“At the summit, true strategy and politics are one.” Winston Churchill.
It has long been a concern of political philosophy to structure military organizations in democratic societies that are strong enough for legitimate defense while sufficiently constrained to protect civilian society from excessive military influence. In the words of Plato, how does a society create a military, “gentle to their own and cruel to their enemies?”
In mature, constitutional democracies, this problem has largely been solved. There is no real probability that a Western-style democracy in North America or Europe will fall in a military coup. Nonetheless, the relationship between a civilian-controlled military and its civilian leaders remains a serious question.
In 1959, Samuel Huntington wrote The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations, which has come to be the seminal piece on the subject and is studied at military colleges. Huntington made the case for what is now the conventional wisdom about civilian-military operations. According to Huntington, the role of civilian leadership is to set clear, achievable military objectives and then allow a professional military to design and implement the means to achieve these objectives.
This conventional wisdom has been reinforced by what many people believe is the lesson of the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, President Johnson is perceived as having restrained the military from achieving victory, while micromanaging to the point of personally reviewing target lists.
Professor Eliot Cohen of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Relations of the Johns Hopkins University in Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime turns this reasoning exactly on its head. Cohen argues that successful wars are best conducted with intimate control by civilian authorities over military decisions and a constant dialogue between civilian command authorities and military commanders. As military strategist Claus Von Clausewitz explained “war is simply a continuation of political intercourse.” Waging war is not a single decision. Rather it is a set of continuing decisions in response to changing circumstances many with direct political import. War necessitates decisions on alliances, strategies, means, and limits that are more political than empirical. As Georges Clemenceau explained, “War is too important to be left to generals.”
In making his case, Cohen examines the war record of four successful wartime leaders: Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War; Georges Clemenceau, French leader in World War I; Winston Churchill Prime Minister of Britain during World War II, and David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel during the Israeli War for Independence.
In all these situations, Huntington’s admonition to acquiesce to expert military advise was not even possible given the fact the generals often differed sharply in the their advice and perspective. Through constant oversight, questioning, prodding, and haranguing, these leaders forced their generals to devise and implement coherent military strategies. This often involved reorganizing military commands and individuals to adequately implement civilian decisions. Abraham Lincoln had to work through a series of generals until he found ones that were competent and aggressive enough to implement his vision of victory.
If Lincoln had simply instructed George McClellan to defeat the South and not intimately involved himself in the conduct of the war, the United States would likely be two countries today. One of these countries may have maintained the institution of slavery throughout the nineteenth century. If Clemenceau had relinquished authority to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, an even harsher peace would have been imposed on post-war Germany than the disastrous Treaty of Versailles. Indeed, Foch could have caused a greater political rift with England and the US that would have inhibited the alliance against Nazi Germany during World War II. Without the continuous and severe audit of the military’s judgment by Churchill in practical and detailed military matters, resources would have been squandered and lives lost, perhaps changing the outcome of the war. If Ben-Gurion had not leashed in disparate military groups forcing them into a single coherent command during the formation of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces may have never marshaled the limited resources necessary to defeat an enemy that overwhelmingly out numbered them.
In Vietnam, rather than there being too much civilian oversight, there was far too little critical supervision. Despite a reputation for abrasiveness, President Lyndon Johnson never forced his generals to formulate a coherent strategy for winning the war when their efforts were clearly ineffective. It would be impossible to imagine Abraham Lincoln allowing a General William Westmoreland to remain in command for four years of ineffectiveness. The military never really gave Johnson any options above merely more of the same: more bombing, more firepower and more soldiers. Indeed the sheer size of the American forces delayed the transition of the indigenous South Vietnamese Army from a petty bureaucratic impotent institution into a force that could effectively defend South Vietnam with only modest US assistance. Johnson should have reassigned generals and commanders until he found a set that demonstrated a successful strategy for victory, if indeed such a strategy existed.
Cohen argues that Vietnam does not make the case for letting generals run the war. Rather Vietnam is a classic example of a debacle that can follow inadequate civilian direction of the military. As President George Bush contemplates war with Iraq, he should not be so foolish as to employ the dogs of war without retaining some control over their leashes. In many ways, how and when to attack Iraq has important political imports. The responsibility to make these decisions resides with the president.
The Irrelevance and Decline of France and Germany
Sunday, January 26th, 2003Many Islamic countries have managed to hide their economic and political failures by blaming the more prosperous West, and especially the United States as Satanic. Of course, the supreme irony for these religious zealots is that Allah (within the narrow vision of these zealots) would seem to be economically rewarding these same blasphemous Western cultures. Even resource-wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia are having difficulty maintaining the extravagant lifestyle of the ruling families, so it permits a simmering militant strain of Islam to prosper.
Now Europe follows this sad example. For the last three decades, Europeans have chosen the path of growing government control of the economy. They, are now realizing that despite a greater population, they are being economically outpaced by Americans. The economic dynamism of the United States has resulted in 57 million new jobs here, while collectively the members of the European Union have managed to create an anemic 5 million since 1970.
European politicians sometimes exploit the consequent political unrest by diverting anger to the United States. Last year, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder faced with a plummeting economy and popularity, ran for re-election on a patronizingly anti-American platform. It is easier to feel morally superior to Americans, than it is to come to grips with German economic inadequacy and self-imposed impotence.
Arrogant European condescension manifests itself in other petty little ways. Two years ago, Europeans voted secretly to replace the United States on the United Nations Human Rights Commission with the Sudan. It seems some of the European governments are willing to welcome a country where slavery still persists to a Human Rights Commission so long as it will poke a stick in America’s eye. Under different circumstances, this behavior would be a silly annoyance. We now live in serious times.
After the United States was attacked on September 11, a new sense of urgency to deal with terrorism and its sources has swept the United States, less so in Europe. Despite initial feelings of sympathy for the United States, a recent poll suggests that two-thirds of European elites smugly feel that it is “good for Americans to feel vulnerable.” Americans do not agree.
In a matter of weeks after September 11, the United States, with only 400 soldiers on the ground, managed to end the sanctuary that the Taliban government of Afghanistan was offering Al Qaeda terrorists. The Europeans managed to provide some marginal military aid in this response, but only at the cost of deliberately and demonstrably false accusations that the United States was causing massive civilian casualties and engaged in the wholesale torture of prisoners. In reality, the United States response in Afghanistan liberated the Afghans from a repressive regime and prevented winter starvation.
We now turn our attention to a long festering threat. Since their defeat at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the Iraqis, by everyone’s admission, has been violating the terms of the cease-fire agreement. They are seeking to accumulate weapons of mass destruction, which they are willing to use against their own people. They are in league with the terrorist underworld, as they provide money and other support to the families of homicide bombers that deliberately kill innocents in Israel. These latter efforts are in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which required Iraq “not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory.”
This fall, the United States managed to persuade a reluctant world and Europe that Iraq’s non-compliance with relevant UN resolutions undermined the effectiveness and authority of the UN. This same reluctance to act against Fascism doomed the League of Nations. Last fall the Security Council agree 15-0 that “Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations.”
It now seems that at least France and Germany did not really mean what they said. They now lambaste the United States for not showing more patience with the UN inspectors in Iraq. This argument is particularly disingenuous because were it not for the United States willingness to use military force, there would be no inspectors in Iraq. It was not the appearance of the French Air Force or the German Army on the horizon that compelled Iraq to allow in the beloved inspectors.
It is clear now that the French and the Germans never meant to compel compliance. The UN resolutions were just a delaying tactic to buy time for Iraq in the hopes that American resolve would wither. The French and the Germans are not willing to face their clear obligations under the November resolution. They are willing to live with a rapidly re-arming Iraq, especially since the likely targets will not be Europeans, but Israelis or Americans. Or perhaps, in their jealous pique with Americans, they are willing to weigh in on the side of Isalmo-facists as long as they are anti-American. You might have thought that their collective experience living under Fascist regimes, they would harbor particular antipathy to such regimes.
In the November resolution, the UN agreed that, “false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution … shall constitute further material breach.” Even the softheaded UN inspector Hans Blix has admitted to the Security Council that Iraq has not accounted for 20,000 liters of anthrax, 1.5 tons of VX nerve gas, biological growth media, or Scud missiles Iraq is not allowed to possess.
It now seems likely that the United Nations Security Council under the veto of the French will not authorize the use of force against Iraq to enforce the November resolution. It also seems likely that the US will do so nonetheless. The result will be an ironically strengthened UN with its resolution enforced, but it would weaken France and Germany. They will sink into political irrelevance much as their collective economic importance continues its decades-old decline.
When Theodore Roosevelt delivered the words in the citation above, the American Century was just beginning. Roosevelt’s words reflected the American ethos of vigor and strength. The United States began the century as a modest economic and military power with enormous potential. Mighty European governments spent the century devouring each other, sapping each other of not only economic energy but spiritual vigor and confidence. Unlike its European counterparts save Great Britain, the United States begins this century with the same governmental institutions in began the last century with. This is an important measure of the resilience of these institutions.
The United States begins this new century the dominant economic engine of the world and certainly its strongest military power. It is impossible to know for certain where in the registry of countries the United States will find itself at the end of the century. Perhaps by the sheer size of its population will make the 21st century the Chinese century. Unfortunately, Europe is a dying echo of his previous grandeur, a pleasant land of pleasant, quiet, and irrelevant people. It declines into self-indulgent middle age, comfortably sitting on the sidelines. How sad.
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