How to lose support for a war

Clearly, one of the gravest decisions that a nation or a head of state can make is the decision to go to war. The decision will irrevocably commit the resources of the nation, the lives of its soldiers, and its reputation in the world for years or generations to come.

In the old days it was much easier. The Pharaoh was not only the head of state; he was a god. Doubt over the justice or prudence of a war wasn’t merely a debate. It wasn’t just a crime; it was blasphemy, it was opposing the order of the universe.

Even in the earliest days of real nation-states when the sovereign made the decision to go to war that was that. Pitting your judgment against that of Le Roi Soleil was, again, blasphemy, opposition to the anointed of God.

Today, now, in the United States the president must engage and hold the support of the people in order to wage war successfully. As withdrawal from Iraq with the land in upheaval and the fate of the entire region in question becomes all but a foregone conclusion for both Democrats and Republicans, whatever you think of the conduct of the war from a military standpoint I think there can be little doubt that engaging and maintaining political support for the war has been very, very poor—practically a textbook analysis of how to lose the support of the American people, group by group.

The remainder of this post will consider the various interests which have traditionally influenced American foreign policy, examining how the support of each has been taxed or lost.

Jeffersonians*

There was never much hope of gaining the support of the Jeffersonians. They are wary of foreign involvements of any kind and skeptical by nature. The Jeffersonians opposed the war in Iraq from the outset and haven’t changed their minds over the last three years. Example: William F. Buckley.

Hamiltonians

If any war, however well fought or however just the cause, goes on long enough it will make Hamiltonians nervous. They will be concerned about the cost, how it will be paid for, the war’s impact on business. Besides, Hamiltonians commonly consider war a waste, particularly in an era of globalization. War is about killing people (potential customers or workers) and breaking their stuff (prospective tradegoods). Neither is good for business.

The support of Hamiltonians can sometimes be enlisted by offering lucrative military or reconstruction contracts. Enormous as the contracts on ths war have been they haven’t been large enough, they haven’t been distributed widely enough, and they’re too risky to interest the Hamiltonians. Besides, we haven’t been able to get Iraqi oil fully back online. Example: James A. Baker

Wilsonians

At the outset the war in Iraq was a Wilsonian war (these are the much-maligned neocons). It had everything that a missionary could want: bringing liberal democracy to a benighted people who had suffered under the yoke of oppression (and waging fourth generation warfare by getting into the decision-making processes of the enemy in the Middle East while they were at it).

The knees of the Wilsonians have become very, very wobbly as the length of the war has drawn on. First, there were the revelations of Abu Ghraib. That called into question the sanctity of the war. This has been followed by a drip, drip, drip of other scandals.

And as the war drew on the casualties mounted (that, BTW, is what casualties will do if they aren’t halted completely). Was the goal worth the cost?

Finally, liberal democracy has been much, much harder to install in Iraq than I suspect was believed. What has actually happened is that electoral processes have installed the representatives of the sectarian militias as the legitimate government of Iraq. Example: Andrew Sullivan

Jacksonians

In her history America has nevered entered, waged, or won a war without the support of her native Jacksonians. Jacksonians comprise much of our military.

Jacksonians typically do not believe in limited warfare. They believe that the enemy’s morale is a legitimate target of war. If you suggest that the objectives in going to war can’t be achieved without limited warfare, a Jacksonian will typically consider you foolish, cowardly, or, worse, a traitor.

The first step in losing the support of Jacksonians is that they were restrained. Examples of this include the failure to enter Fallujah the first time around and most recently in suspending the search for the missing U. S. soldier at the request of the Iraqi government. These actions make Jacksonians question whether the civilian leadership is serious in the prosecution of the war.

Being denied a clear victory has also diminished the support of Jacksonians. This has not been a war of unconditional surrender, indeed, there has been no formal surrender at all—there’s no one to offer such a surrender. This has called into question whether victory is possible.

Finally, the slow, steady rise in casualties has made Jacksonians wonder whether their young men and women have been giving their lives to no purpose.

Conclusion

A good deal of the dwindling of support on the part of all of these interests has been inevitable. It’s been obvious from the very start that the war in Iraq would be lengthy and that very length means that costs in lives and money will rise and the purity of the endeavor would be tarnished.

America is the land of instant dinners, 24 hour news, and every drama being resolved in an hour. Maintaining support for a war likely to go on for a generation in that context requires that it be cultivated from the start, continuously and consistently. That hasn’t happened.

I don’t believe that this means that America will fight fewer wars in the future or even be more reluctant to go to war.

I think it means that, increasingly, America’s wars will be fought from 30,000 feet, the objectives of these wars will be those that can be accomplished from 30,000 feet, and they will be concluded quickly.

There was little outcry over the large numbers of Iraqis who were certainly killed during the lengthy bombing that preceded Desert Storm. Nor was there much outrage about civilian casualties among the Serbs as a consequence of the bombing that ended Slobodan MiloÅ¡ević’s government.

I think that will be the paradigm for America’s future wars. People were killed; the war ended; the caravan moved on.

* I use these terms in the sense in which Walter Russell Mead does. For a brief description of what they mean see here.

19 comments… add one
  • I believe you, as far as your conclusion goes. Here’s the frightening part about that statement, and why I continue to believe we must stick to our current strategy in Iraq until we can leave, as someone put it, while not wearing body armor: what do you do when the threat is vast, and you are only willing to fight from 30000 feet? Let’s say that Iran comes so close to building a nuclear weapon that we are forced to attack Iran to stop it. If we aren’t willing to invade, and if lesser methods aren’t sufficient, the only alternative is to destroy Iran from the air, obliterating not just their nuclear infrastructure, but power, transportation, water, harbors and airports, and on and on and on. In other words, to take out a serious threat without invading means attacking in such a way as to impoverish, immiserate, and indirectly to slaughter by the millions through starvation and deprivation. All because we now see 3000 dead American soldiers as an unacceptably high price to prevent 3000000 dead foreigners.

    And if our will is so weak that we cannot even take this action, if we become limited to Kosovo-type bombing campaigns for fear of killing too many enemy civilians, then what? Then, in particular, what restraints would prevent an enemy willing to die from using a nuclear weapon against us, knowing that if we did engage, our intervention would not be sufficiently strong or sustained enough to destroy the enemy utterly? And if they did so, would we lash out or absorb the losses?

    I continue to believe that our options are victory or genocide. Ours or theirs.

  • I don’t see any other lesson that a future president could take, Jeff.

  • I must be a hybrid: a Wilsonian/Jacksonian. I bought the idealistic rationale for the war but assumed (hah!) that our leaders understood the difficulty of pulling it off and were prepared to do what had to be done.

    I don’t think we can or should be reduced to war from 30,000 feet. I think the problem is the specific conduct of this particular war by this adminsitration. Another time, another place, another bunch in charge, I think we’ll regain the ability to put boots on the ground.

    But right now, yes, we are going to be gun shy. And in any event we don’t have the men to invade Iran. So, as Jeff suggests, if we do expect to eliminate Iran as a threat, and lack the ground troops to do it, we’d be looking at an air campaign of staggering violence. Not “shock and awe” but “obliteration and extermination.” You have to kill a hell of a lot of people to ensure that the Iranian’s can’t fire anti-ship missiles into the gulf.

    A campaign of that type will be no more acceptable to the American people than another invasion. They aren’t going to allow cities to be burned to the ground as a pre-emptive measure against a nation that has not attacked us.

    If we mean to pursue a decisive military option against Iran in the light of Israel’s failure to stop Hezbollah missile firings I think it’s going to require an invasion and occupation and that’s going to mean a major build-up. I don’t think that’s possible in the current environment.

    Realistically we can pressure Iran from Kurdistan, or move to simple deterrence, or some combination of those two. Once again, we’ve been outplayed.

  • I, too, am a hybrid, MT. I consider myself a Jeffersonian/Jacksonian. Jeffersonians and Jacksonians are joined by two characteristics: patriotism and pessimism about the rest of the world. But where Jacksonians will happily go “abroad in search of monsters to destroy” Jeffersonians are more inclined to protect our shores.

    Wilsonians and Jacksonians share qualities of patriotism and activism. Otherwise, it’s not a particularly comfortable combination with Wilsonians being optimistic internationalists and Jacksonians being, generally, pessimistic nationalists.

    If we mean to pursue a decisive military option against Iran in the light of Israel’s failure to stop Hezbollah missile firings I think it’s going to require an invasion and occupation and that’s going to mean a major build-up. I don’t think that’s possible in the current environment.

    Complete agreement. BTW I suspect that Israelis and Americans are mutually hoping that the other will take Iran off their hands and both are likely to be disappointed.

  • Idealistic but pessimistic is probably about right for me. I think we have a moral obligation to do what we can for the world, but have very little expectation that it will work. Call it Sisyphusism: the belief that we need to roll the rock up that hill even if we know the dam thing will just roll back down again.

  • Actually, I have never seen much evidence that Americans are not willing to fight hard, take casualties, make prolonged efforts, etc. (Politicians get skittish long before most people do.) What I do think is that we have only a limited tolerance for fighting bloody wars whose point is unclear, and also that once a President loses our trust, it is very hard for him to get it back.

    Both in Vietnam and in Iraq, what really did war support in was two things: first, the sense that we’re just going on and on and on without any actual progress, and without any clear sense of what progress might be; and second, enough presidential statements about how things are going swimmingly, we’re turning a corner, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, etc., which bear no relation at all to reality, that people start screening out what the President says about the war as if it were some sort of white noise.

    I really don’t think this would in any way carry over to a war with a clear point, carried out competently by an honest President.

  • Hilzoy,

    If that is the case, we are truly doomed: Presidents are dishonest, bureaucracies are incompetent, and guerilla wars (such as the entire war against the jihadis) lack clear points that are easily explained and can be readily tracked by anyone with a map and a newspaper.

    Of course, we could always encourage the rise of the jihadis into a restored Caliphate, armed most likely with nuclear and chemical weapons and carrying out routine terror attacks on the scale of 9/11 (with plausible deniability, of course), then nuke them, perhaps after we or the Europeans lose a city or two. Sadly, as far as I can tell, that appears to be the strategy we are stumbling into.

  • Fletcher Christian Link

    One solution to this problem, which involves significant work and resource expenditure, but with side benefits:

    Get moving on asteroid and comet diversion, which will of course mean building a space infrastructure, and will deliver large amounts of resources including energy. And sometime in the future:

    “To the ruler of Saudi Arabia: Terribly sorry about this, but we seem to have had a slight accident. One of our crews has made a calculation error, and the upshot of it is that a 100-metre wide lump of meteoric iron, moving at cometary velocity, will strike Mecca at noon in the middle of Ramadan. Sorry, but we don’t have any ships correctly placed to correct the error. We suggest you send one of yours to do the job.”

    “What do you mean, you don’t have any?”

  • m. takhallus wrote: Realistically we can pressure Iran from Kurdistan, or move to simple deterrence, or some combination of those two. Once again, we’ve been outplayed.

    Turkey and Iran announced that the two nations have established a bilateral “commission” to combat “Kurdish” terrorism. The commission will deal with the PKK and the Iranian PEJAK (PKK in Iran). It is unclear exactly what the commission will do. However, Turkish officials reported that there are groups in Iran that have called for “joint operations” (ie, Turkish and Iranian troops operating together) against Kurdish separatists. Approximately four million Kurds live in Iran. Six million Kurds live in Iraq. From twelve to fifteen million (depending on the source of the figures) live in Turkey.

    Unclear? “Joint operations” would allow Turkey to somehow give Iran casus belli to directly interfere and destabilise the Kurdish peace in Iraq. The mullahs fear that the Kurds might present a viable threat to the complete dominance of Shiites in Iraq and are thus aiming to propel Iraq into a civil war whereby nobody is spared – since the Sunnis are being so efficiently cleansed away, why not the Kurds as well?

    If we are to move, we have to move fast.

    Having a clear idea of when the mission’s going to be over does help, but it can also backfire. Leaders may be more willing to commit themselves if they know when they can evacuate the area, but they may also choose to while the time away knowing that their forces will be pulled out even if the objective isn’t completed.

    I fear that the realists’ outlook on imminent withdrawal will not only serve to embolden our enemies, but also destroy the faith in our soldiers.

  • Rod Stanton Link

    I disagree. Had we sent 2 battleships to support 2 (two) divisions of Marines – as drawn up in Gen Zinni’s invasion plan when he was CENTCIOM head – we would have won the war no later than 04 and probably in late 03. Bush went to war like another liberal Texan LBJ; with no real intention of winning. He choose to prolong the war because it worked so well in the 02 elections and again in 04. But it backfired on him in 06. We could have and *should* have won this war years ago. It was lack of intent to win that kept victory our of our grasp.

  • Rod Stanton Link

    PS I generally do not care for Ol’ Hickory but as you have grouped us I guess in your mind I am a Jacksonian. I agree with Dougie “There is no Substitute for Victory!” I prefer to think of myself as a macAthrutian not a Jacksonian but as Jimmy Webb would say they are both Scotch-Americans.
    Me too.

  • Rod, I’ve frequently made the comparison between LBJ and GWB myself. I think they have much in common.

    The groups I’ve designated here are those of historian Walter Russell Mead.

  • Jo macDougal Link

    It seems that Bush in his heart never really supported the war. Had he wanted to win it would have been won years ago.
    The question I have is WHY? Why did he start a war he didnt want to win? Just to win elections? How cynical!

  • I don’t think that’s it, Jo. I think we need to take Bush exactly at his word. He really thought that the Iraqis wanted freedom and democracy more than they wanted to dominate each other. And that may still well be true of most of the Iraqis.

    Unfortunately, there are enough of those who want to kill our guys and dominate each other more than they do anything else and that there’s no good way to tell one group from the other makes the job very, very hard.

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