Topic: Deputy SecDef Compares GWOT To Cold War Era

Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
March 20, 2008
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England likened the current global war on terror (GWOT) to the Cold War on March 19, and warned that the Iraq war will not end if the U.S. walks away from the battlefield.
England, speaking to a group of about 1,000 at the Navy's Sea-Air-Space Expo in Washington, said that just as the nation was "beginning to adjust to and counter communism" in the 1950s, the U.S. is having to "adjust to and counter terrorism" today. The reason terrorists killed 3,000 people on 9/11, he added, is because "they didn't know how to kill 30,000 or 300,000 or 3 million, but they would have if they could ... and they'll keep trying."
Afghanistan and Iraq are just the first campaigns in a long war, England said, echoing the now oft-repeated mantra of "persistent conflict." The nation, he said, "should understand that reality." The U.S.'s victory over communism was a result of a "sustained commitment that transcended party lines," England said. He added that the ideal of a nation willing "to drive to a shared goal of victory" should be reapplied today.
--Bettina H. Chavanne