SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010 FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW BY GERARD DE GROOT “ In Washington, every war is a just one
WASHINGTON RULES America’s Path to Permanent War By Andrew J. Bacevich Metropolitan. 286 pp. $25
CULTURES OF WAR Pearl Harbor/ Hiroshima/ 9-11/ Iraq
By John W. Dower Norton. 596 pp. $29.95
Lincoln Steffens wrote in his auto- biography. “Especially we ever- successful Americans — con- scious, intelligent, illuminating failures.” What Steffens meant was that a people confident in righteousness need occasionally to be reminded of their fallibility. The past 50 years have produced failures aplenty — the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and Iraq among them. Unfortunately, as Andrew J. Ba- cevich and John W. Dower dem- onstrate, the light of failure has not penetrated the darkness of de- lusion. As a result, wars provide a repeating rhythm of folly. “Washington Rules” and “Cul- tures of War” are two excellent books made better by the coinci- dence of their publication. In complementary fashion, they pro- vide a convincing critique of America’s conduct of war since 1941. Steffens would have liked these books, specifically for the way they use past failures to ex- plain the provenance of our cur- rent predicament. Read “Cultures of War” first. It’s not an easy book, but it is consis- tently perceptive. Dower exam- ines Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Sept. 11 and the second Iraq war,
“W
e need some great fail- ures,” the muckraking journalist
drawing disconcerting linkages. Pearl Harbor and Iraq, he feels, demonstrate how otherwise in- telligent leaders are drawn toward strategic imbecility. Both attacks were brilliantly executed in the short term, but neither paid sufficient attention to the long-term problem of winning a war. More controversially, Dower pairs Hiroshima with Sept. 11, both acts of terror born of moral certitude. Osama bin Laden and Harry Truman justified wanton killing with essentially the same Manichean rhetoric. Motives, context and scale might have been different; methods were not. For both leaders, the ability to sep- arate good from evil made killing easy. In 1941, Americans drew com-
fort from the stereotype of the ir- rational Oriental. They assumed that the Japanese would be easily defeated because they were illog- ical — as their attack on Pearl Har- bor proved. That attack was in- deed illogical (given the impossi- bility of defeating the United States in a protracted war), but it was not peculiarly Japanese. As Dower reveals, the wishful think- ing, delusion and herd behavior within the court of Emperor Hiro- hito was a symptom of war, not ethnicity. The same deficiencies, in 2003, convinced those in the Oval Office that invading Iraq was a good idea. Since the culture of war encour-
ages patterned behavior, folly pro- liferates. This is the essence of the Washington rules that Bacevich elucidates. The rules dictate that protection of the American way of life necessitates a global military presence and a willingness to in- tervene anywhere. Power and vio- lence are cleansed by virtue: Be- cause America is “good,” its ac- tions are always benign. These
JOHN KLEBER
Because America is “good,” its actions are always benign.
rules have pushed the United States into a state of perpetual war. With enemies supposedly ev- erywhere, the pursuit of security has become open-ended. The alternative, according to
Bacevich, is not isolationism or appeasement, two politically loaded words frequently used to pummel those who object to Washington’s behavior. He advo- cates, instead, a more level-head- ed assessment of danger, advice all the more cogent since it comes from a former soldier. Iraq and Af- ghanistan did not threaten Amer- ica; in fact, those countries and the world have become more dan- gerous because of heavy-handed American intervention. Nor does North Korea pose a threat. Nor did Vietnam.
One is reminded of John Win- throp, who, in 1630, told the fu- ture residents of Massachusetts Bay Colony: “We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” Over subsequent decades, Winthrop’s sermon be- came the American mission, fired by self-righteousness and fueled by self-confidence. From that mis- sion emerged the idea of Manifest Destiny — American ideals should spread across the continent and around the globe. Along the way, Americans lost sight of what Win- throp actually meant. His words were both inspiration and warn- ing: Aspire to greatness, but re- main honorable. Power lies in vir- tue. Winthrop envisaged a shin- ing beacon, worthy of emulation. He saw no need to come down from the hill and ram ideals down the throats of the recalcitrant. The power of virtue is Bacev-
ich’s most profound message. In- stead of trying to fix Afghanistan’s Helmand province, he insists, Americans should fix Detroit and Cleveland. Instead of attempting
to export notions of freedom and democracy to nations that lack ex- perience of either, America should demonstrate, by her ac- tions, that she is still a free, demo- cratic and humane nation. Her real strength lies in her liberal tra- dition, not in her ability to kill. In 1963, the Kennedy adminis-
tration was faced with a steadily disintegrating situation in Viet- nam. At a turbulent Cabinet meet- ing, Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked: If the situation is so dire, why not withdraw? Ar- thur Schlesinger, present at the meeting, noted how “the question hovered for a moment, then died away.” It was “a hopelessly alien thought in a field of unexplored assumptions and entrenched con- victions.” The Washington rules kept the United States on a steady course toward disaster. Those unexplored assumptions and entrenched convictions have now pushed the United States into a new quagmire. Despite that predicament, both Dower and Ba- cevich try to end positively. “If change is to come, it must come from the people,” argues Bacev- ich. Dower agrees. But these fee- ble attempts at optimism are the least convincing parts of two otherwise brilliant books. Barack Obama once promised that change was coming, but then he quickly adhered to the old rules by escalating an unwinnable and certainly unaffordable war in Af- ghanistan. Failures, as Steffens hoped, have been illuminating, but after each flash of light, dark- ness has prevailed.
bookworld@washpost.com
Gerard De Groot is a professor of history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the author of “The Bomb: A Life.”
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This year’s Booker panel are keen to make polemical points about the nature of the novel.” — Claire Armitstead, writing in the Guardian about the number of experimental works on the shortlist announced last week. The prize, Britain’s most prestigious, will be awarded on Oct. 12.
HISTORY REVIEW BY HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
A hero of pre-partisan America H
enry Clay was one of America’s greatest statesmen, the na- tion’s pilot through the first half of the 19th
century. Two new histories of the man and his era reveal that his skills have special relevance to- day. In a time of rapid change, economic instability and cultural divisions, Clay “understood that politics is not about ideological purity or moral self-righteous- ness,” writes the historian of the House of Representatives, Robert V. Remini. In his elegant little vol- ume called “At the Edge of the Precipice,” Remini notes that politics should be about govern- ing and that politicians who can- not compromise cannot govern effectively. Clay was born in Virginia dur- ing the American Revolution and grew with the country. In the late 1790s, he moved west to Ken- tucky, a vibrant state on the edge of the frontier, where he practiced law and began his rise to wealth as the owner of a stately planta- tion called Ashland, along with dozens of slaves and prize race- horses. It was in Kentucky, with its booming economy and popu- lar enthusiasm for the new na- tion, that Clay learned to see him- self not as a Kentuckian but as an American. He envisioned a strong, economically diverse na- tion, leading the world. In “Henry Clay,” David S. Hei- dler and Jeanne T. Heidler paint an enormously engaging picture of this man and his times. Clay and his kin mingle and marry and migrate, cherishing each other even as they mourn their many dead. Kentucky comes to life, with its impoverished migrants and rising gentry, mountains and bluegrass. The young Clay was a rake and a gambler, but also a brilliant orator and a dedicated lawyer who could make friends with almost anyone. Those skills served him well when he entered politics. In 1811, in his first term in the House of Representatives, he was elected speaker. Clay turned the position of
speaker into a seat of power. He stacked committees, stifled dis- sent and directed floor debate. Under Clay, Congress worked to
AT THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union By Robert V. Remini Basic. 184 pp. $24
HENRY CLAY The Essential American By David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler
Random House 595 pp. $30
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
codify his brainchild and legacy: the “American System,” a series of policies to develop U.S. industry, advance national infrastructure and maintain a stable financial system. Clay’s meteoric rise to promi- nence seemed to promise him the presidency of a strong, economi- cally secure nation. But the devel- opment of the modern political party in the 1820s left no place in the White House for a moderate. New partisanship tore Americans apart. Eventually, it pitched them into the Civil War, taking more than half a million lives. The replacement of America’s original political system by a new, hyperpartisan extremism domi- nates the Heidlers’ biography of Clay. It is also the subject of “At the Edge of the Precipice.” Like the Heidlers, Remini explores how politicians turned from the art of governing to the machina- tions of winning. He reminds us that the essence of Americanism since the country’s founding had been the willingness to compro- mise. And no one could bring two sides together better than Henry Clay, as he did, repeatedly, to strengthen the fledgling nation. But while Clay believed that
governing was about enacting policies that were good for the whole country, rising Democrats in the 1820s wanted power for its
own sake. The Heidlers trace the rise of early Democrats who re- viled their political opponents as elitist while they championed An- drew Jackson — an unstable, vin- dictive tyrant — as a man of the people. Pro-Jackson newspapers gleefully published outright lies about rival candidates, including Clay. Clay insisted that voters would recognize gross falsehoods and preferred an honest discussion of issues. He was wrong. The party enthusiasm of the 1820s and ’30s continued, and by 1840 it had produced political extremism. While the Heidlers trace these
developments across the sweep of Clay’s life, Remini distills the es- sence of the ongoing political struggle by examining the dra- matic events of 1849-50. By then, Southern Democrats insisted that the nation recognize the rectitude of human slavery, Northern aboli- tionists appealed to a “higher power” than the Constitution to demand slavery’s end, and media from each side distorted the ac- tions of the other. By 1849, the na- tion was on the brink of a civil war. Into this breach stepped the el- derly Clay, a slave owner who nonetheless believed that slavery was holding back national devel- opment and must die. Now a sen- ator, and an open advocate of
the library of congress and the washington post
gradual emancipation, he guided a final compromise through Con- gress. Remini’s careful recon- struction of the old man’s efforts reminds readers that congres- sional debates are long and con- gressional maneuvering seeming- ly endless. But in 1850, the result was a popular national compro- mise that offered concessions to each side, calmed the sectional storm and, critically, bought time for the North to gain population and industrial strength for the growing conflict. Two years later, “The Great Compromiser” was dead, so greatly mourned that he was the first American to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda. His compromise died shortly
after he did. Party politicians who had cut their teeth under Jackson rammed through Congress an ex- ecrated bill that tore apart the Compromise of 1850, the Mis- souri Compromise of 1820 and the nation. Their plan was to ex- tend slavery westward, but they failed because Clay had inspired a younger politician, Abraham Lin- coln. Like Clay before him, Lin- coln held the line against the ex- tremism that called for making the backward institution of slav- ery national. And thanks to the 10 years that Clay’s compromise had bought the Union, Lincoln led a nation that was strong enough to survive. In the end, politicians deter- mined only to win destroyed Clay’s vision of uniting a strong and growing nation. They cheered their victory, as they would cheer their armies march- ing to war a few years later. These two remarkably engaging books about the man who tried to pre- vent that conflict and find a peaceful end to slavery make one wonder if there wasn’t a better way to construct a strong and se- cure nation than embracing the extreme partisanship that led to slaughter.
bookworld@washpost.com
Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author, most recently, of “Wounded
Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre.”
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