The weirdness of future of wars will make us wish
we were dealing with knives and swords again

In 1976, President Gerald Ford issued an executive order forbidding the assassination of any foreign head of state. This order was issued when word leaked out that the CIA had made several attempts on Castro’s life as well as other “enemies” of the US.

This is a topic that I’ve often struggled with because today’s solution to global conflict is often measured in the destruction of the many as opposed to the destruction of the few. Not that I was in favor of assassinating Castro, but placing boundaries on the fighting of a war nearly always insures a larger, longer military engagement than simply removing a few problem people at the top.

The way I see it, the larger the death toll and the greater the path of destruction, the longer it will take to heal the deep-seated emotional wounds festering among the masses. While property damage can be repaired, and economies can be rebuilt, it is the emotional wounds that carry hatred and other significant problems from one generation to the next.

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