Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller, in his first message to the Department of Defense as a whole since his appointment by President Trump on Nov. 9, weighed in on the matter of perpetual wars, declaring that in fact all wars must end. After praising the people of the DOD for the sacrifices that they have made, Miller got to the meat of the matter.
Miller declared that the war was begun by al-Qaeda, but the war isn’t over. “We are on the verge of defeating al-Qaeda and its associates, but we must avoid our past strategic error of failing to see the fight through to the finish,” Miller wrote. “Indeed this fight has been long, our sacrifices have been enormous, and many are weary of war–I’m one of them–but this is the critical phase in which we transition our efforts from a leadership to a supporting role. We are not a people of perpetual war, it is the antithesis of everything for which we stand and for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end.” (Emphasis added.)
