Guest Comment: Again the tiger sleeps

After the success of his carefully planned attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the plan’s architect, is reported to have said: “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping tiger, and filled him with a terrible resolve.”

Little did he know how correct his prophecy was.

That “terrible resolve” was to carry the United States, and its allies, from the shambles of Battleship Row, to the beaches of Normandy, to ultimate victory on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Along the way the prophecy of the good admiral, later to become known as the Osama Bin Laden of his day, would feel that resolve in a most personal way.

We were able to break the Japanese code, and so learned of a flight Yamamoto was making to the South Pacific.

On April 18, 1943, a flight of Air Corps P-38’s intercepted his plane in the Solomon Islands and shot it down, ending his career forever.

The success of this country in World War II can be largely attributed to one thing, the total resolve of the American people.

Not only was it the brave dedication of our fighting men and women from the freezing cold of the Bulge to the steaming jungles of the South Pacific, but the industrial giant that was unleashed.

From schoolchildren collecting string and tin foil, to women becoming Rosie the Riveter, we were as one as a nation.

Flushed with victory, and exhausted by the effort, the “Tiger” went back to sleep.

Defense budgets were cut, reducing our capability to respond to any contingency, until, in June 1950, we were surprised again.

Somewhere during that five-year period after WW II, our approach to foreign policy and defense seemed to have changed.

No longer was “victory” foremost in our national idiom.

Instead, we almost immediately went for negotiation and reconciliation, piecemeal our fighting effort with a policy of gradualism, instead of the time-honored American way of hit with everything you have, defeat the enemy, and get out. In other words, we lost our resolve

From Korea, which ended in an armistice, to Vietnam where conflict was “terminated” in what amounted to defeat, to Lebanon and Somalia, where we slinked away with our tail between our legs, to our current conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the lessons learned in the previous conflicts seemed to have been forgotten, or ignored, we are, once again pursuing a strategy of gradualism.

Only one time since WWII has the doctrine of Overwhelming Force been applied, that being Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Even then we failed to achieve a total victory for fear of losing our coalition and alienating others.

Whether it is through ignorance, complacency, or a total lack of national resolve, as was not the case after Pearl Harbor, this nation is treading its most dangerous path in history.

The willingness to accept anything less than total victory would go against our grain in any other time.

Oh, the “Tiger” slept with one eye open during the decades of the Cold War, and awoke with a roar on Sept. 11, 2001, but, lacking that “terrible resolve” that Admiral Yamamoto fully understood, he has gone back to sleep.

Our history is replete with declaration of resolve by our national leaders;

George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island:

“The fate of millions of people will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army……We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.”

Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg:

“That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…….”

Franklin D. Roosevelt on Dec. 8, 1941, before a Joint Session of Congress:

“No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.”

Winston Churchill after the British defeat in France:

“We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

Ronald Reagan at first inaugural, January 1981:

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of men on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.”

George W. Bush, September 2001:

“I will seize the opportunity to achieve big goals. There is nothing bigger than to achieve world peace.”

So, where do we go from here? It is not too late, but fixing a problem is always more costly than doing it right the first time, and time is running short.

In his book, “Strategy For Defeat,” published in 1978, Adm. U.S.G. Sharp USN, commander of the Pacific, made this final observation: “Most wars have in common the fact that they were won by one side or the other. This war is the exception. For the real tragedy of Vietnam is that this war was not won by the other side, by Hanoi or Moscow or Peiping. It was lost in Washington, D.C. There and there alone lies the answer to our final question—will it happen again?”

Can we awaken the Sleeping Tiger long enough to achieve our goal, or will his pelt finally be consigned to the dirt floor of a cave in Afghanistan, and this great nation doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?

Green Valley resident Allen H. Balch was born in Abilene, Texas; graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, served as a captain in the Navy, commanded an anti-submarine patrol squadron during Vietnam,served as a chief of naval operations at the Pentagon, was on the staff of Sen. John Tower of Texas.

In 1992, he and his wife Lindsay moved to Green Valley where he became a GVCCC vice president and was co-chair of the 1994 bid for incorporation.