Does military history hold the key to Western ascendency?

Hanson argues that there are examples of the West losing battles, they rarely loose wars and when they are defeated it because their opponents have adopted Western tactics and weapons. Hanson cites the Tet Offensive as an example a rare example of a Western army winning a battle, but not the war. But America's 'loss' in Vietnam, he argues, was political, not military. Furthermore, according to Hanson the causes of that political loss, the dissension and debate, ultimately make the West stronger. Hanson argues Vietnam will gradually become more like the West, not the other way around.

However, though Hanson's thesis is strong on the ground of his choosing, it leaves many questions unanswered, not least the ground he has ignored. Hanson never really pins down what he means by the West, he assumes the reader knows what he means. Significantly the Western societies he examines begins with Greece, moving west to Rome, later to Britain and finally, and symbolically, the last two battles involve the United States. This slippery definition affords Hanson a degree of flexibility, allowing him to neatly side step counter examples of 'Western' defeat. This is a flaw.

If we move back to Thomas Friedman's new NATO, NASTY, the nations he cites are often regarded as the embodiment of the 'Western' civilisation. The characteristics that Hanson argues will ensure nations win wars - democracy (of sorts), capitalism, and free speech and individualism - all underpin these nations in varying degrees.

Beyond the secure ground Hanson has chosen, it must be pointed out, these nations are not always successful and they have had varying degrees of military achievements this century. Proxy wars, like Vietnam, or post-colonial conflicts provided the NASTY nations with the odd bloody nose, the French in particular. In fairness, the Australians and British were arguably more successful in counter revolutionary warfare than the either the Americans or French, as demonstrated by Malaya and Borneo. In Vietnam the Australians had a reputation for excellence. Gordon Steinbrook, an American posted to the 6th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, as a Forward Observer, wrote to his wife: "I just can't say how pleased I am to be going to such an elite group of men … they are truly professional hard-core type people, and because of this we'll have to work our butts off to keep up with them." However, though never loosing a battle, Australia did not win the war.

NASTY is in some ways the right word to describe the West, more particularly the English-speaking peoples and the French; their way of fighting wars is both technological refined and ruthlessly efficient. This is perhaps the strongest part of Hanson's thesis; the West is better at killing than its opponents, not because the West is either morally inferior or superior but because the values and traditions of the West furnish a comparative advantage in war. This is an unsettling legacy.

If there is any validity in Hanson's selective version of the West's history of warfare, it is that the current Islamic terrorists are doomed to fail. If we apply his model, the terrorists are reduced to using Western communications, Western modes of transport and Western weapons. Significantly, they are reduced to targeting civilians, which will fail to change the fundamentals of Western market-based democracies. Conversely, the West will, despite causing some civilian casualties, target terrorists. It will be able to use the most advanced technology in conjunction with a willingness to close with the enemy, to ultimately destroy the terrorist networks. If Hanson's thesis is correct, for bin Laden and his supporters defeat is merely a question of time, which serves to make their actions all the more futile and the casualties all the more tragic.