thedrifter
12-26-05, 08:25 AM
Democracy at War
What would Tocqueville have made of Iraq?
BY JOSEPH EPSTEIN
Monday, December 26, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
I have been writing a little book on Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who, after a mere nine-month visit in 1831, wrote "Democracy in America," which remains the best book written about the U.S. Tocqueville is famous for his powers of prophesy: One of his best calls was predicting the future struggle for world hegemony between the U.S. and Russia. But his power for prophesy dims beside his flair for generalization. Although he could scarcely have known this, much of the pleasure provided by Tocqueville is in testing his bolder generalizations 175 years after he formulated them. His ratio of success in this line turns out to be very high.
Applying his generalizations to contemporary cases is provocative. Take our war in Iraq. Does he have anything to contribute to the discussion? In his chapters on the military and war and peace among democracies, Tocqueville, with that characteristic combination of loftiness and directness, writes: "There are two things that will always be difficult for a democratic people to do: to start a war and to finish it." Now there, as they used to say in English departments, is a sentence that resonates.
First, modern history has shown it to be true. Think how late the U.S. was in entering World War I. Think, again, what a strong sales job FDR had in selling World War II, and of the difficulty Truman had in defending the decision to go into Korea. In Vietnam, the U.S. did not so much start the war as slip into it. JFK, it will be recalled, never asked Congress to declare war against the North Vietnamese but sent what was supposed to be a limited number of military advisers to help shore up the South. The number grew and grew under LBJ and--presto switcho!--we were at war. As for finishing the war, it is more accurate to say that it came close to finishing us from engaging in further wars for a long time.
But why should democracies find it so difficult to start and to finish wars? Tocqueville's response is complex: The martial spirit is less in democracies than in aristocracies; moreover, "the wealthiest, best educated, most capable citizens of democratic nations are unlikely to pursue careers in the military." Citizens in a democracy have "an excessive love of tranquility," and war gets in the way of their striving for increased wealth and material comfort. Tocqueville himself wasn't opposed to war. He thought it "almost always enlarges the thought and ennobles the heart." But he felt that democracies were not in the best condition to wage it. And the pressing question is: Was he correct?
One of the reasons that people in a democracy do not become enthusiastic about wars is that they do not feel truly implicated in them. Especially is this so when the wars are not strictly defensive and when they are fought exclusively by a professional army. The last war that commanded full national allegiance was World War II, and my guess--not having the perspicuity of Tocqueville--is that, owing to the draft, most people in the country had relatives and friends fighting in that war. Small flags with gold stars hung in the windows of families who lost husbands and sons, and the sight of them brought a national resolution not to make those deaths pointless. The country was united because the responsibility for fighting was spread throughout the population.
Nice though it would be to think that the people of the U.S. were behind World War II because they wanted to save the Jews, or loathed Hitler's doctrines, my guess (again) is that this wasn't the central reason for being ready to accept sacrifices because of this war. Without Pearl Harbor--without, that is, America's having been invaded, however peripherally, by a government--American entry into the war would most likely never have come about. Wars are most easily sold--as the Bush administration is attempting to do in Iraq--as defensive: We must get them before they get us. Wars of ideas, of clashing ideals, do not go down well in democracies, which may well be a criticism of democratic citizens.
The thought of the U.S. fighting a Thirty Years War or engaging in something akin to the Peloponnesian War (which lasted 27 years) is unthinkable. These were wars fought by aristocrats, not democrats, who want chiefly to get on with their pleasurable lives. A miserably difficult war against a fanatical enemy with no conclusion in obvious sight has nothing to do with pleasure. A hard sell, this war, and Tocqueville would have bet the chateau against the American people finally buying it. For once it would be nice to see him proved hopelessly wrong.
Mr. Epstein is the author of "Envy" (Oxford, 2003).
Ellie
What would Tocqueville have made of Iraq?
BY JOSEPH EPSTEIN
Monday, December 26, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
I have been writing a little book on Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who, after a mere nine-month visit in 1831, wrote "Democracy in America," which remains the best book written about the U.S. Tocqueville is famous for his powers of prophesy: One of his best calls was predicting the future struggle for world hegemony between the U.S. and Russia. But his power for prophesy dims beside his flair for generalization. Although he could scarcely have known this, much of the pleasure provided by Tocqueville is in testing his bolder generalizations 175 years after he formulated them. His ratio of success in this line turns out to be very high.
Applying his generalizations to contemporary cases is provocative. Take our war in Iraq. Does he have anything to contribute to the discussion? In his chapters on the military and war and peace among democracies, Tocqueville, with that characteristic combination of loftiness and directness, writes: "There are two things that will always be difficult for a democratic people to do: to start a war and to finish it." Now there, as they used to say in English departments, is a sentence that resonates.
First, modern history has shown it to be true. Think how late the U.S. was in entering World War I. Think, again, what a strong sales job FDR had in selling World War II, and of the difficulty Truman had in defending the decision to go into Korea. In Vietnam, the U.S. did not so much start the war as slip into it. JFK, it will be recalled, never asked Congress to declare war against the North Vietnamese but sent what was supposed to be a limited number of military advisers to help shore up the South. The number grew and grew under LBJ and--presto switcho!--we were at war. As for finishing the war, it is more accurate to say that it came close to finishing us from engaging in further wars for a long time.
But why should democracies find it so difficult to start and to finish wars? Tocqueville's response is complex: The martial spirit is less in democracies than in aristocracies; moreover, "the wealthiest, best educated, most capable citizens of democratic nations are unlikely to pursue careers in the military." Citizens in a democracy have "an excessive love of tranquility," and war gets in the way of their striving for increased wealth and material comfort. Tocqueville himself wasn't opposed to war. He thought it "almost always enlarges the thought and ennobles the heart." But he felt that democracies were not in the best condition to wage it. And the pressing question is: Was he correct?
One of the reasons that people in a democracy do not become enthusiastic about wars is that they do not feel truly implicated in them. Especially is this so when the wars are not strictly defensive and when they are fought exclusively by a professional army. The last war that commanded full national allegiance was World War II, and my guess--not having the perspicuity of Tocqueville--is that, owing to the draft, most people in the country had relatives and friends fighting in that war. Small flags with gold stars hung in the windows of families who lost husbands and sons, and the sight of them brought a national resolution not to make those deaths pointless. The country was united because the responsibility for fighting was spread throughout the population.
Nice though it would be to think that the people of the U.S. were behind World War II because they wanted to save the Jews, or loathed Hitler's doctrines, my guess (again) is that this wasn't the central reason for being ready to accept sacrifices because of this war. Without Pearl Harbor--without, that is, America's having been invaded, however peripherally, by a government--American entry into the war would most likely never have come about. Wars are most easily sold--as the Bush administration is attempting to do in Iraq--as defensive: We must get them before they get us. Wars of ideas, of clashing ideals, do not go down well in democracies, which may well be a criticism of democratic citizens.
The thought of the U.S. fighting a Thirty Years War or engaging in something akin to the Peloponnesian War (which lasted 27 years) is unthinkable. These were wars fought by aristocrats, not democrats, who want chiefly to get on with their pleasurable lives. A miserably difficult war against a fanatical enemy with no conclusion in obvious sight has nothing to do with pleasure. A hard sell, this war, and Tocqueville would have bet the chateau against the American people finally buying it. For once it would be nice to see him proved hopelessly wrong.
Mr. Epstein is the author of "Envy" (Oxford, 2003).
Ellie