Names exist, partially, to remove doubt. We put them on things to eliminate what they are not as much as to say what they are. “What is [this]?” “It is [that].” Names also create attachments between the person, or people, who did the naming and the thing that’s been named; if you find a stray animal, the last thing you should do if you have no intention of keeping it is to give it a name. A name is a tie that binds.
Once that attachment is in place, and we agree on what a thing is named, the name begins to settle in and take root, becoming nice and comfortable and part of the mental furniture and clutter that we carry around with us. But what happens when everyone doesn’t agree on the idea behind a name? What if I say that’s a comic book, and you say, no, it’s a graphic novel? More pointedly, what if we don’t agree on what to name a war?
Many skirmishes and upheavals take their names from the undeniable facts of their histories: The 30 Years War (its length), the Franco-Prussian War (the combatants), or the War of 1812 (when it was fought). But the wars that the US has fought and waged most recently take a different route, one that absolves much of the blame that could land on the US: They’re named after where they were fought, which ends up being about who we fought against.
The Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War—none of these says who the other side of the fighting was done by. The Gulf War at least fits some historical precedent by being named for where it was fought, and, to be fair, doesn’t name Iraq or the US. But I think that by taking the US out of the equation, our country is shrinking back into the shadows somewhat, even as we address these wars—in the media, in other nations’ media, and with our armed forces—on a daily basis. It’s as if we want to fight them (why else would we be there?), but would prefer that a quick reading of history not take note of our presence, thanks.
H.L. Mencken mocked the seeming cowardice of Americans in this direction in 1923, writing that we only ever entered wars we thought we could win. (Technically, Mencken was deriding the Anglo-Saxons, but we’ll extrapolate out to all of America for convenience’s sake.) The American empire was “built up by butchering and swindling unarmed savages, and after that by robbing weak and friendless nations.” And as we now know, the Powell doctrine suggests that the US will only enter into war with overwhelming force, and even when we entered Iraq in 2001, despite the suggestions that it would be a “cakewalk,” we embraced “shock and awe.”
Maybe the prerogative of naming is one that falls to the victor—much like writing the history. (Although, we have Niall Ferguson to remind us that the winner of a war is the one who ends up paying for it.) So, wouldn’t the gallant, honorable thing to do be to at least nod in the direction of admitting some blame? “The Iraq War”—doesn’t this sound somewhat as if Iraq is to blame for this war, and not actually the country that got invaded, without making any threatening gestures in our general direction?
This also holds for the War in Afghanistan. We aren’t fighting the government or army of Afghanistan; if anything, we’re helping to prop up their leader, Hamid Karzai. But “War in Afghanistan” seems so muted, somehow, so distant. “Did you hear about the War in Afghanistan?” “No, did you?”
I understand that both are part of the “Global War on Terror,” but there, too, exists a misnomer. “War on Terrorism” could’ve worked better, maybe even “World War on Terrorism” if we wanted to rope in our allies a little more firmly. I would’ve preferred “Terror War,” but that admittedly opens up all kinds of last-book-of-the-Bible-esque associations, which probably wouldn’t help when you’re fighting a group of people who do want to watch the world burn.
The names we put on conflicts matter. Southerners know this instinctively, or almost instinctively, having been raised being told that the Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression. I kind of like the honesty of that, frankly, as dishonorable as some of the South was during that time. Call it the Civil War, and all of a sudden everyone’s on equal footing, showing an equal willingness to fight. But if was the Northerners who sailed and marched down there to fight, and not the Southerners storming the great factories above the Mason-Dixon line who tried to lay waste to, say, Watervliet, New York.
What to call these events will always be ambiguous, given the sensitivities and points of view involved. Everything can’t always be a World War. Rivalries stretching back centuries make the task difficult and muddy up what could be reasonably clear waters—or maybe even make them easier; after all, everyone knows who the Hatfields hated. But when there are two parties, and one of them happens to be one of the world’s superpowers, is it asking too much to drop their name into the title?