Americans and War: Crisis and Action

AMERICANS AND WAR: CRISIS AND ACTION Vincent Davis fundamental fact seems relatively clear: Americans do not like to fight in wars, especially and most particularly in ground forces. Indeed, Americans have strongly—sometimes even violently—resisted participation in combat. The level of this avoidance has typically been in direct proportion to the perceived risk that service in the armed forces— even in peacetime—could lead to combat assignments. The basic evidence supporting this broad generalization can be found in most treatments of American military history.1 Any of a variety of books dealing with this subject would tend to reveal the following pervasive patterns: —A reluctance by American political leaders, responding to typical public opinion, to involve the nation in war in the first place. —A reluctance by these political leaders to compel Americans to serve in the armed forces once the nation is involved in war. —Persistent efforts in public policy to utilize machines in lieu of people in the American armed forces. 1 . Two useful overall surveys of American military history are Walter Mills, Arms and Men: A Study in American Military History (New York: Putnam, 1956); and T. Harry Williams, Americans at War: The Development of the American Military System (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960). One among many useful books on the Vietnam War is George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 (New York: Wiley, 1979). Vincent Davis is director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce and Patterson Professor at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. His publications include The Post-Imperial Presidency (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Press, 1980) and "Weakened Presidency, Weakened Congress, and U.S. Foreign/Defense Policy Decisionmaking: The Carter-Reagan Era" (forthcoming ). 25 26 SAIS REVIEW —The ineffectiveness of many if not most techniques to coax substantial numbers of Americans to serve in the armed forces in general, in wars in particular, and in ground combat forces most particularly. —The great efforts by many if not most Americans, once they find themselves at war and especially in ground combat, to get out of these circumstances as quickly as possible—indeed, in some historical cases, regardless of the consequences for the war effort. —The massive unpopularity of most American wars and warlike situations that have lasted for longer than about a year, or two years at most, even when those efforts appeared headed toward something resembling a clear-cut "victory." —Rapid demobilization, particularly for the army, occasionally resembling unilateral disarmament, after all American wars. The result has been that American military leaders have been left with virtually no troops at key points in several wars. This pattern was set in the Revolutionary War when Gen. George Washington and many of his top officers were often compelled to pit small numbers of ill-equipped and hungry troops against far larger and well-supported British forces. The pattern included badly divided public opinion. Many colonists who favored the revolutionary cause were not willing to make any sacrifices for it—indeed, more than a few saw it as an opportunity for warprofiteering . The Continental Congress helped to establish the prevailing pattern by providing consistently late and niggardly support for General Washington's armies. All aspects of this overall pattern were repeated in the War of 1812, when the American level of unpreparedness resulted in the burning of the White House. The pattern continued during the Mexican War, when in 1847 Gen. Winfield Scott lost most of his troops because they decided not to renew their enlistments—just as Scott and his army were poised for the final triumphant attack on Mexico City. In the Civil War, calls for volunteers never generated anywhere close to an adequate number, but Congress did not manage to pass a conscription bill until the final year when the "dwindling response to the calls for volunteers was extremely alarming."2 Still, this legislation led to major riots among unwilling draftees, especially in New York City, even though provisions in the law permitted young men from affluent circumstances to buy their way out of military duty by contributing specified sums of money in lieu of their personal services. The Spanish-American War...