65 Years ago today......

My grandfather - 20 years old- weighed down with too much gear and wading through water that was both ice cold and deeper than they told him it was going be, was there as a private with the Big Red One. He once explained to me that they'd practiced just about every aspect of the landing, but, as he put it, "We didn't expect them to shoot back!" Still, I don't think I came close to understanding what it meant to charge off the Higgins Boat and up the beach until many years later, when I saw Saving Private Ryan.

I've heard Stephen Ambrose describe D-Day as the ultimate victory of Democracy over Tyranny, because up and down the beach, as units were split apart and as the chain of command fell by the wayside you had men, in ones and twos and small groups - here a private, there an NCO and lieutenant, rise and up and say, "To hell with this, if I'm going to die I'm going to take some of those krauts with me," and organize into pick-up units to assault the pill boxes. Again, there is probably no better understanding of this than Saving Private Ryan.

The war would have been "won" without D-Day. Sooner or later, the Soviets would have worn down the German army. And after the Battle of Kursk, there was very little standing between the Red Army and Berlin, it was only a matter of time, resources and manpower, and Stalin possessed all three in spades.

But had the war gone that way the Soviets would have dominated Europe, and an entire continent would have been plunged into darkness for God knows how many decades to follow.

But as we celebrate the ultimate victory let us try to remember how distant victory must have seemed to those boys on those LCIs on that morning. The distance to Berlin - and to victory - was to be measured a few yards at time; a single beach head; a single hedge row; a street; a bridge. And between Normandy and V.E.Day many of those men would spend a few weeks dug into the frozen ground at the Ardennes forest, freezing and fighting for every inch of ground as a surprise counter offensive threatened to reverse the long months of progess the allies had made. Micheal Benard Eshelmen, my grandfather, would be wounded twice before the war ended, once at the hedge rows in France and once at the Battle of the Bulge - earning two Purple Hearts and perment hearing damage in the process.

So by winning on D-Day those small groups of men won more than a war, they won a peace that followed. They won a transatlantic alliance that survives to this day and they eventually helped win a untied Europe, with former enemies France and Germany anchoring a continent brought together under a common currency and customs union. It was perhaps the single greatest victory in the history of warfare.

And it all began on a cold beach, June 6th, 1944.

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Book Review: Terror and Conesent: The Wars for the 21st Century

Terror and Consent is the new book by Philip Bobbitt that suggests ways to make our legal system more resilient to the threats posed by both terrorists and natural disasters. Bobbitt offers some specific suggests for more updating laws of war, interrogation and information gathering for the wars of the Market-State.

Synopsis:
The Nation-State is on its way out, or so Dr. Bobbitt tells us. This thesis, which he began working in his 2002 The Shield of Achilles holds that over the last 500 years the predominate constitutional order of States in the world has gone through four distinct forms: The Princely State, The Kingly State, The State-Nation and The Nation-State. Each one of these orders was ushered in by an Epochal War and eventually codified in a peace treaty that ended the war. For instance, the age of the State-Nation was ushered in by Napoleon's defeat at the hands of the Grand Alliance and codified at the Congress of Vienna. The Nation-State began it's ascent with broad-based enfranchisement in Jacksonian America and accelerated during the American Civil War when Lincoln justified the war as a struggle to create a government of, by and for the people. The Epochal War of the Nation-State was the 20th Century War (1914-1990) and was codified in the Peace of Paris (1990).

Each constitutional order brought with it a unique approach to law and strategy. For example, with the Nation-State came Total War (see: WWII) and 4GW (fighting for the hearts and minds of the People only works if the opinion of the People is given some legitimacy).

Today we stand at the doorstep of a new constitutional order, the society of Market-States. If the Nation-State derived its legitimacy from improving the welfare of its citizens, then the Market-State derives its legitimacy from improving the opportunity and providing choice for its citizens. While liberal, parliamentary Nation-States were at one time opposed by competing versions of the Nation-State (such as communism) The Market-State is opposed primarily by States of Terror, which might be territorial (i.e. North Korea), virtual (Al Qadea) or natural (i.e. post-disaster). These States of Terror threaten liberty by threatening the security promised by the State and by threatening to limit the choices and opportunities offered by the Market-State.

If the State of Terror is the primary threat to the legitimacy of the Market-State, than the Market-State must adopt a strategy of preclusion to prevent the creation of States of Terror. This involves both intervening overseas to prevent states from collapsing (or to destroy an existing State of Terror such as Iraq or Afghanistan) and to strengthen our own laws so that neither a man made nor natural disaster can cause a State of Terror to be foisted upon a State of Consent.

What I liked:
In the Shield of Achilles, Bobbitt showed that he can ask thoughtful and interesting . In T&C, Bobbitt demonstrates an ability offer answer to difficult questions that have dogged the U.S. since 9/11. Bobbitt's solution to balancing the constitutional rights of the accused with the need to possibly detain a suspected terrorists are intriguing, especially his suggestion that the U.S. should come up with a non-jail means of detaining person is suspected of being involved in an active plot to commit an act of terrorism. Bobbitt recommends that this non-jail detention (which could include a "virtual detention" involving monitoring) would be subject to the oversight of a judge and grand jury and that those who are wrongfully accused must have the power to seek monetary compensation for their pain and suffering.

Bobbitt also believes that GITMO should be shut down and that Congress should use powers already outlined in Article III of the Constitution to create "National Security Courts" that would oversee accused terrorists whether captured at home or abroad. Also, the Geneva Convention should be amended or rewritten to reflect the fact that the simple definitions of the Nation-State era of warfare are incompatible with the wars against States of Terror.

Bobbitt also favors reexamining our laws about succession and ask "What happens if somebody wipes out Congress and the Supreme Court in one fell swoop?" He prudently argues that we need succession planning for the Supreme Court and laws that outline a "rump Congress" made up of the survivors of a massive attack on Congress would govern before their respective states were able to have new elections.

Bobbitt also favors the creation of sys-admin force for peacekeeping operations.

All of these suggestions are prudent. While Bobbitt is the first person to point out that his suggestions are not perfect, the questions he raises are very important and his ideas should be discussed and debated in Washington.

What I didn't like:
Bobbitt uses the term Market-State, State of Consent, Parliamentary State and Market-State of Consent interchangeably. This leads him down a path of calling for a "League of Democracies" to deal with the world's problem. Obviously, this leaves China, which has a million man army and rapidly growing expeditionary construction industry out of the equation and replaces them with the E.U. Europe is a nice place, nobody wants to leave. China is still young enough to have citizens to export, so any strategy of precluded the creation of States of Terror through nation building is going to have to include the Chinese.

Conclusion:

Terror and Consent is a great book for anyone looking for a vision that can reconcile the dual challenges of combating terrorism while maintaining a nation of laws.