Warlike Americans
Jun 12th, 2009 by MESH
From Stephen Peter Rosen
Understanding the reasons why Americans are more willing to wage wars than Europeans is of historical interest, but not only. It has been asserted, for example, that Americans were willing to wage war against Saddam Hussein because of the manipulation of the American political system by a lobby that was more loyal to Israel than it was to the United States. It has also been speculated that after the latest Iraq war, the American public will become more like Europeans, and less likely to employ war abroad.
Bob Kagan has argued that Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus. Yes, but why? In my article in The American Interest, “Blood Brothers” (sorry, editor’s choice), I discuss how the large immigration to British North America from the English-Scotch border area, and the subsequent endemic and brutal warfare against the North American Indians, created a political culture in the United States in which failures to respond violently to challenges were seen as the mark of weakness that would lead to predation against the weakling, and in which willingness to fight was part of the duties of a citizen. We are a warlike people. We fought in Iraq because we rise, violently, to violent challenges, and we will remain a warlike people for the foreseeable future.
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Having thoroughly enjoyed Stephen Rosen’s piece in this month’s American Interest (”Blood Brothers“), I was duly impressed with his ability to combine history, political philosophy and military culture into one compact article. As a 30-plus-year veteran of the U.S. Army, I was also intrigued by his historical explanation of the differences between troops from the northern states and those from the south and southwest. Lest anyone take issue with that distinction, let me note that it is a difference that I saw throughout my 34 years in uniform, and until Stephen’s article, I never understood why or how those differences came about. Officers from southern states, with their folksy aphorisms and distinctive dialect, often seemed more martial and more admired by their troops. In fact, a close colleague did his Master’s thesis on promotion rates to General among West Point officers. One of the key variables was the state from which the officer was originally appointed to West Point. Although there was no strong correlation, urban myth had it that southern officers were more likely to be selected. Until Stephen’s article, it was hard to find any explanation for this conviction.
A couple of additional comments regarding Stephen’s article. First, unless it is fairly recent, I am not aware of any U.S. military actions in either Sudan or Syria, but added to the list of post-Cold War U.S. military operations should be Panama and Grenada—two examples that amplify Stephen’s thesis—as well as interventions in Burundi, Northern Iraq, Macedonia, the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.
Second, it is hard to look at the historical record to substantiate Tocqueville’s assertions that “warlike passions will become more rare and less lively as conditions are more equal.” However, to also dismiss Tocqueville’s comment that “Men who live in democratic countries do not naturally have a military spirit; they sometimes take it up when they are brought despite themselves onto the fields of battle,” is to miss a key point about the American soldier. For any number of reasons, many brought out by Stephen, there is a predisposition to martial behavior among Americans. But it takes a lot of training, and a lot of un-training, to take kids off the street and turn them into soldiers. I remember talking to a group of my troops heading off to Afghanistan in 2002, and noting my surprise at how well this generation of “Simpson-watching, video-playing couch potatoes” were doing in current combat operations.
The last seven years have done nothing to change that view, and we should take great pride in how well our soldiers have performed on the battlefield. But, should combat operations scale down over the next decade to a pre-9/11 pace, we should not be surprised to see the Army struggle to keep that same sense of combat readiness pervasive within its ranks. Having served in the “hollow Army” of the post-Vietnam era, I would not underestimate how difficult it will be to draw on those “warlike passions” in the post-Iraq/Afghanistan era. That predisposition to martial behavior noted in Stephen’s article may be a part of our Scot-Irish and Quaker heritage, and the heritage of recent immigrants. But modern culture, mores and customs will continue to have the predominant influence on our youth, and we should also be grateful that our Drill Sergeants and Squad Leaders will continue their efforts—as they have since the era of Von Steuben—to bring out that martial behavior.
Mark T. Kimmitt is a member of MESH.