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December 17, 2006

The New American Militarism

The New American Militarism by Andrew J. Bacevich purports to discuss the American view of war and the military and how it has affected American diplomacy and foreign policy over the past half-decade. I think Bacevich makes an excellent case for his thesis, although I am generally in disagreement with his prescriptions for fixing the problem.

Bacevich argues that Wilsonian policies have become the standard of the United States, and the need to use military force to impose Wilsonian policies has led to a glorification of the military and war. He is particularly contemptuous of the lack of military service among the average American, with many of his arguments smacking of chickenhawkism, although his thrust is directed more towards the split between the military and civilian populations of America and the substitution of supporting the troops for actually becoming one. This argument seems particularly on point, as the military has in many ways become almost a sacred cow in American politics, with accusations of failing to support the troops sufficient to derail attempts to analyze military actions with some degree of reason and logic. While as a soldier I am appreciative of the thanks I receive regularly from civilians, it is unhealthy for political discourse when any subject is placed off-limits, but even more so when it is a subject so vital as national defense.

Bacevich is not kind to the military in this book either, noting the unfortunate (although hardly unique in American history) tendency of generals to attempt to influence policy rather than remaining deferential to civilian authority, a tendency that among other things led to the embarrassing failure of the Army to provide ground forces in support of the war in Kosovo and the decision to tell President Bush to stop the destruction of the Republican Guard in 1991 well before it was destroyed. Bacevich doesn't note this, but it is important to note these issues when evaluating Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as Secretary of Defense, as Rumsfeld knew all too well that the generals were quite willing to lie in order to influence policy. Those generals deserve their share of the blame for Rumsfeld's decision not to go along with General Zinni's proposed strategy for seizing and occupying Iraq, for they had misled the civilian superiors in the past regarding the amount of force necessary for missions. This is not to absolve Rumsfeld by any means, but the generals actions in the years leading up to Iraq destroyed their credibility and made it that much easier for the Secretary to ignore their advice.

Also of particular importance at this time is Bacevich's history of the Army in the post-Vietnam era. Rather than internalizing the lessons learned from Vietnam, the generals decided that the best lesson was never to fight a Vietnam-style war again, turning the Army's attention to high-intensity conflict. While the Army they built is superb for that purpose, our experiences in Iraq have highlighted the costs of failing to learn from Vietnam. While the Army is now beginning to internalize the lessons of counterinsurgency, it has done so at great cost and too late to salvage anything from Iraq.

One of Bacevich's most intriguing theses is his argument that American military and foreign policy is largely guided by America's desire for cheap oil. Bacevich dates our current conflict with Islam back to 1980 and the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, reeling off the increasing involvement of American forces in the Middle East since that time. While it is true that American reliance on foreign oil has increased over that period along with American military activities in the region, Bacevich fails to demonstrate that the correlation is, in fact, causation. It is difficult to argue that American incursions into Lebanon and Somalia, for example, were made in order to secure cheap oil. Bacevich may be onto something here, but I think he needs to do a little more work to properly demonstrate the connection between the two.

Overall the book is well-written and convincing in its thesis that America's romantic view of military service and war has done serious damage to how we approach the world. But it is hard not to notice that evidence is often caviled in a manner intended to serve Bacevich's point rather than the facts, such as his note that while 46% of Americans have some college education, only 6.5% of 18-24 year olds in the Army have such experience. Bacevich uses this disparity to point up the differences between soldiers and civilians, but since he's comparing all Americans to 18-24 year old soldiers, the comparison is misleading at best. Catching such a tricky use of statistics tends to make me wonder where else Bacevich may have played fast and loose with the facts to buttress his argument.

Bacevich concludes with what he calls ten fundamental principles he believes should guide America's relationship with the military. Some are quite solid, such as returning to our first principles when the U.S. viewed standing armies with disdain and revitalizing the separation of powers in our government, an argument I have made myself on many occasions. Some, conversely, make me wonder if Bacevich has spent much time observing our government, as when he suggests that military programs are somehow unique among government spending in that they alone go on indefinitely despite no evident success. Others seem like good ideas, like the idea of reviving the citizen-soldier, but Bacevich's solutions are of questionable utility. Bacevich wants to guarantee a college education to anyone who serves, claiming that would bring more members of America's elite into service, yet how many members of America's upper classes require government assistance to attend college? Bacevich's argument that we need to reexamine the role of the National Guard and reserves seems similarly interesting, but his argument we need to redesign them to deal with threats to North America raises the rather obvious question, what military threats to North America are they going to protect us from? And Bacevich's claim that military personnel sequester themselves in military installations tends to founder against the fact that a sizable fraction of military personnel live in civilian communities near their bases rather than on post. Bacevich would do well, too, to learn a bit more about what he writing about, as his claim that ROTC only trains officer candidates who were selected in high school is so far off the mark I have to wonder if he's ever spoken to anyone involved with ROTC. I'm pretty sure BU has an ROTC program, and I happen to have close friends who are Professors of Military Science at MIT and Northeastern, both within a few miles of BU. Either of them could help Bacevich learn a great deal about how ROTC actually works.

While I disagree with about half of Bacevich's prescriptions, I believe that he has done yeoman service in noting the growing problem of America's relationship with its military. As the old saying goes, if you're good with a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. America has an excellent military, and our government has gotten into the very bad habit of using it far too often. Bacevich's proposals may not be be the best way to resolve this problem, but I believe he is absolutely correct in his identification of the problem. It's time the rest of us recognized it, so we can begin to do something to fix it.

Hat tip to Doctor Science, who recommended this to me over at Obsidian Wings.