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Quote of the Day: War
“No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.” – James Mattis
We are seeing an application of this in real-time as the war in Ukraine unwinds. Certainly, Russia has learned the enemy gets a vote. Their three-day war has turned into a month-long quagmire (literally in the north, with its Rasputitsa “mud season”). Now the Russians are declaring victory in Ukraine, claiming their goal was to liberate the Donbas and that has been achieved. Of course, the enemy, Ukraine, gets a vote. They have begun limited counteroffensives, and Russia may not find it easy to end the war by declaration as Russia hopes.
Defense Secretary James Mattis met in Brussels Wednesday with the defense ministers of our NATO allies. His message was characteristically 
One of the most difficult problems of any society is to establish a proper relationship between civilian authority and military power. Even before the Constitutional Convention, Americans were familiar with the problems of armies, and many delegates were fearful that a standing army would be a vehicle for despotism. Many of their concerns were highlighted in The Declaration of Independence as they noted several grievances of the violation of their liberties directly attributed to a standing army (Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures, the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power, quartering large bodies of armed troops, protecting [the British military] by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.)
