We can no longer win wars because it is impolite to apply the violence required to do so.

When JFK was president, a reporter interviewed both the president and the first lady separately. He asked each one who gave the children punishments when such were required. And each answered in the exact same manner: as my spouse is of too good a heart, I am the one who has to inflict punishment on a misbehaving child.

Since the end of World War II, the US and the West have pretty much never won any war of consequence. Desert Storm was a beautiful expression of American military power and ingenuity. The until-then untested A-10 destroyed Iraqi armor like it was tissue. Sure, there were victories in Grenada and Panama. But Korea was a tie, Vietnam was a loss, and it’s hard to call Afghanistan or Iraq victories. Why can’t we win anymore? One can make the same argument about Israel. Though the country boasts of killing around 8,500 Hezbollah fighters, rockets from a Lebanese terror group recently sent swimmers running for their lives in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. Hezbollah, Iran, Hamas, and the Houthis—they may be damaged, but they are all certainly still around. Why?

Every task, whether individual or national, has certain requirements. If one faints at the sight of blood, maybe being a doctor is not the right job. There are many physically demanding jobs where men seem best equipped for the demands. One of the shibboleths of the left for the past half-century is that anyone can do anything. DEI and pushing women into combat roles are two manifestations of such thinking. The outcomes often prove that not everyone is capable of doing every job. A woman holding a stretcher, taking a 220-pound Marine to a waiting helicopter, may be less capable than a male doing the same job. At the national level, war-making includes certain assumptions. One does not have to use nuclear........

© Townhall