War on Terror a Bad Metaphor

Columnist Diana West makes an important point. Terror is an emotion and terrorism is a tactic. This is important because political rhetoric about a “war on terror” doesn’t help. While it may get votes, I can’t see how anyone can devise objectives that a military can achieve to eliminate an emotion or a tactic. One of the lessons the military learned from Vietnam is that lack of clear objectives contributed to strategic failure. Von Clausewitz wrote that “No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his senses should do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” The just war theologians ought to agree with Von C, at least to this extent: it is impossible to reach a conclusion about the “just cause” criteria unless the administration clearly states it purpose and takes it to congress for approval.(If interested, you can order Michael Howard’s masterful short introduction to Von C, by clicking on the icon at the left.)
Adopting war on terror (or crime, poverty, or drugs) as a metaphor makes it impossible to write a strategy. How can a military action destroy an emotion or a tactic? If one proposes war on a terrorist network, it is possible, but difficult, to conceive of actions that will reduce the threat worldwide.