Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (review)

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. By Robert A. Divine. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000; pp. 122. $29.95.

In this very short book, Professor Robert Divine attempts to explain the unusual and ambiguous attitudes Americans have concerning the use of force. Basically, Divine argues, Americans have never viewed the use of force as an extension of politics by other means. Rather, Americans see war as an aberration and an extraordinary process in which the normal calculus of costs and benefits do not apply. Consequently, Americans have been reluctant to get involved in wars that may be appropriate to our national interests, we adopt unrealistic and inappropriate war aims when we do get involved, and we tend to end wars at the wrong moment, leaving festering sores that lead to further instability and military involvement.

This is a classic statement of realpolitik and as such is vulnerable to some classic critiques. Realpolitik, as attractive as it sounds, is never as useful in practice as it is in the abstract. For example, as Professor Divine points out, the United States has rarely been the overt aggressor in wars, preferring instead to be drawn into wars by the actions of others. This may put the United States at a short-term disadvantage of the kind it faced in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless, it is the nature (and the strength) of democracy that policies pursued with the unambiguous support of the people are more likely to meet with success. For example, did President Roosevelt have any choice but to wait for the Japanese to aggress and the Germans to declare war in order to ensure full American popular support for the Second World War?

As far as war aims are concerned, it may be necessary to adjust war aims to the contingencies of the moment, but have we any evidence that determining war aims in another way would yield a better result? For example, had the United States and the British made a drive on Berlin in order to force the Germans to surrender before the Soviet Union had occupied Eastern Europe, would the Cold War have been averted? Besides the fact that such an act would have been against the express recommendation of General Eisenhower (who may have been primarily concerned about the military recklessness of such a maneuver), it is not clear that the result would have been a free and democratic Eastern Europe or a more docile Soviet Union. After all, during the war much of Eastern Europe was dominated by puppet (and not so puppet) fascist regimes that were full and active participants in the Nazi war against the Soviet Union and in the Holocaust. An independent Eastern Europe as a traditional corridor for the invasion of Russia would still have been a threat to the Soviet Union.

Finally, with the notable exceptions of the Vietnam War and the War of 1812, American wars end when American goals are met. The results of these wars are often incomplete—a stalemate in Korea or the continuation of the regime of Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, the same considerations that go into the decision to go to war must also go into the decision to end a war. Maybe President Bush made a mistake by ending the war in the Persian Gulf a day or two early. But this is not symptomatic of a greater flaw in American foreign policy decision making. Invading and occupying Iraq was never a viable option for the United States. And a case can also be made for the unconditional surrender demands made at the end of the Civil War or the war against Japan. Would American occupiers in the aftermath of those wars have received the same level of cooperation and resignation of the conquered had the causes against which the Americans fought not been so utterly annihilated? Allowing the Japanese the face-saving gesture of allowing the emperor to remain on the...