"Permanent War for Permanent Peace:" American Grand Strategy since World War II

Historically Speaking November 200 1 Andrew J. Bacevich "Permanent War for Permanent Peace:" American Grand Strategy since World War Il¦ his widely praised appearI ^ -^ ance before a joint session I I I of Congress on September M M JL 20, 2001, George W. Bush put to rest any lingering doubts about the legitimacy of his presidency. After months during which it had constituted a battle cry of sorts, "Florida" reverted to being merely a state. Speaking with confidence, conviction, and surprising eloquence, Bush reassured Americans that their commander-in-chief was up to the task at hand: they could count on him to see the nation through the crisis that had arrived nine days earlier with such awful and terrifying suddenness. To the extent that leadership contains elements of performance art, this particular performance was nothing short of masterful , delighting the president's supporters and silencing, at least for a time, his critics. The moment had seemingly found the man. Yet however much the atmospherics surrounding such an occasion matter—and they matter a great deal—the historian's attention is necessarily drawn elsewhere. Long after passions have cooled and anxieties have eased, the words remain, retaining the potential to affect subsequent events in ways large or small. What did the president actually say? What principles did he enunciate? From which sources did he (or his speechwriters) draw the phrases that he spoke and the aspirations or sentiments that they signified ? What unstated assumptions lurked behind? Looking beyond the crisis of the moment, what does this particular rendering of America's relationship to the world beyond its borders portend for the future? In this case, more than in most others, those questions may well matter. Not since the Cold War ended over a decade ago has an American statesman offered an explanation of foreign policy principles and priorities that enjoyed a half-life longer than a couple ofnews cycles. Bush's father during his single term in office and Bill Clinton over the course of eight years issued countless pronouncements touching on this or that aspect of U.S. diplomacy or security policy. None achieved anything even remotely approaching immortality. (George H. W. Bush's "This will not stand"—uttered in response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990— might have come close. But given the unsatisfactory conclusion of the Persian Gulf War and its frustrating aftermath— with Bush's nemesis evincing a Castro-like knack for diddling successive administrations —the rhetorical flourish that a decade ago sounded brave reads in retrospect like warmed-over Churchill). George W. Bush's speech outlining his war on terrorism may prove to be the exception. It qualifies as the first foreign policy statement of the post-Cold War era with a chance of taking its place alongside Washington's farewell, Monroe's doctrine, Roosevelt's corollary, and Wilson's fourteen points among the sacred texts of American statecraft. Or perhaps a more apt comparison might be to another momentous speech before a joint session of Congress, delivered by Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947. A looming crisis in a part of the world that had only infrequently commanded U.S. attention prompted President Truman to appear before Congress. A faltering British Empire had just announced that it could no longer afford to support Greece, wracked by civil war and deemed acutely vulnerable to communist takeover. Britain's withdrawal would leave a power vacuum in southeastern Europe and the Near East, with potentially disastrous strategic consequences. Filling that vacu- November 200 1 Historically Speaking um, in Truman's judgment, required immediate and decisive American action. In short, Truman came to the Capitol not to promulgate some grand manifesto but simply to persuade Congress that the United States should shoulder the burden that Britain had laid down by providing aid to shore up the beleaguered governments of Greece and of neighboring Turkey. But Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a recent convert from isolationism (and thus presumed to possess special insights into the isolationist psyche) had cautioned Truman mat enlisting the support ofskeptical and tightfisted legislators would require that the president first "scare hell out of the American people."Truman took Vandenberg's counsel to...