This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Sometime in September 2007, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and historian William Astore wrote me at TomDispatch to complain about America's disastrous and already seemingly never-ending war in Iraq. The invasion of that country had taken place more than four years earlier and things had long gone from bad to worse. That very year, the administration of President George W. Bush had doubled down again in that country, sending in General David Petraeus and yet more troops for a "surge" -- the first but hardly last one of these years -- against Sunni rebels in that country. Astore noted one other strange thing: the generals in America's already visibly faltering wars were sporting remarkable chestfuls of ribbons (in the case of Petraeus, nine rows of them) that reminded him eerily of the look of the military chiefs of the failing Soviet Union before its implosion in 1991. Typically, when you examined photos of America's successful generals like Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Marshall of the World War II era, men who had genuinely overseen winning wars, they sported only one to three exceedingly modest rows of such decorations. It seemed to him to speak worlds about where the planet's most exceptional and indispensable nation was heading, militarily speaking -- and, once he pointed it out, it did to me, too.
So, in that September more than 12 years ago, I replied to his email suggesting that he might want to turn it into a piece for this website. He did so and more than 60 of his articles later, the U.S. is still involved in an Iraqi disaster (which has long since morphed into a strange set of other disasters, including the rise of ISIS, across the region) and America's generals still sport chestfuls of putative honors that now accompany losing wars across a far greater expanse of the planet. If you don't believe me, just check out a couple of recent photos of General Mark Milley, the latest chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chest is essentially nothing but an assemblage of ribbons of every imaginable sort. And then consider what Astore has to say about the same all-American disaster a score of years later. Tom
American Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet
The Many Abuses of Endless War
By William J. AstoreEver since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch, I've been arguing against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere. Unfortunately, it's no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined. And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?
Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.
So why do America's disastrous wars persist? I can think of many reasons, some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end "endless wars" but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet. The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace. And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration he's sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes, something about which he openly boasts.
War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China, is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases, when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection, when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is?
If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's many uses in American life and culture.
War, Its Uses (and Abuses)
A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable, most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it, war is a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the world's sole superpower.
And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality, using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.
In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."
What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it, which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
