Why We Fight. Storyville (BBC) American Militarism.

Re: Why We Fight. Storyville (BBC) American Militarism.


Yes, certainly, with the political ideology of this administration. Ironically, until recently in our history, the Republicans were usually isolationist, and the Democrats were more likely to go to war. But it would be a mistake to ascribe to "Americans" what is essentially a characteristic of the world view of a narrow sector of those alleged to be conservatives in America. (Many American conservatives reject the claim that the "neo-cons" are truly conservatives, and some even claim that they have liberal origins. Of course, the distance between liberals and conservatives in America, which Americans treat as a deep and wide gulf is seen elsewhere in the world as the splitting of hairs, with little essential difference between the two.)



If that is an accurate characterization of what Mr. Jarecki thinks, then he knows far less about Americans and their history and culture than he thinks he does.

In American history, the first truly professional military service was, of course, the Continental Line during the Revolution. But after the war, many of them, primarily the officers, thought they had been cheated of the wages and their honors by the weak and ineffective Continental Congress, and actually became opponents of the central government. They formed the Society of the Cincinnati, which refers to a figure in the legendary period of Roman history, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who served several times as Dictator (an office which only existed in emergencies and lapsed when the emergency passed). They had a vision of themselves as citizen soldiers with a hand on the plow and a sword in the other hand. They proved to be pointless politically, however. They invited Washington to preside over their society, but he refused, and publicly condemned what he called faction. Despite what they say at their web site, he never joined the Society, and never presided over it (yes, they are still around, and they have a web site). The first military action of the United States government after the Revolution was the so-called Whiskey Rebellion, in western Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the Ohio territory. The rebels were protesting the excise tax, and they even took up arms--but they were dispersed by a force which was raised for the purpose. Militarism did not get off to a good start in America, and many people who did not necessarily agree with the whiskey rebels still resented the idea of the government sending an army to deal with them.

The real professional military organization in the early history of the republic was the United States Navy. This was still a relatively small body, though, as it consisted mostly of officers and petty officers. A new crew would be hired in port each time a naval vessel was ready to begin a cruise. The Navy also had a real job from the very beginning, dealing with the Muslim corsairs of North Africa known as the Barbary Pirates, and the "Quasi-War" fought with the French Revolutionary government in the Caribbean between 1798 and 1800. The notion of what one might call "non-militarism" was so strong that naval officers even objected to the existence of the United States Marine Corps, and did so even up to the 20th century. They saw Marines as ship's guards, and argued that the U. S. Navy was not the Royal Navy, that crews were not press-ganged, but were volunteers, and that the officers did not need Marines to protect them from the crew. The early Commandants of the Marine Corps were careful to make their men useful--they insisted upon firearms training to promote accuracy (a good deal of a naval battle involved men in the "fighting tops" in the upper rigging shooting at the gun crews and officers on the deck of the enemy ship--so the Marines were required to train so as to be effective at this); the Commandants also insisted that a certain number of the gun crews on any naval vessels be taken from the Marine contingent. Finally, the second Commandant (don't remember his name) twisted some arms in Congress to get money to form the Marine Corps Band, in pretty red uniforms, which provided concerts in the dutsy little town that Washington City then was, and provided honor guards and a marching band when foreign dignitaries visited the capital, which otherwise would have lacked those amenities. As late as the 1880s, naval officers were calling publicly for the elimination of the Marine Corps, and as late as the 1920s they were privately saying that it should be eliminated and its members merged into the Regular Army.

American naval officers were careful to behave and to actually be very professional, and they quickly became popular, because they served the useful purpose of protecting commerce (they were the only ones actively going after the Barbary Pirates as the French Revolution drew the attention of the Royal Navy and the French elsewhere), and because they did very well against the Royal Navy in the War of 1812--better than anyone expected. By contrast, the army was held in low esteem, and this was true as late as the 1930s. Additionally, Americans tended to treat the militia as a men-only social club, and were not at all convinced that they should actually be expected to fight. The militia has done well on several notable occasions in American history, but those are exceptions which tended to prove the rule that they could not be relied upon. Professional army officers held a low opinion of them, all the way back to George Washington. At Queenston, in Upper Canada, in 1812, about three quarters of the New York militia refused to cross the Niagara River, leaving a handful of professionals and some rather dubious militiamen to do the job. Even thought the Americans initially did well, more than half of the New York militiamen who did cross the river decided that was a mistake then the fight was well and truly joined, and they went back to the New York side, even pushing the wounded out of the way to get a place in the boats. Later, when the Americans began to do well in the Niagara peninsula, it was because the forces were mostly professional, or were militiamen who first had to sign an agreement for long service. By the end of the war, at Lundy Lane, the Americans were able to fight the English to standstill (the battle lasted until well after midnight, and only ended when Winfield Scott was wounded and carried from the field, at which point his successor promptly retreated and abandoned all the gains for which so much American blood had been shed). Technically an English victory, if the war had lasted a little longer, a few more "victories" like Lundy Lane might have finished the English off in Canada.

In Maryland, in 1814, a small force of Wellington's veterans advanced on the city of Washington. At Bladensburg, a handful of Marines (fewer than 200), several hundred sailors from the fleet, and thousands of Maryland and Virginia militia were poised to resist the invaders. The militia got a good look at the red coats, and decided they had prior engagements elsewhere, running away to leave fewer than a thousand sailors and Marines to face the Peninsular veterans. They did well, though. One English officer wrote home to the effect that "they continued to serve the guns [i.e., the artillery] even after we had shot down all of their officers and were among them with the bayonet." The sailors armed with muskets rallied around the Marines on a small hill, and fought the English to a standstill. At sunset, the Marines gathered up all their dead and wounded, and marched back to Washington. In the meantime the government had time to pack up all their papers and get out of town--little Dolly Madison (the First Lady) gained immortal fame in American history by insisting on staying until all the valuables were removed from the White House, which the English subsequently set fire to, although it did not burn to the ground (there is a story, which may be and probably is apocryphal, that the Marine Corps Band put out the fire--dubious, but makes a good legend).

But volunteers have always done well in American history. After all, there was no army at the beginning of the Revolution, so the Continental Line were all volunteers. In 1813, the English instigated the Creek War to distract the Americans from their war effort (with Napoleon on the loose, the English didn't have a lot of troops to send, and most of them went to Canada). Andrew Jackson, later to be President (1829-1837) gained national fame by leading Tennessee volunteers against the Creek and Choctaw Indians. So he was put in charge of the defense of New Orleans and lead Tennessee and Kentucky volunteers there (Kentucky and Ohio volunteers also re-took Detroit and invaded Upper Canada from the west). There were, of course, some volunteers from Louisiana, but the biggest force in New Orleans was the Crescent City militia (New Orleans is called the Crescent City). Jackson was careful to spread them out among his handful of professional and the volunteers--so they wouldn't "skeedaddle" (run away). They stuck, though, because after all, they were defending their homes. Jackson was on the drier (dry is a relative term in that country) left bank (east side) of the river. On the right bank, to the west, the Kentucky militia was placed. The Kentucky militia ran away, most of them without waiting to see if anyone were actually going to shoot at them. This didn't do the English much good, though, because they'd have to cross the river to approach the city, and what was left of the Navy was there to serve the guns, and had, therefore, a convincing argument. The English were commanded by General Packenham, a veteran of Spain and a friend and confidant of Wellington. He sent his red coats at Jackson's line, and they were mowed down in three separate assaults, which ended when Packenham himself was shot down with a mortal wound. Once again, American volunteers, and not the Regular Army, and definitely not the militia, had saved the day.

Jackson became a military hero of the highest order, even if the battle had actually taken place after the war was technically over (the news of the treaty hadn't reached him or Packenham when the battle was joined). But he promptly gave up his military career, and went back to Tennessee (which calls itself the Volunteer State) to resume farming, and eventually to go into politics.

In the Mexican War, most of the militia who went died of disease without ever hearing a shot fired in anger. Daniel Harvey Hill, a southern who despised northerners, taught mathematics in North Carolina after the war. He used to pose problems such as: "Two Indiana militiamen ran away from the battle of Buena Vista. If one ran at five miles an hour and the other ran at seven miles an hour . . . " By and large that war was fought with Regulars and volunteers, and probably had the largest concentration of Regulars at the front in any American War.

Militarism was popular in the Antebellum South--after all, it was a good and honorable profession for the younger sons of aristocratic plantation families. But just as is the case with England, the people have long been suspicious of and opposed to standing armies, while happily cheering on the Navy. The peace-time establishment of the army was always very small, and would have been smaller still, were it not for the Indian Wars (something for which, in the early days, the English were often responsible--from Detroit, which wasn't their property but which they kep after the Revolution, and Florida, which they long held, they would sell guns and rum to the Indians, and encourage them to attack American frontier settlements; they are as responsible for a century of Indian warfare as were the Americans). Robert Edward Lee, the great Southern military hero, was only a Lieutenant when the Mexican War broke out, even though he had graduated from West Point 16 years earlier. The army was not a profession which a man could expect fast promotion or good pay and benefits.

In the American Civil War, both sides relied initially upon volunteers--professional military men didn't trust the militia, and with good reason. Both sides eventually brought in conscription--at the height of the war, the Federal government maintained an establishment of one and half million men, and the Confederates half a million. Even so, conscription lead many Southerners to run away and hide in the backwoods, and riots broke out all over the North, most notably in New York, where soldiers and their officers were attacked and black men (unjustly held responsible) were hung from lamp posts. The riot lasted three days and was only quelled when the army was sent in. After the war, the army was unnaturally large because of the Indian Wars on the Great Plains, but by the 1880s, the army was dwindling down as it always did between wars. While the Great War was raging in Europe in 1916, but before the United States entered the war, the army's highest ranking officer, John Pershing, was chasing the Mexican bandit and "revolutionary" Pancho Villa around the Sonoran desert.

After the First World War, the army shrunk again, and was kept poor by the Congress and despised by the people. It only became marginally popular in the Great Depression, when men willing to enlist increased because so many couldn't find a job. It was only the Second World War which dramatically expanded the army, and the Cold War after that which kept it large. Congress continued the draft after the war to respond to the Soviet threat in Europe, but wars remained unpopular. The Korean War was unpopular, and the Republicans quickly blamed the Democrat Truman for the war. Eisenhower's strongest campaign promise was to go to Korea to see for himself, and to end the war if he could. To this day, conservative fanatics blame John Kennedy (a Democrat) for the war in Vietnam, although Eisenhower (a Republican) first sent American troops there. Conscription did not end until the aftermath of the Vietnam War, arguably the most unpopular war in our history. The War of 1812 was not popular, being called "Mr. Madison's War" by its opponents. The Mexican War was unpopular, and was seen as an excuse which Polk took to steal land from Mexico for slave states. U. S. Grant, the Northern hero of the Civil War described the Mexican war as making Americans as bad as or worse than the nations of corrupt, old Europe, and called it most most unjust war which any nation ever perpetrated upon a weaker nation.

Americans honor their veterans, who are the typical American volunteer who leaves the army when the war is over. That is not the same at all as rejoicing in militarism. That doesn't mean that i'm so naive as to claim that there are no militarists in the United States, but with 300,000,000 people, it's easy enough to find some and drag them before a camera, if that is your agenda. It is not the military which is important in American life--it is our sons and daughters whom we fear for and whom we are determined to honor for serving their nation.

Militarism in america didn't get off to a bad start. After WW2 Europe and other continents were destroyed, nations' supply of soldiers and equipment was depleted, and focus was something entirely different than war.

The US, however, was untouched by WW2, except for Pearl Harbor. A pinprick compared to Europe and Japan, but still enough to make the government start to think. So the US started the policy that today's status quo is a result of with a solid head start, since all potential adversaries were poking in the rubble of their once great nations.

WW2 handed the world to the US on a silver plate, and since then the US has had it by the balls.

Another nation heard from . . .

With more than 16,000,000 Americans in the armed forces in World War II, more than 400,000 killed and more than 600,000 wounded, and nearly $300,000,000,000 spent (which is more than two trillion in U.S. dollars by a year 2000 comparison), hundreds of naval vessels lost, thousands of aircraft and thousands of armored fighting vehicles lost--it is hardly reasonable to claim that the Second World War was a "pinprick" for the United States.

None of what passes for an argument on your part here, Cyracuz, justifies a claim that the Americans are a militarist people, or the specific claim in this thread, that the military has become too important in American life.

The remark that militarism in American didn't get off to a bad start, followed by comments about World War II rather incredibly ignores the more than 160 years of the nation's history before the Second World War began for the United States.

So, if we have had the world by the balls since then, as you claim, how do you account for Korea and Vietnam? How do you account for the September 11th tragedy? Pretty silly claim, and a very weak argument behind it.

I do not dispute the USA's participation in the war against nazism and that they paid dearly, but in many ways, after the dust settled the US was the only nation still standing. Didn't they pour money into Europe too, in the form of loans, to help re-establish a lucrative trade, among other things. The Marshall help, I think it's called.

And I do not mean that americans are a militarist people, even though some laws are a little crazy in my opinion. That's too big a generalization. But USA happens to have the most efficient war machine in the world, and has been continually waging war around the world for decades.

Seen from a distance of, say, an atlantic ocean, I can understand how it could seem that the inhabitants of such a country are either militarists or sheep.