The Pleasure Principle

Wars for fun cannot be won

The attack on Iran is wrong in countless ways: morally, legally, politically. But set all of that aside momentarily and stay within the logic of war planning. The war cannot be won because it was the result of a whim, not a plan.

War planning follows a logic. Different traditions of strategists use different terms, but this flow is representative:

1 National interest, 2 policy, 3 strategy, 4 tactics, 5 operations, 6 capabilities.

A national interest would be the preservation or the security of a people or a state. A policy would be a general notion of how that is to be achieved in a particular part of the world. War, as Clausewitz says, is policy by other means. So sometimes policy leads to strategy, an overall plan for victory in war. A tactic is an element of a strategy, for example where and how and for what purposes forces are disposed. An operation is a specific action, for example on the battlefield. A capability is the combinations of humans, technique, and weapons necessary to achieve a specific desired effect in a specific setting.

The logic flow works two ways, as a design and a verification.

In design, each item determines the next. So, interest determines policy, policy determines strategy, strategy determines tactics, tactics determine operations, and operations determine capabilities.

In verification, we check backwards. Do I have the capabilities to carry out that operation? Does the operation serve the tactic? Does the tactic fit the strategy? Does the strategy implement the policy? Does the policy correspond to the national interest?

Of course, war is a bloody, unpredictable mess. It is hard to tell what is actually happening, even for the participants. The enemy reacts in ways that are hard to foresee. Consequences spiral out quickly into the world and then back onto the battlefield. Leaders fail to understand what is going on. In the case of Donald Trump, they are shown two-minute sizzle reels of “stuff blowing up“ rather than being briefed.

These six terms are abstractions, as is in some sense all military planning. These are not sufficient to win a war. But they, or something like them, are necessary. If there is no logic beginning with a national interest, a war cannot be won, because victory demands some an objective. We have none.

In the war on Iran, the United States is demonstrating certain capabilities (in a highly unfortunate way, but that is another subject). But there is nothing else on any of the higher levels of the logic chain. At best we can identify some operations.

Because there is no national interest, capabilities determined everything. It was possible to kill Iranian leaders, and so we did. It was possible to launch missile strikes, and so we did.

In an excellent article, far more sophisticated that this one, B.A. Friedman argues that the logic chain was essentially reversed: that the notion was that capabilities create successful operations, and enough operations would make a tactic, enough tactics a strategy, enough strategy a policy. And his analysis is spot on. You can’t celebrate blowing things up and imagine that this is itself a national interest. Just because you can do things does not mean that you can explain to the nation why you are doing things. And Trump certainly has not.

Trump’s one consistent explanation is enjoyment. Trump felt good after kidnapping Maduro in Venezuela. He called into Fox and Friends to talk about how nice it would be to repeat the experience. He now says that the war in Iran is “fun.” Hegseth uses similar terms.

This is the pleasure principle. If war feels good, do it. Trump and Hegseth take satisfaction in killing or dominating other people.

That, however, has nothing to do with a national interest.

There is no evidence of anything beyond the pleasure principle. With good intentions and bad, commentators seek to force some policy around the whimsy. But it is whimsy all the way down. And a war for fun cannot be won.

And now that we have started with the pleasure principle, Trump is trapped, at least for a while, like an amateur gambler, in the behaviorist logic of intermittent pleasure and pain. It felt good at first. But then it didn’t feel good when Iran didn’t surrender, when Iran destroyed US systems, when Iran blocked the Straits of Hormuz. So now we must “double down” (consider how often that gambling jargon appears!) so that Trump can get another hit of pleasure. Each one will be more elusive than the last.

And he who follows the pleasure principle into war cannot understand the other side He cannot understand any action that is based upon other grounds than his own. If the other side is not having “fun” (again, Trump’s own term) it should surrender. If it does not, this is, according to Trump, “unfair.”

At this point, law, morality, and democratic politics are looking pretty good. War does not get us beyond them. Indeed, the successful prosecution of an American war demands them. Legal limits, ethical principles, and democratic principles can all be defended (and celebrated!) on their own terms. But even if we are simply talking about successful war planning, they have their place. To be sure, “national interest” can be defined as anything. But if we generate discussions based in law, ethics, or democratic politics, it will not be confused with the pleasure of a single man.

Law asks whether what we are doing is legal. In this case, it clearly is not: we are fighting an illegal war of aggression. Knowing that, we might pause a bit and ask whether what we are doing is worth undermining international order. Morality asks whether what we are doing is right. Considering that, we might take a moment to consider whether we want to commit ourselves to killing people when no real reason has been given. Politics reminds us that we are the citizens, that Congress represents us, and that according to the Constitution war is in its realm. Recalling that, we might conclude that a review by others beyond the White House might have spared us this bloody farrago.

The point is not that Iran has won. No doubt the regime will emerge weakened, at least internationally. The point is that the United States cannot win, because it is not fighting for anything. Its capabilities become a trap, suggesting further actions that might indeed hurt Iran in some sense, but which cannot lead to US victory, because there is no objective. And Trump’s pleasure principle elicits the pleasure of others. Now people around him are making money. And his patron Vladimir Putin is doing very well indeed.

For me, the moral, legal, and democratic political arguments are decisive in themselves. I have considered them elsewhere. In particular, I worry that Trump will use this war (or the next one) an related terrorist attack to try (this should not work) to rig elections.

But even if we think only of military planning, moral, legal, and democratic reasoning all hinder a natural moment in tyranny, one in which an unchecked leader uses the power of the state to make war in order to please himself. For Americans, the only victory in this war would be to restore the principles that would have prevented it.