One of the ironies of the war in Afghanistan is that the more that U.S. forces succeed there, the more that Pentagon officials warn about difficulties ahead.

After opposition groups surprised many by swiftly ousting the Taliban from northern cities, U.S. defense officials predicted that shaking the Taliban's hold in the south would likely be more bloody and problematic. Now that the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar has fallen without a bloodbath, the Pentagon's message -- repeated daily with mantra-like consistency -- is that the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Mohammad Omar and other elusive al Qaeda and Taliban leaders poses even tougher challenges.

There are good and legitimate reasons for that. The military is afraid of "victory disease". That's a term which was created by Japanese military analysts during and after WWII when they tried to figure out all the reasons that the war had gone so badly against them, and victory disease was identified as being one of the most important ones.

The Pearl Harbor attack was completely lopsided. For the loss of a couple of dozen planes, the heart had been cut out of the American Pacific Fleet. After that, there was a heady interval of about three months in which it seemed as if nothing could go wrong. No matter what they did, the result was success. They attacked a numerically superior force of British and Australians at Singapore, who also had more and better equipment -- and the British surrendered. Indochina fell; the war in China proceeded as they hoped it would; Java was taken; a naval battle against a mixed force of American, Australian, British and Dutch ships resulted in nearly all the allied ships being sunk with little damage to the Japanese. The Americans held out in the Philippines longer than expected, but the end was never really in doubt -- and everywhere, losses were light, light, almost noexistant in fact. The world seemed to be theirs for the plucking.

Competent military planning is never based solely on one's own capabilities and intentions; it's always necessary to take the enemy into account. That may seem obvious, but it began to slip past the Japanese. Strategy in war partakes on some level as a big game of rock-paper-scissors; success to some extent comes from outguessing your opponent. But the Japanese came to believe that their scissors could not only cut paper but also cut rock as well.

Unfortunately, the Americans rallied; more assets were brought into the Pacific (in particular, three more American carriers), the Americans were learning and changing tactics, and suddenly things began to go badly wrong for the Japanese. Within 13 months of Pearl Harbor, the war in the Pacific had been lost; it was only a matter of time after that. Initiative (sente) had passed to the Americans and they never again gave it up. For the remainder of the war, the Japanese reacted instead of acting.

The first hint of trouble was the Battle of Coral Sea in May of 1942. The Japanese made a move to capture Port Moresby on the south coast of New Guinea, and the Americans became aware of this through code breaking, and committed two carriers to prevent it. The result was the first naval battle in history where the two fleets never got close enough to see each other. All attacks were made by aircraft. The Americans sank the Japanese light carrier Shoho and badly damaged Shokaku and Zuikaku, but the Japanese sank Lexington and badly damaged Yorktown. While the Japanese did not actually take Port Moresby, they did seem to inflict more damage on the Americans than they had taken. But this then led to Midway in June, where four Japanese fleet carriers were lost at the expense of the already damaged Yorktown.

The problem was that the Japanese treated this not as the result of a fundamental change in the state of the war, to be adapted to, but simply as horrible bad luck, but nontheless simply as misfortune. The tactics which had been used to that point had succeeded so spectactularly that it was just viewed as an abberation, a temporary setback, and that once Japan recollected its power and got back on the offensive that things would start going its way again if it just kept doing what it had been doing all along. That was "victory disease", the feeling of invincibility and overconfidence which prevented them from honestly analyzing the catastrophe of Midway, and later a series of calamaties on the ground on Guadalcanal, to learn from them and modify strategy and tactics. The Americans had switched from paper to rock, and the Japanese scissors stopped working. Victory disease prevented them from noticing this until it was much too late.

There are many other reasons why this is, or can be, a bad thing. It's surprising to say this, but it's not necessarily good for things to go too well. The people of the US may come to expect that this war can be won with no American casualties at all. Allied casualties in the Gulf War were amazingly light, with only about 300 dead total -- and most of them as the result of a single Scud which hit a barracks. There were fewer than a hundred combat dead, a preposterously low number by historical standards. (Compare, for example, over 7000 American dead just at Iwo.) After the Gulf War, there was muttering among the military that they didn't envy the next commander of the next big war that the United States fought, because there would be the expectation of doing it again.

Well, now they have done it again, only even more so. We've largely won the Afghan war and only with about ten dead, with just four of those in combat. It isn't possible to sustain that. Nor can we be certain that the tactics which are serving us so well now will work as well elsewhere -- or even continue to work in Afghanistan. But if the public comes to expect a video-game war, with victory at no price in blood, then when things do inevitably start going worse, and Americans start coming home in bags, there's the danger that America will lose its will and morale will collapse. Paradoxically, it would probably have been better in the long run if the US had actually suffered a major defeat with heavy casualties before the Taliban collapsed; it would have gotten the American public more used to the idea that people really do get killed in wars: our people, not just their people.

No commander would do that deliberately, or even take the risk. A commander is bound by duty and honor to do the best he can both to achieve the political goal and to conserve his forces. Given that it was within our capability to win a virtually bloodless victory (measured in American blood) then General Franks was going to do so. But in the long run this could backfire. That is what the Pentagon is trying to prevent.

We all hope it won't happen, but it is far more likely than not that eventually Americans on the ground will get into a situation they can't handle and get butchered. They'll fight well, and it may turn out to be another Mogadishu, where 18 Americans sold their lives by killing 700 Somalis; but no matter, it's going to loom large in the minds of the folks back home and that's when doubt will begin. The soldiers in Somalia were not discouraged by this; if anything it angered them and they wanted to go back in and finish the fight. But the politicians lost their nerve and pulled American forces back out again, much to their disgust. The Pentagon doesn't want that to happen again. The more prepared Americans (and their leaders) are now for the idea that it isn't guaranteed to continue going this well, the less of a shock it will be when we finally face our Coral Sea and do get hurt for the first time. Hopefully we will be wise enough when it happens to recognize the situation, to remain strong but also to be versatile, and to win our Midway instead of losing it. And there is no more sure way for the US to lose this war than to lose heart and stop trying. (discuss)