The Good Sense of the American People:
Via the Dawn Patrol, a survey from the RAND Corporation on civilian support for the war. If the survey is accurate, American civilian thought about warfighting is generally on a higher level than I had realized.
Americans support the global war on terror because they believe the United States has “important stakes” in the conflict, and will support other military actions overseas as well if they believe important stakes are involved[.]
“The main implication for the Army,” concludes the report, “is that Americans have proved themselves far more willing to use ground troops — to put boots on the ground — and to accept casualties in operations conducted under the global war on terror than in any of the military operations” during the 1990s.
Americans' opinions went on a war footing following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, often matching levels of support for military action seen during World War II, according to the study that synthesizes findings from about 100 public opinion surveys.
“The perceived importance of the stakes was the key belief predicting support for the operation,” said RAND analyst Eric Larson, the report's lead author.
If true, that undermines an argument that we've begun to hear from many places: that the US is tapped out by Iraq.
There are two parts to this argument: that the US has no more physical resources on which to draw, and that American public support is drained. Apparently, the latter is not true. As to the former, it is only partly true. An additional conflict of the type in Iraq and Afghanistan could only be pursued if it were contiguous with current operations and could draw on existing logistics -- if we decided to expand our nation building to include Syria, say. But I don't think we could even consider a third nation building exercise, such as in North Korea.
On the other hand, a more traditional military approach does not require occupation and rebuilding. A conflict with North Korea, for example, could be limited to destroying their military and infrastructure, leaving occupation to the Chinese or South Koreans, depending on who had the will to do it. One or both would have to find the will, since they couldn't afford to have a vortex on their northern border. For a conflict of this type, American public support and American military might are sufficient.
This is important even if -- especially if -- our goal is to avoid a military conflict. So long as potential enemies understand that we have both the power and the will to smite them, they will be less likely to insist on a conflict. Enemies push for wars they think they can win.
But there is more in the study to cite. Again, if it is true it reflects not a passing moment of sentiment, but a deeply-rooted good sense about military adventures:
The RAND analysis also shows that Americans weren't big fans of the peace missions conducted during the 1990s, and they wanted these missions completed with as little cost as possible.
“None of the peace operations of the 1990s (Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo) were judged particularly important by most members of the public, and avoidance of casualties turned out to be a more important consideration than avoidance of defeat…,” according to the RAND study.
Only three or four of 10 Americans thought the stakes for the United States were important in Kosovo, Bosnia and Haiti, the RAND report says.
This reflects something important about the American people. This demonstrates that we are not engaged in "imperialist" ventures: Americans don't support military action regardless of context. Americans don't want to be drawn into anyone else's fights.
Again, this seems to me to be a measure of good sense. It counters an insight that has been picked up by the Marines who operate the Small Wars Center for Excellence, and incorporated into the draft of the new
Small Wars Manual [UPDATE: the site for the draft seems to be down; see below]:
The greatest and most significant danger we have in entering a small war is the potential for an asymmetry of wills. We must decide before embarking upon any small war whether we can withstand the pressures of our own impatience.
This suggests that it is not "American impatience" that is the danger, but a reasoned consideration by the public of the stakes. Maintaining the support for the Iraqi rebuilding requires making sure that the American public continues to view the stakes
for America as high.
This would seem to be a natural break on adventurism. If the political class can learn the lesson here, it will not be so ready to embark upon deployments without first testing whether the American public considers them to be worthwhile. Curiously, this is what the Marines are advocating -- the "we" in "we must decide before embarking" is not the military, but the political class. The military does not decide what wars to fight. The Marines are requesting of the politicians that they not send Marines to fight on missions the public will not support. The Marines merely misunderstood
why the public might not support a mission.
This is not to say that there were not good things to be accomplished in Mogadishu, say; it is only to say that the harm caused by an early retreat was greater than the good we hoped to accomplish. We have often heard how much al Qaeda, and others, were influenced by the quick American retreat from Somalia. We must avoid such things in the future.
It seems to me that the best way to test this proposition up front would be for a return to the Congressional duty of declaring war. Interestingly, in the case of Iraq we almost had one -- the Congressional resolution approving the use of force, which drew support in Congress that was commensurate with its support among the populace. Even some Senators with strong anti-war views voted in favor, because of the demands of their constituents.
One lesson that will have to be learned, and has not yet been learned, is whether or not support for the Iraqi rebuilding can be maintained over time. The resolution of this question should have strong implications for American warfighting.
Interestingly, those implications play out according to the policy preferences suggested by the last election. As will be recalled, Kerry's chief military advisor,
"Tony" McPeak, advocated what is called a "network centric" war: bombing Iraq, destroying its infrastructure and its military, reducing it to rubble, and then departing. The Bush administration proposed, and continues to propose, what is called a "fourth generation" model. The engagement with the Iraqis, the attempt to engage in counterinsurgency fighting and to change the society through development is characteristic of this model.
Both models have the potential for long term success in the GWOT. Contrary to a frequently stated line of thought, it is not the presence of unstable regions that breeds terrorists of the sort who are dangerous to Western society. It is the possession of material prosperity, in particular education, that allows groups like al Qaeda to have assets who can move freely in Western society. They must be able to speak English, understand the customs, hold passports, and travel freely. What turns these men into terrorists is the possession of material prosperity, combined with a lack of opportunity to influence the politics of their homes through nonviolent means.
The fourth generation model attempts to raise their societies the rest of the way, to democracy as well as relative prosperity. The network centric model attempts to return them to pure poverty, so that they are too poor to produce educated and mobile men capable of being a real threat to the internal structure of the West. From a purely utilitarian perspective, either method has the potential to be successful; and the second is a great deal easier and cheaper than the first.
The preference for the first method, then, must come from something other than utilitarian thinking. It must come, I think, from a moral preference. Moral preferences are very expensive in war. In a sustained conflict, they are normally abandoned: war has a way of reducing everything to utilitarian calculations.
Anti-war forces in America should be advised of this fact. Most of them are decent people, who simply detest violence, and who -- like the Quakers -- would rather suffer than strike.
They need to understand the sense of the American people, which is otherwise. If the antiwar movement succeeds in convincing Americans that Iraq's rebuilding is too expensive, it is not the case that Americans will not support future wars. They will support any future war in which they feel the stakes are high. Nor will the presence of an antiwar president in office, should one be elected, stop war: just as the Senate was forced to approve the resolution at a far higher rate than Senators' personal sentiments would allow, so the President too must be driven by the will of the people when it is expressed with clarity and unity.
What the people will not support, should Iraq's rebuilding fail, is future rebuilding efforts. The violence that the antiwar movement so detests can only become more naked and unmitigated as a result of their efforts. I do not think many of them truly supported, or understood, what McPeak was advocating. I suspect, if they understood, many would choose Bush's model as the lesser evil.
Lesser evils are usually the best you can manage in war. We are fortunate beyond words to be able to attempt to use ours to achieve some positive good. We can, for now, afford to act according to moral principles. Those who would wish us to do so would be well-advised not to undermine the public support that allows it. Indeed, a wise antiwar movement would focus its full attention on supporting those "good news" efforts, so that Americans would come to view them as an important and necessary part of the wars that they will, occasionally, support.
UPDATE: The Small Wars Center website appears to be down. Until the link to the draft copy is working again,
here and
here are two earlier Grim's Hall posts about it. It's not quite as good as having the whole source, but it's the best I can do while the main site is down.
