a clearer way to express what I had in mind.

I’m still struck by one concern, though - These might be more like proxy wars. Instead of states sponsored by states as in the cold war, we have non-state warlords sponsored by a state for a proxy war.  At least that’s how it is starting to look to me.

 

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The War In Lebanon

Michael Totten , guest posting at Instapundit.com, notes that this is the first war where a democracy has gone to war with another democracy.

 I think the description is inaccurate - Lebanon may have had an elected government, but that government did not exercise sovereignty over much of southern Lebanon. That area was controlled by the Hizbullah warlords, sponsored by the Syrians and Iranians.

In the real world of politics, there are no absolutes. Since neither Lebanon nor the Palestinian Authority have true governmental control over the gangs and warlords who rule large parts of their areas, the "going to war" isn’t against them. It’s against the warlords who started the fight in the first place.

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