The will to live versus the will to die
Osama Bin Laden warned Americans shortly after September 2001 that Muslims were “the Nation of Martyrdom; the Nation that desires death more than you desire life.” He was not the first to make such a fundamental miscalculation. Hanson W. Baldwin, the New York Times military editor, wrote of the Okinawa campaign of 1945 in his book Battles Lost and Won: Great Campaigns of World War 2:
human will in war is still in this mechanistic age a—and perhaps the—fundamental intangible which makes the difference between victory and defeat. The Japanese possessed the will to fight to a high degree, but it was built on a negative philosophy—a fatalistic will to die. At Okinawa the will to die and the will to live met in head-on conflict; in this instance the will to live—aided by far superior material—won. Yet is it well to remember that the will to live must, in war, have more than a selfish context, or men who are willing to die for a cause will defeat those who put life ahead of their cause. In the case of the Japanese the kamikaze represented more than a technique; it might be called a self-destructive urge, a death wish. And in the long role of history the sole reason’s for man’s persistence has been that the will to live has triumphed through the ages over the will to die.
The same will hold true in this struggle, whatever its length and vicissitudes. The only question is how long will it take and how many lives will be spent before the inevitable is realized. Yes, nature has insured that the will to live is superior to the will to die, but in 1945 Americans still had to weather the Kamikaze storm at Okinawa, obliterate any number of Japanese cities, prepare an invasion, insure Soviet entry into the war, and drop two atomic weapons. How far the West will have to go to win this present conflict will depend on how quickly and surely it goes about its work. Unfortunately, at present, the West is far from united—many refuse to even recognize the reality of the war—and support for the United States, for myriad reasons, is faltering. Does that mean that the West is losing? No, but it does mean that the jihadists will therefore continue to gain strength and legitimacy, which will insure that the struggle will persist, and as it continues reach new levels of brutality.
human will in war is still in this mechanistic age a—and perhaps the—fundamental intangible which makes the difference between victory and defeat. The Japanese possessed the will to fight to a high degree, but it was built on a negative philosophy—a fatalistic will to die. At Okinawa the will to die and the will to live met in head-on conflict; in this instance the will to live—aided by far superior material—won. Yet is it well to remember that the will to live must, in war, have more than a selfish context, or men who are willing to die for a cause will defeat those who put life ahead of their cause. In the case of the Japanese the kamikaze represented more than a technique; it might be called a self-destructive urge, a death wish. And in the long role of history the sole reason’s for man’s persistence has been that the will to live has triumphed through the ages over the will to die.
The same will hold true in this struggle, whatever its length and vicissitudes. The only question is how long will it take and how many lives will be spent before the inevitable is realized. Yes, nature has insured that the will to live is superior to the will to die, but in 1945 Americans still had to weather the Kamikaze storm at Okinawa, obliterate any number of Japanese cities, prepare an invasion, insure Soviet entry into the war, and drop two atomic weapons. How far the West will have to go to win this present conflict will depend on how quickly and surely it goes about its work. Unfortunately, at present, the West is far from united—many refuse to even recognize the reality of the war—and support for the United States, for myriad reasons, is faltering. Does that mean that the West is losing? No, but it does mean that the jihadists will therefore continue to gain strength and legitimacy, which will insure that the struggle will persist, and as it continues reach new levels of brutality.
