Get this...
There are 8.2 million people in New York City and 37,838 sworn police officers.
That means there is one officer for every 216 New Yorkers.
Baghdad has about 6 million people and 13,500 troops.
Yep. 444 Baghdad residents per troop.
You may, of course, draw your own conclusions about the relative likelihood of making it to the supermarket and back in New York vs. Baghdad, even if the infrastructure in Baghdad was intact and there were police on every corner. The fact is, New York isn't currently in the middle of a major civil war, and it isn't filled with roving bands of gun-happy militiamen shooting it out with police and blowing up buildings and markets.
If we doubled or tripled the number of troops, would it really make a difference? Would it make a difference if the numbers and situation were the same anywhere? I often feel that the only things that could possibly make a difference are:
- when pretty much everyone become tired of killing and decide to take a break and raise crops and kids.
- the abandonment of religious faith with its "I'm right, you're wrong" philosophies in favor of peaceful coexistence with your neighbors.
We can't shove democracy or national identity down people's throats in Iraq, and no police or military force can prevent an huge population that doesn't want peace on our terms from embracing violence on their own. And why not? When ideology on either side encourages bloody warfare as a superior alternative to reason, how could a true believer do anything else? Besides - they are winning. (As per Sun Tzu, if you are not winning, you are losing... and we are clearly not winning.
After all, didn't we train these "enemy fighters" to battle off a superior military force using counterinsurgency strategies so they could defeat the militarily powerful (and numerically plentiful) Soviet forces? Should we really be surprised that they are using our own extraordinarily effective tactics against us now? It's like we are defeating ourselves. Yes, we have niftier weapons than the Soviets did, but do they work any better in a guerilla war?
Not so much.