At periodic intervals, the American body politic has shown a marked
susceptibility to messianic fevers. Whenever an especially acute attack
occurs, a sort of delirium ensues, manifesting itself in delusions of
grandeur and demented behavior.
By the time the condition passes and a semblance of health is
restored, recollection of what occurred during the illness tends to be
hazy. What happened? How’d we get here? Most Americans prefer not to
know. No sense dwelling on what’s behind us. Feeling much better
now! Thanks!
Gripped by such a fever in 1898, Americans evinced an irrepressible
impulse to liberate oppressed Cubans. By the time they’d returned to
their senses, having acquired various parcels of real estate between
Puerto Rico and the Philippines, no one could quite explain what had
happened or why. (The Cubans meanwhile had merely exchanged one set of
overseers for another.)
In 1917, the fever suddenly returned. Amid wild ravings about waging
a war to end war, Americans lurched off to France. This time the
affliction passed quickly, although the course of treatment proved
painful: confinement to the charnel house of the Western Front, followed
by bitter medicine administered at Versailles.
The 1960s brought another bout (and so yet more disappointment). An
overwhelming urge to pay any price, bear any burden landed Americans in
Vietnam. The fall of Saigon in 1975 seemed, for a brief interval, to
inoculate the body politic against any further recurrence. Yet the
salutary effects of this “Vietnam syndrome” proved fleeting. By the
time the Cold War ended, Americans were running another temperature,
their self-regard reaching impressive new heights. Out of Washington
came all sorts of embarrassing gibberish about permanent global
supremacy and history’s purpose finding fulfillment in the American way
of life.
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, War Fever Subsides in Washington
Imagine yourself in a typical "Twilight Zone" episode.
You’ve been tossing and turning in delirium for some time and now, to
your astonishment, you wake up to find yourself in an almost
unrecognizable world. Your country, the former “sole superpower” on
planet Earth, is in domestic gridlock, a financial hole, and can’t win a
war anywhere anytime. The United States is looking strangely like
what a past American president once called “a pitiful, helpless giant.” The Democratic peace president is presiding over numerous wars and sending American planes and pilotless drones off to bomb and missile countries you didn’t even know existed, and yet when he speaks to the world, when he tells other countries and other leaders what they “must” do, no one seems to be listening.
Befuddlingly enough, a number of the politicians who were war hawks
not so long ago are now demanding that funding for American wars be cut
off or that American troops be brought home at a faster pace; some are even suggesting
that the Pentagon budget should be cut. The ranks of the miniscule
antiwar camp in Washington have swelled remarkably and with an array of
unexpected faces. The usual political alliances seem to be cracking open. And above all, though you can see that America’s wars are likely to grind on
haplessly for years, it’s also increasingly evident that once familiar
political ground is shifting uneasily, and that something is happening
here, even if you don’t know what it is. (Do you, Mr. Jones?)
This being our state today, TomDispatch has taken the prudent step of
calling in the doctor. So today, Andrew Bacevich, author most
recently of the bestselling Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War,
takes America’s temperature, prescribing rest and a lot less activity
abroad in hopes that the patient will actually recover. (To catch
Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Bacevich
discusses voices of dissent within the military, click here, or download it to your iPod here.) Tom
On the Mend?
America Comes to Its Senses
by Andrew J. Bacevich
Give Me Fever
Then came 9/11 and the fever simply soared off the charts. The
messiah-nation was really pissed and was going to fix things once and
for all.
Nearly 10 years have passed since Washington set out to redeem the
Greater Middle East. The crusades have not gone especially well. In
fact, in the pursuit of its saving mission, the American messiah has
pretty much worn itself out.
Today, the post-9/11 fever finally shows signs of abating. The
evidence is partial and preliminary. The sickness has by no means
passed. Oddly, it lingers most strongly in the Obama White House, of
all places, where a keenness to express American ideals by dropping
bombs seems strangely undiminished.
Yet despite the urges of some in the Obama administration, after
nearly a decade of self-destructive flailing about, American recovery
has become a distinct possibility. Here’s some of the evidence:
In Washington, it’s no longer considered a sin to question American
omnipotence. Take the case of Robert Gates. The outgoing secretary of
defense may well be the one senior U.S. official of the past decade to
leave office with his reputation not only intact, but actually
enhanced. (Note to President Obama: think about naming an aircraft
carrier after the guy). Yet along with restoring a modicum of
competence and accountability to the Pentagon, the Gates legacy is
likely to be found in his willingness -- however belated -- to
acknowledge the limits of American power.
That the United States should avoid wars except when absolutely
necessary no longer connotes incipient isolationism. It is once again a
sign of common sense, with Gates a leading promoter. Modesty is
becoming respectable.
The Gates Doctrine
No one can charge Gates with being an isolationist or a national
security wimp. Neither is he a “declinist.” So when he says anyone
proposing another major land war in the Greater Middle East should “have
his head examined” -- citing the authority
of Douglas MacArthur, no less -- people take notice. Or more recently
there was this: "I've got a military that's exhausted," Gates remarked,
in one of those statements of the obvious too seldom heard from on
high. "Let's just finish the wars we're in and keep focused on that
instead of signing up for other wars of choice." Someone should etch
that into the outer walls of the Pentagon’s E-ring.
A half-dozen years ago, “wars of choice” were all the rage in Washington. No more. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Or consider the officer corps. There is no “military mind,” but
there are plenty of minds in the military and some numbers of them are
changing.
Evidence suggests that the officer corps itself is rethinking the
role of military power. Consider, for example, “Mr. Y,” author of A National Strategic Narrative, published
this spring to considerable acclaim by the Woodrow Wilson Center for
Scholars. The actual authors of this report are two military
professionals, one a navy captain, the other a Marine colonel.
What you won’t find in this document are jingoism, braggadocio,
chest-thumping, and calls for a bigger military budget. If there’s an
overarching theme, it’s pragmatism. Rather than the United States
imposing its will on the world, the authors want more attention paid to
the investment needed to rebuild at home.
The world is too big and complicated for any one nation to call the
shots, they insist. The effort to do so is self-defeating. “As
Americans,” Mr. Y writes, “we needn’t seek the world’s friendship or
proselytize the virtues of our society. Neither do we seek to bully,
intimidate, cajole, or persuade others to accept our unique values or to
share our national objectives. Rather, we will let others draw their
own conclusions based upon our actions… We will pursue our national
interests and let others pursue theirs...”
You might dismiss this as the idiosyncratic musing of two officers
who have spent too much time having their brains baked in the Iraqi or
Afghan sun. I don’t. What convinces me otherwise is the positive email
traffic that my own musings
about the misuse and abuse of American power elicit weekly from serving
officers. It’s no scientific sample, but the captains, majors, and
lieutenant colonels I hear from broadly agree with Mr. Y. They’ve had a
bellyful of twenty-first-century American war and are open to a real
debate over how to overhaul the nation’s basic approach to national
security.
Intelligence Where You Least Expect It
And finally, by gum, there is the United States Congress. Just when
that body appeared to have entered a permanent vegetative state, a
flickering of intelligent life has made its reappearance. Perhaps more
remarkably still, the signs are evident on both sides
of the aisle as Democrats and Republicans alike -- albeit for different
reasons -- are raising serious questions about the nation’s propensity
for multiple, open-ended wars.
Some members cite concerns for the Constitution and the abuse of
executive power. Others worry about the price tag. With Osama bin
Laden out of the picture, still others insist that it’s time to rethink
strategic priorities. No doubt partisan calculation or personal
ambition figures alongside matters of principle. They are, after all,
politicians.
Given what polls indicate
is a growing public unhappiness over the Afghan War, speaking out
against that war these days doesn’t exactly require political courage.
Still, the possibility of our legislators reasserting a role in deciding
whether or not a war actually serves the national interest -- rather
than simply rubberstamping appropriations and slinking away -- now
presents itself. God bless the United States Congress.
Granted, the case presented here falls well short of being conclusive. To judge by his announcement of
a barely-more-than-symbolic troop withdrawal from Afghanistan,
President Obama himself seems uncertain of where he stands. And
clogging the corridors of power or the think tanks and lobbying arenas
that surround them are plenty of folks still hankering to have a go at
Syria or Iran.
At the first signs of self-restraint, you can always count on the likes of Senator John McCain or the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal to decry (in McCain’s words)
an “isolationist-withdrawal-lack-of-knowledge-of-history attitude”
hell-bent on pulling up the drawbridge and having Americans turn their
backs on the world. In such quarters, fever is a permanent condition
and it’s always 104 and rising. Yet it is a measure of just how quickly
things are changing that McCain himself, once deemed a source of
straight talk, now comes across as a mere crank.
In this way, nearly a decade after our most recent descent into madness, does the possibility of recovery finally beckon.
