Indian Country

[Recycled from 21 September 2004]

To the Editor, Wall Street Journal:

Robert D. Kaplan (Opinion, 21 September 2004) seems to think that regarding much of the world as "Indian Country" is a novel idea that will help give new perspective on 21st Century American military policy.

I'm surprised that Mr. Kaplan seems to be unaware that many people, both military insiders and civilian scholars, have spoken explicitly about the Indian Country mindset within strategic circles.

Going to war with a civilized enemy is one thing: you fight with them according to the conventions of civilized warfare, and eventually you make peace. Treaties are negotiated, and the terms will either be honored, or a provocation will be discovered to allow them to be violated.

Going into Indian Country is a very different matter, because Indian Country is not a nation, and it has no civilized inhabitants. In fact, it is a howling wilderness with no legitimate inhabitants at all. Any people found there are unreasoning brutish savages who must be pacified, civilized or just plain exterminated, so that we can get on with the important task of making use of the natural resources of the wilderness. Treaties may be concluded with the savages, but all civilized people understand that these are not real treaties, any more than the "Indian tribes" are real nations, and they will be violated freely without dishonor.

It is my sincere hope that, far from being embraced as an exciting new paradigm, the concept of "Indian Country" will be explicitly rejected by military planners, and training instituted to warn against allowing the notion to taint their thinking.