Aug
15
2008
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No Possible Proof War was a Mistake |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 15 August 2008 |
How do you know if something is correct?
How do you know for a fact that 2x2 does not equal 5?
As a professor at Johns Hopkins, Francis Fukuyama knows the answer--measurement, testing, calculation, counting. But in his analysis of the war in Iraq he ignores these basic tools. Moreover, he does not bring up that they cannot be used to measure the correctness of a war, yet still plows ahead with a judgement.
In a laboratory or controlled environment the variables can be managed and measured. After an experiment is run, the model of the test can be changed and run again.
Once Coalition Forces crossed the line of departure on March 20th 2003 everything changed. The events happened. They could not be undone. There is no way to go back to before that moment and run an accurate decision tree to determine what would have happened otherwise.
We can easily measure the results of the decision to invade Iraq. The cost in terms of lives and limbs lost, dollars used up, diesel fuel consumed, can all be measured and calculated.
But it is impossible to know what the world would look like now had the Coalition not crossed the line of departure.
Because the alternative potential future cannot be measured and calculated, it cannot be compared to the present to determine which course of action was correct and which was a mistake.
One of my previous occupations, and something I still do as a sideline, is measuring and calculating whether something really works--particularly campaign advertising.
The process is not incredibly complicated but does require a graphing calculator and is akin to common randomization testing with a little regression analysis thrown in to impress the clients.
A decision like going to war cannot be tested on a sample. The variables--especially potential future variables--cannot be controlled through any mathematical model of regression analysis.
One could try to set up a decision tree using game theory to determine the likely hood of the decisions in an attempt to arrive at a determination of what the world and the middle east would look like had coalition forces not crossed the line on March 20th 2003.
Any honest analysis would come up with dozens, if not hundreds potential possibilities for an alternative August 2008.
Some of them would make it appear that the invasion in 2003 was a mistake. Others would probably make it seem like the best of all possible decisions.
To casually dismiss how things could have potentially turned out in the declaration that the war was a mistake, is to assume that all the potential possibilties were better than where we are now in August of 2008.
Whether or not the decision to cross the line on March 20th 2003 was a mistake is a value decision. A value can be assigned to where we are now, but value cannot be assigned to what might have been. The actual can be measured, the the possible potentials cannot. Therefore, it is truly impossible to know if it was a mistake. There is nothing to measure against that we know is correct or even a better result.
I suspect Professor Fukuyama knows this, but cannot grasp why he would ignore it. That isn't true, I understand why he would ignore it.
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