The New American Militarism
The banner decorating the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, when President Bush announced an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq, turns out to have been accurate after all. If only the president himself had taken to heart the banner's proclamation of "Mission Accomplished." For by that date, having deposed Saddam Hussein, the United States had achieved in Iraq just about all that it has the capacity to achieve. The time has come for Bush to dig the banner out of the closet, drape it across the front of the White House and make it the basis for policy instead of continuing under the inglorious banner of "Mission Impossible." Ironically, ever since the presidential victory lap of two years ago, the Bush administration has been in the forefront of those insisting that the U.S. mission in Iraq is not accomplished -- that there is ever so much more that the United States can and must do on behalf of the Iraqi people. Hence the grandiose U.S. promises of reconstruction, economic and political reform, and nation-building...
Will a U.S. withdrawal guarantee a happy outcome for the people of Iraq? Of course not. In sowing the seeds of chaos through his ill-advised invasion, Bush made any such guarantee impossible. If one or more of the Iraqi factions chooses civil war, they will have it. Should the Kurds opt for independence, then modern Iraq will cease to exist. No outside power can prevent such an outcome from occurring anymore than an outside power could have denied Americans their own civil war in 1861. -Andrew Bacevich from the Washington Post
Andrew Bacevich's Sunday article in the Washington post comes just
as I was writing my short review of his book in what will hopefully
become a regular review feature on Mondays here at SwD.
Andrew Bacevich, professor of International Relations at Boston
University. Vietnam Veteran and contributing editor of The American
Conservative - has written a concise and intelligent "book about the
new American militarism - the misleading and dangerous conceptions of
war, soldiers and military institutions that have come to pervade the
American consciousness and that have perverted present-day U.S.
national security policy." In short he is not writing a mere
brief against Bush for the present state of our foreign policy. In the
introduction he produces a wonderful short-version of his argument. :
"The New American militarism made its appearance in reaction to the 1960s and especially to Vietnam. It evolved over a period of decades, rather than being spontaneously induced by a particular event such as the terrorist attack of September 11, 2002. Nor, as mentioned above is present-day American militarism the product of a conspiracy hatched by a small group of fanatics when the American people were distracted or otherwise engaged. Rather it developed in full view and with considerable popular approval. "
The strands of this American militarism are found as much in popular
culture, as religion and policy. The confusion and lack of direction or
national purpose that was the result of the Vietnam war played a
critical role in formulating our thinking about the military ever
since. The most provocative thesis offered in Bacevich's book is that
the very things done by well intentioned men and women in the officer
corps and policymakers to prevent "another Vietnam" have it made it
much more likely that we will find ourselves in another similar
conflict. The Powell Doctrine and the military buildup of the 1980s create the atmosphere in which Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright can ask a dumbfounded General Powell: "What's the
point of having this superb military that you're always talking
about, if we can't use it?"
Also of interest is Bacevich's description of our the end of our
first adventure in the Gulf- to oust Saddam out of Kuwait. Bacevich has
described the victory as a very important moment in our history - one
that signalled to Americans definitively that "this military stuff is
good after all." The imagery of The First Gulf War was that of a clean,
high tech video game - painless, fun and satisfying - a completely
opposite image of war generated by Vietnam of World War I - where the
battlefield is an abattoir - war as dirty, dehumanizing and ultimately
disillusioning.
It may be a kind of cultural snobbery that prevents a reader from
embracing Bacevich's discussion of movies like Top Gun and Rambo as
having a profound effect on the way Americans think of their military
and American power. It is not Bacevich's fault that his readers will
find the jump from penetrating discussion of foreign policy history to
John Rambo a difficult leap in the level of discussion - but that
Bacevich makes it is a testament to the thorough way in which he
discusses the broad phenomena of American Militarism.
The blame does not stop there - Presidents from Carter through
Clinton (and Wilson preceding them all), the neoconservatives, and
their devotees among Evangelical apocalyptics also get the credit for
this shift in the way we think about American power.
What is the anti-dote to this militarism? Bacevich, like many
conservative critics of the war sees an alternative tradition in
American foreign policy. Juxtapose the frivolous and disturbing
question of Madame Albright with the warning of George Washington to be
wary of "those overgrown military establishments which, under any form
of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be
regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." Bacevich
recommends that we look to prudence and wisdom of the American founders
in regard to the American military - a notion that may at first appeal
to the sentiments of the right, but is perhaps an equally bitter pill
for left and right to swallow. Concomitant to this is revitalizing the
separation of powers, reviving the concept of the citizen-soldier, and
enhancing strategic self-sufficiency and organizing American forces
explicitly for national defense. Also, Bacevich offers that Americans
ought to reconsider what are acceptable levels of defense spending, and
the role of the National Guard and reserve in military life.
Bacevich's book would stand out merely because of his unique
perspective - a Vietnam Veteran and conservative who is critical of the
war in Iraq. But the importance of this book is in its synthesis of
political, religious and cultural forces that have conspired to bring
American to a point where "American ideals" are holding American
soldiers hostage in Iraq. It is a problem that cannot be solved merely
by ousting one administration or another but rather by profoundly
changing the way American citizens as a whole conceive of, participate
in and shape American foreign policy.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Politics, Review Monday
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Source: Call it a DayWisdom requires that the Bush administration call an end to its misbegotten crusade. While avoiding the appearance of an ignominious dash for the exits, but with all due speed, the United States needs to liquidate its presence in Iraq, placing the onus on Iraqis to decide their fate and creating the space for other regional powers to assist in brokering a political settlement. We've done all that we can do.
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