There’s been a growing thread of discussion of late in the national dialog to the effect that we shouldn’t go to war in Iraq because the military is against it. The term “chicken hawk” is being applied to folks who have not served in the military, or who served in cushy sideline jobs rather than in the front trenches, and who now want to make the decision to “send our boys to fight on foreign shores.” One gets the impression of cool, professional, wise military men, appalled and aghast at a bunch of draft-dodging yahoos and political operatives over in the White House.
This article does a fine job of tearing apart this particular line of reasoning.
The first variant is that the generals are all against war, and if they are, they must be right — particularly if their opponents are civilians who have not served. Does the same work in reverse? If the generals and admirals favored a preemptive attack on Cuba in 1962 — as many did — were they right then because they were flag officers? Of course not. The expertise of generals lies chiefly in the operational, not the strategic, sphere — how to wage war, not whether it should be fought.
There is no evidence that generals as a class make wiser national security policymakers than civilians. George C. Marshall, our greatest soldier statesman after George Washington, opposed shipping arms to Britain in 1940. His boss, Franklin D. Roosevelt, with nary a day in uniform, thought otherwise. Whose judgment looks better? A few soldiers become great diplomats or great politicians; others are abject failures. Most avoid the field altogether. Military careers spent in hierarchical, rule-bound, tightly controlled organizations are not necessarily the best preparation for accurately judging the fluid world of politics at home and abroad.
Good reading. It doesn’t answer whether a war on Iraq would be the right course or not, but it deals with side issue that can distraction from that question.
(via Instapundit)
I always find it interesting to hear non-military types argue about what the military leaders are thinking. One thing that never seems to be mentioned is the one major difference between our, the US military, versus other countries military schooling. We are taught that it’s better to loose things (planes, tanks, equipment, etc) than it is to loose a soldiers life. Working in NATO, I’ve had the experience of seeing that there are still a great deal of countries where military leaders would rather throw bodies at a problem than loose a plane. Iraq is a prime example. When hostilities started, one of the first things that happened was their air assets being flown out of country into Iran. Although it’s rambling, my point is this: I dont believe there is, nor should there be, any american general who wishes or wants to put his soldiers into battle. The use of force is the last resort. That’s a lesson taught in all military academies.
A good point, Adam. The issue, though, is, that being a given (and one would assume it to be true of civilian leadership, too, right? I mean, not even the crassest politician thinks body bags coming home is going to win votes), the question is the ability of military leadership to accurately gauge (a) the actual military outcome of a proposed conflict, and (b) how that compares to the desired policy outcome.
It may be pessimism, but I have doubts about the motives of civilian leadership, both liberal and conservative. I doubt they would hesitate to use troops if it furthered their political goals. I think that’s the real rub: the militaty leadership has to cave into the civilian leadership. If they will not, there are other military officers who can be voted the rank of General, who will perform the wishes of ruling party. It’s an oversimplification, but historically, military doctrine has been to use overwhelming force to gain victory. It’s when political agenda’s get in the way that the body bags pile up. Example, Iraq had a much larger, and better equipped, army than North Vietnam. The US military had much more leeway in applying overwhelming force in Iraq than we did in Vietnam. I strongly feel that we suffered much fewer casualties because we did not fact a protracted war with a confusing mess concerning rules of engagement.