The Tragedy of the American Military
The Tragedy of the American Military by James Fallows, The Atlantic
The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win…
Now the American military is exotic territory to most of the American public. As a comparison: A handful of Americans live on farms, but there are many more of them than serve in all branches of the military. (Well over 4 million people live on the country’s 2.1 million farms. The U.S. military has about 1.4 million people on active duty and another 850,000 in the reserves.) The other 310 million–plus Americans “honor” their stalwart farmers, but generally don’t know them. So too with the military. Many more young Americans will study abroad this year than will enlist in the military—nearly 300,000 students overseas, versus well under 200,000 new recruits. As a country, America has been at war nonstop for the past 13 years. As a public, it has not. A total of about 2.5 million Americans, roughly three-quarters of 1 percent, served in Iraq or Afghanistan at any point in the post-9/11 years, many of them more than once.
The difference between the earlier America that knew its military and the modern America that gazes admiringly at its heroes shows up sharply in changes in popular and media culture. While World War II was under way, its best-known chroniclers were the Scripps Howard reporter Ernie Pyle, who described the daily braveries and travails of the troops (until he was killed near the war’s end by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Iejima), and the Stars and Stripes cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who mocked the obtuseness of generals and their distance from the foxhole realities faced by his wisecracking GI characters, Willie and Joe…
Could some of this distance between “John Q. Public” and the US military be removed by instituting a variation of the draft where state residents are required to serve in their National Guard units for a defined period of time (as M-Day troopers) vs. serving in the active military? This would (1) allow more people to receive training and experience needed for actual war, (2) reduce or eliminate the need of ARNG unit commanders to focus on recruiting and retention and focus instead on training and readiness, and (3) allow us to reduce the active military even more knowing that a vast pool of reserve component troops (National Guard in this case) are available if needed….an increase in available numbers & general readiness while decreasing overall costs.
I’m not a fan of a “draft”. However, a draft at the state level might close the divide between citizen and soldier as well as give us a pool of trained personnel to draw from should the need arise…..and the need may not arise as often if more citizens are tied to their military.
I’ve lurked around this website on and off for years now, and as a civilian, I thought I’d register and share my perspective. Even as I write this though, I can’t help but feel anxious, and I know I may just delete it.
For all the valid complaints of civilians being distant from our troops, we aren’t exactly welcome in discussing these issues (unless your an elite, in which case you can be President with no military service). For one thing, “respecting” the troops is so expected, the pre packed lipservice has become something of a shibboleth. One false word and your an other who doesn’t care about our men and women in uniform. Its just too easy to get “othered” out of the conversation. And we are others.
Not having served, we don’t have direct experience. We aren’t experts. In our credentialist technocratic culture, if you’re not an expert, you’re nothing. We often try to get around this barrier to discussion by quoting experts, basically relying on appeals to authority, but when it comes to the military, the military hierarchy is the authority. Whatever choice they make are, by default, the right ones.
This makes it really hard for civilians to talk about the issues the article brings up. There are other barriers, to be sure (like our love affair with futurism- try talking planes without someone wondering how we can still be making manned aircraft, like a bunch of Luddites), but our opinions just aren’t welcome. You can’t even quote Sprey or Lind or Boyd in many circles without their good names being dragged through the mud, what chance do the rest if us have?
I tried suggesting a middle ground in the debate on women in combat roles not too long ago. I did so on reddit, in their military section (because I welcomed people who have experience pointing out any flaws in my thinking). To say my voice wasn’t welcome would be an understatement. It wasn’t that they said I was wrong that made me stop trying to engage, its that they refused to tell me why I was wrong. As a civilian, it was made clear, I didn’t deserve such answers, just thinking about such things made me an Armchair General, and the fact that I’d try and talk to them about it was offensive.
That may seem like a poor example, and maybe it is, but I feel the disconnect goes both ways, and as such (sadly) is self reinforcing. That’s sad enough when we can’t talk about practical matters, but its heart breaking to think of traumatized indivuals feeling isolated after war. We set off fire works on the 4th of July, while posting Facebook messages that “support” our troops, while the actual vets with PTSD have to deal with load, sudden explosions all around til 2 in the morning.
Painful to read. I heard recently that Guardsman structure their private lives around hopeful opportunities for deployment! Of course, there are many reasons for this, but it would have been unheard of in my Dad’s day. The appeal to integrate into the Praetorian elite, for all the vital and moral goodness it represents, in distinction from the economically impoverished and morally bankrupt society they come from is ominous. But you see it in the solidly middle class safe and secure lives built up inside the wire, for whole like-minded families. But I never saw Plato’s Republic as an ideal. So, I say these things with a tinge of concerned sarcasm.
Avoiding a “martial caste” at the same time as having a professional post-industrial force is going to be a tough one. In a sense it is the same problem as having a professional pre-industrial force. Without the need for mass the martial life becomes reserved for a selected few (often self-selected). The shared experiences, which are also apart from civil society and by an large can’t be replicated in civil society, will create a community. That community will develop interests. And if that community is foreign to the rest of society then it will be misunderstood and it will see its interests not well represented, creating incentive for push back and power hoarding. It’s interesting that even though in the Constitution the power of the commander in chief was given to the President, the power to raise and regulate the military rests with the Congress. An interesting approach the founders took to ensure the military didn’t stray too far from popular will and scrutiny.
One of the comments on the main post (Atlantic, James Fallows) stated we should bring back the draft to curb the dominance of Southern Evangelicals over our nation’s military. Religion is something that the article never touches. This caused me to consider that 78% of the population professes a Christian Faith. Why wouldn’t 78% of the population have some influence? I believe that our military, with its social engineering, has much to do with a divide. And, 78% of the population feels they have limited influence. Admiral Mullins stated “I would sacrifice some of that excellence and readiness to make sure that we stay close to the American people.” When the issues of gays and gay marriage are introduced into service, the military will not stay close to the majority of the American people and are out of touch. The military will retrain 78% and require that group to tolerate the practices of 2%. Those who would not adjust to the training, which is opposed to their religious values, have no future in our military. This is also the case for those who would oppose women in combat units. This is a purge. When older veterans and a majority of the population will not encourage their sons and daughters to serve, our military gets a different type of man or woman. It appears that our senior leaders would like most to go to church, but after that, just be quiet.
If the Editors of the SWJ would like, I’ll spend some time digging up the polling on “trustworthiness”, “reliability”, and etc. of the US Public vis a vis all the various Public Institutions that make up the U.S. Or you, unlike the editors of The Atlantic, could simply have your fact checkers look up those same polls and data themselves.
What you’ll find is that the U.S. military is overwhelmingly considered the most respected and trustworthy Public Institution in America, and has the highest Public approval rating by a huge margin.
Are there problems within the US Military? Of course. Would the brass like to broaden it’s recruit pool, especially for Officers, to include a number of regions within the US that are not well represented (or AS well represented) as is considered ideal? Of course. But all things given, The Atlantic’s readers might consider the US military from Mars… as their readership demographic is from Metrosexual Venus, but it’s editorial bias isn’t something to lose sleep over.
In the last several years I’ve been undertaking a gig that’s given me a much greater insight into the grassroots US military community (American Legion Posts are in just about every County in America)… The editors of The Atlantic and their serious readers, should worry MORE about what the guys (and gals) at the Legion Posts think of THEM, than vice versa.
Si Vis Pacem para Bellum.
Sincerely,
A. Scott Crawford