Monday morning, nearly a week after what has aptly been called the New York Massacre, I found myself at the Marine Corps University at Quantico, Virginia (not far from the Pentagon attack) where I planned to lecture on the Peloponnesian War ... of all things. The talk had been scheduled long in advance, and Monday, the audience of soldiers had its mind elsewhere, understandably.


I didn't begrudge them their distraction. In fact, I admired their cool. Little in their reaction betrayed their real thoughts. I learned those afterwards from my escort, a paratrooper. I asked him what he thought of the military situation. He told me that he worried about the safety of his friends who might be put in harm's way. Yet he also told me that he was eager to go and hoped to be called to duty.


There is a lesson in the attitude of those soldiers. For most of us, our first response to last week's killings was anger and emotion. Our second and better reaction is calm and equanimity. Yet an unemotional response should not be confused with a passive one. The nation is going to war.


Let us hope that the country doesn't have to fight. Let us hope that Afghanistan turns over the suspects for trial here and that other terrorist camps used against the United States are dismantled without further violence. Yet that is not likely.


So good people ask hard questions. They ask: Can't we achieve our goals by negotiation and diplomacy? Knowing that it is usually easier to get into a war than to get out of one, they ask: shouldn't we wait before we act? Knowing that violence begets violence, they ask: won't terrorists retaliate against American military action? How do we attack our elusive enemy?


In answer to those questions, consider the kind of war that lies ahead. Not a good war: there's no such thing. But maybe it will be a smart war.


A smart war will recognize that diplomacy is as important as force. A smart war will muster allies. Above all, a smart war will make clear that America has no conflict with the Islamic world, that the struggle against terrorism is not a clash of civilizations, and that America knows the difference between Islam, a great religion, and the terrorists who pervert its teachings. To stir up enmity between the West and Islam would be merely to play into the terrorists' hands.


A smart war will be won by cunning as well as force. An unconventional war requires unconventional tactics. Covert operations, double-agents, and bribe-masters may accomplish far more than paratroopers against so unusual an opponent. We must, moreover, fight a fair war, with maximum effort to minimize civilian casualties as well as those of our own troops. We must use diplomacy and economics abroad and make the difficult but measured decisions necessary to improve security at home.


Nor do we want to compromise America's openness to all peoples. America betrayed its best self in earlier conflicts when it scapegoated German-Americans and locked up Japanese-Americans. We must show tolerance toward and solidarity with Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans.


On the drive home from Quantico, I pulled off the highway shortly after crossing from Maryland into Pennsylvania. That state too was the scene of a crime on Sept. 11: the crash of a hijacked jet aimed at Washington. A few miles on the back roads brought me to a place of reflection. I stopped the car and got out. There, in the soft light of the afternoon, I looked at the rows of graves at Gettysburg.


And the graves reminded me how terrible war is and how destructive. But they also said that sometimes it is necessary to stand and fight. They recalled that other Americans before us have suffered and died and yet the country has persevered. And so shall we.

Archived article by Barry Strauss