Keep Right — Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
Throughout our history, Americans have fought both popular and unpopular wars. Success has always depended upon public support. American resolve matters as we struggle to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, as the Chinese Communists edge closer to invading Taiwan, and as Russia intensifies its threats against a weak and divided Europe.
Since the Revolutionary War, anti-war activists have tried to persuade a critical mass of Americans that our survival did not depend upon victory in the war-of-the-moment. They argued that if triumph was not essential for our survival, we ought not to wage war.
Superficially, such a sentiment seems self-evident. Since the War of 1812, the American homeland has seemed functionally invulnerable to foreign conquest. The ongoing existence of the Union has not been inarguably at risk since our Civil War. While since the 1950s we have been menaced by nuclear annihilation, the thought of the United States being forced to live under enemy rule has seemed beyond the realm of possibility.
Anti-war activists ask why young Americans should die in a cause in which they have no direct stake. While I personally disagree with most anti-war positions, past and present, this is more than a fair question. It is nothing less than the moral obligation of anyone who leads us into war to explain clearly and persuasively why such risk is essential to our national well-being. No American family should ever risk losing a loved one in combat without being offered a reasonable justification.
Explanations were accepted by the critical mass of Americans in our Revolution, Civil War, First World War, and Second World War. Because steady popular support sustained our war effort in moments of defeat and victory, the United States prevailed.
The Spanish-American War and Persian Gulf War were both so brief and so triumphal that popular support was easily given.
Certainly, our Presidents during the Indian Wars, the Banana Wars, the Korean War, the Viet-Nam War, and the Global War on Terror did their utmost to explain why we had no choice except to fight and win. Despite these efforts, these wars were not well supported by the American people. Results of this public disaffection brought unsatisfactory outcomes, including defeats in Viet-Nam and Afghanistan.
One common factor that our least popular wars all have in common is that they were and are being fought while most American civilians live as if we were a nation at peace. Unless one personally knows a service member or a casualty, there is no ongoing sense of public urgency calling for the supreme dedication of every American until our efforts finally earn victory.
Expanding our frontiers, stabilizing our hemisphere, and being (like-it-or-not) the Free World’s policeman are all beneficial and even necessary. Yet, because these low-grade and mid-grade struggles do not have to unduly disturb most civilian routine, our leaders are tempted to shield the public from the trauma and desperation that is endemic to all war.
This is a trap! American leaders can and should not try to reap the political rewards of peace and prosperity in times of war.
This pretense of peace in times of war tries to turn warfare into a routine background activity. Americans have never viewed war in this way.
The United States is not Rome. It is not even the British Empire. At our heart, our Republic is poorly suited to the duties of being the stabilizing dominant empire. Garrisoning unstable frontiers, sending forces to quell disturbances, and maintaining the armed forces capable of keeping the peace are all duties of the hegemonic power.
Such imperial policy requires a broad willingness on the part of the public to shoulder these burdens. For the citizens of a self-consciously imperial power like England in the 1800’s, the benefits of being the rulers of a world empire outweighed the costs.
Americans are different. We want US servicemen to be sent into battle only when events are so fraught that only a life-or-death struggle can resolve it. The practices of limited war that are so essential to any fulcrum world power simply do not harmonize with the American psyche.
For most Americans, total war is far more reasonable than limited war. Crises that threaten the U.S.’s survival are rare. In such dire circumstances, we should allow our military to employ unrestrained violence in pursuit of a decisive victory. This is total war.
This is why the nuanced interactions of diplomacy, espionage, and limits on combat that typified Korea, Viet-Nam, and the Global War on Terror are so fundamentally offensive to most Americans. We want absolute victory on those rare occasions when we need to fight.
This understandable American tendency regarding warfare has been increasingly exploited by our nation’s enemies. If they can complicate matters beyond the simple pursuit of battlefield victory, and if they can prolong the war while managing to get US forces to enforce limits on their own troops’ rules of engagement, they can outlast us.
This is why we should never be peacekeepers. Instead, American forces should be exclusively used to as assault forces to decisively win those fights necessary to keep the peace on our terms.
In Iran, we should use overwhelming force to destroy the IRGC and overthrow the government of the Islamic Republic. Regarding Taiwan, we should make it plain that any Communist attack will result in a full scale war that will (whatever else the outcome) result in the fall of Communism within China. In Europe, that depends on whether the European Union will return to a genuine alliance with the United States. If they do, ditto to what I said about China. If not, they are on their own.
For most Americans, all forms of limited war cost irreplaceable lives in a cause unworthy of such sacrifice. For us, war should be rare and brief, because when we fight it we should do so without restraint. Fighting us should be so terrifying that any sane person would move heaven and Earth to avoid becoming our enemy in war. This reality is a genuine challenge to American pretensions to lead the Free World and keep the peace.
