Problem #18: War! Huh! What Is It Good For?
The answer to that question is famous enough: absolutely nothing. But it’s a sad commentary on life in the US these days that Americans seem incapable of going 20 years without at least one major armed conflict. \
- There were less than 5 years from the end of WWII and the Korean War
- Less than 10 between the end of Korea and the start of Vietnam
- No wars per se in the 1980s, but several military engagements, including Grenada and Panama, as well as troop deployment to Lebanon
- The first Iraq War began in 1991, and was followed barely more than 10 years later by our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq again.
- Finally, some are beating the war drums today for an invasion of Syria or Iran.
While some of these conflicts, such as Korea and Vietnam, were a direct outgrowth of the Cold War- you could call each of them proxy wars, in effect- the later ones smacked more of imperial ambitions. And I’d mention one very major change in US policy that happened in 1973: the end of the military draft, and the beginning of an all volunteer force (AVF)1.
While the AVF has arguably improved the quality of the armed forces2, an argument has been made that the result is to desensitise civilians from the real costs of war3. During WWII, Americans were asked for shared sacrifice, as people from all over society were drafted. After the Afghanistan + Iraq wars began, President George W. Bush told people to go shopping.
Oddly, despite fears that the poor would be overrepresented in the AVF as compared to a conscript force, findings have been “members of the military tended to come from backgrounds that were somewhat lower in socioeconomic status than the U.S. average, but that the differences between the military and the comparison groups were relatively modest4.” In addition, today’s AVF has a higher level of education and skill than its civilian counterparts.
But there’s a big difference between wars like WWII- where there is a clear goal- and wars with vague, difficult-do-define goals such as “promote democracy” or “domino theory.” With the notable exception of the small-scale skirmishes in Grenada and Panama, and the quick allied victory in the first Iraq War, all of the US’ post-WWII military engagements have been, shall we say, less clear in their results. The main product of the Vietnam War was a generation of scarred veterans in the US and southeast Asia. The Afghanistan War seems likely to result in a failed state similar to that which was eventually governed by the Taliban and that sheltered Osama bin Laden after the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989. And the 2nd Iraq War has had the primary effect of enhancing Iran’s importance and power in the middle east.
The post-WWII wars have another thing in common: none of them were “wars” in the sense of US constitutional law, as at no time did Congress issue a declaration of war. All of them represent a dramatic expansion of Presidential power at the expense of Congressional authority- authority which Congress has, for the most part, gladly abandoned.
Perhaps the lesson from this should be that the US should try to win hearts and minds with its ideals- as expressed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence- rather than at the point of a gun. Or, as Barack Obama once said (ironically, given his Presidency), we should try to influence countries with the power of our ideas, rather than the idea of our power.
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