When a Secretary of Defense deploys the phrase “FAFO” in a hastily convened meeting of senior military officers, one suspects the room does not quite know where to place it.
No one laughs. Even among those who understand the expression, it is not clear that it improves with explanation. The audience, after all, consists of professionals—men and women accustomed to the language of consequence, not abbreviation.
The phrase, translated, is meant to convey resolve: test us, and you will discover the outcome. It is, in its way, an attempt at deterrence—though an unusual one for a country whose military capacity is already well understood. The United States is not, one would think, in need of rhetorical amplification.
Still, the language has become familiar. We “take no quarter.” We remove “handcuffs.” We emphasize lethality, as though it required emphasis. Strength, long evident, is now described repeatedly—perhaps in the hope that repetition might substitute for persuasion.
There is, however, a complication.
In recent days, reports suggest that American aircraft have been lost over Iran. It is possible—though not yet clear—that American personnel may be in Iranian custody. If so, the language of “no quarter” acquires a different character. It ceases to be declarative and becomes, instead, reciprocal.
One hopes, in such circumstances, that one’s adversary is less committed to one’s rhetoric than one is.
It would, of course, be preferable if Iran behaved in accordance with the norms of war—norms we invoke with some regularity. But wars have a way of testing not only strength, but consistency. The side that appears more disciplined, more restrained, more attentive to those norms does not merely act—it communicates.
And perception, in war, is not a trivial matter.
There is an old habit in American life of speaking loudly when one is already heard. It is not always clear that this improves outcomes.
“FAFO,” as a doctrine, has a certain economy. It is less clear that it has a strategy.
And in its absence, we may yet discover—somewhat belatedly—that the finding out is rarely confined to one side.