What the heck is Victory nowadays?

In the past, victory meant that a national government would surrender and accept the terms of the "victorious party(ies)." The defeated parties would, for the most part, accept the terms and live with them. Groups without sufficient nationalistic fervor or numbers would be likely to get a pretty bad deal, such as Native Americans of North America, or their cultural identity was essentially obliterated (there are no significant Aztec or Mayan populations today, although there are certainly many descendants of the folks that ruled Central America in those years). It seems that religious fervor and intolerance is what it takes to really defeat a "people," along with years of vigorous persecution. Just how long it really takes is another question, but a lot of it has to do with communication, any connection to past culture through art, literature architecture, etc.

While the United States is not free of any guilt when it comes to oppression, in the last century the United States has become a pluralistic and possibly overly tolerant liberalistic nation, which is an anomaly in global history. One can hope that is the next step in nationalistic evolution, or one can say that is an aberration that won't endure. I tend to believe the former, but I admit to a certain inevitable bias regarding the question.

Be that as it may, conflicts at this juncture in history need to be virtually approved by the United States. If the United States disapproves too strongly, it can intercede either militarily or economically (or both), while if it does approve it can ensure that a conflict can drag on. Note how the Russians got bogged down in Afghanistan, and how America is getting bogged down in Iraq. What we have to realize is that revel fighters need supplies to continue their business. The fact that the violence in Iraq is limited to I.E.D.'s and suicide bombings is an indication of the fact that sovereign nations aren't willing to supply Iraqi fighter with the real toys. Hezbollah on the other hand has apparently gotten LOTS of rockets from somewhere, and one has to assume that they have been stocking up for some time.

Modern conflicts take time to prepare for, and a lot of nations have played the game in order to play for time. Assymetric warfare has been used in the past, but modern firearms and explosives have allowed new methods to be used in regional conflicts, such as car bombs, and suicide bombings. What a lot of people fail to accept is the religious overtones of suicide bombers. It's a lot easier to blow yourself up if you think that an almighty being not only approves, but encourages such action. This isn't a nationalistic ideal. It is a cultural and religious ideal, and not one that appears to be on its way out.

There is a culture out there that needs to be faced down and destroyed in one way or another. If we hope to achieve that goal through violenct, the body count is going to need to be a LOT higher. If we hope to achieve that goal through enlightenment, I doubt that victory is acheivable, because that route is seen as weakness.

I don't think that human beings have change so much that victory is no longer achieved in blood, and more specifically the blood of your enemies. There is an enemy culture out there, and it is bent on destruction. Our culture doesn't really care much so long as their culture doesn't inflict pain and suffering on us (and less importantly on others).

What we do have to understand though is that victory may not come in years, or even decades. While the pace of many things in Western Life is very fast, lives are long, and this conflict has been going on for generations, and will likely continue for generations to come, and it will take a lot of blood to end the conflict.

That's historically the case, and I don't see any reason to believe that will change.