by Kevin Holsinger

Created on: February 22, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

What if the War on Terror is fundamentally impossible to win?

When the Bush Administration claims that the War on Terror is being fought against a "new" type of enemy, this is correct. And it's also, potentially, a cataclysmic problem. For a war to end, you need a standard of victory. In this piece, "standard of victory" will be defined as "an event or series of events that needs to transpire in order for one to declare victory". In conventional wars, like the World Wars, the standard of victory is defined as the opposing side negotiating the terms of its surrender, and holding to those terms.

The Bush Administration has acknowledged that there is no head of all the terrorist organizations on Earth to surrender to us. So at the very least, the standard of victory for the War on Terror would be an unconventional one, as it was with the Cold War. That war ended when the Soviet Union and United States governments agreed to end it, and held to that agreement.

So what is the standard of victory in the War on Terror? Or to put it more disturbingly, IS there a standard of victory in the War on Terror? On the White House's website, you can read the "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism", written in 2005. Its vision of winning the War on Terror includes defeating violent extremism, reconstructing social environments to prevent that extremism from reemerging, advancing freedom, advancing human dignity, stopping terrorist attacks, and attacking terrorist organizations.

All of this sounds noble, but all of this is vague at best and utopian at worst. If "advancing freedom" is one of the tactics necessary to winning the War on Terror, does this not mean that the War can only end when there are no dictatorships on this planet? If so, how do you define "dictatorship"? What if, in your battle to remove all the dictatorships on Earth, you find the international community labeling your nation as a dictatorship? Who is judged right? And what, in the history of government, gives credence to the idea that ridding Earth of all tyranny is even possible? Governments are comprised of people. People are fundamentally flawed, though to varying degrees. How can flawed people create and maintain a perfect government, free of tyrants?

There are other, pragmatic concerns here. Will it ever be possible to guarantee that we have killed every terrorist on Earth, especially given the fact that there are over six billion humans on this planet? Will it ever be possible to guarantee that we

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