In recent months a civil-military divide has emerged in the United States over the war in Iraq. Unlike much of the Iraq debate between Democrats and Republicans, it is over the present and the future rather than the past. Increasingly, civilians worry that the war is being lost, or at least not won. But the military appears as confident as ever of ultimate victory. This difference of opinion does not amount to a crisis in national resolve, and it will not radically affect our Iraq policy in the short term. But it is insidious and dangerous nonetheless. To the extent possible, the gap should be closed.
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In the short term, of course, this civil-military divide matters only so much. The Bush administration has great political leeway in how it prosecutes the Iraq war. Officers in the field are not so stubborn as to resist smart changes in policy when the need becomes obvious. And on the other side of things, even those members of Congress and the public who think we are stuck in stalemate generally oppose radical alternatives to present policy.
But the dangers of a growing divide are real. In a year we will have a new Congress, and if the public has become fatalistic about Iraq by then, Congress may assert itself in demanding rapid moves toward complete withdrawal -- be they prudent or not. By contrast, if military officers see the good news more than the bad, they may feel increasingly cut off from the rest of the country. They may fail to understand why their recruiting efforts are not always appreciated by parents. They may be too reluctant to change tactics away from overly muscular combat operations that have accorded insufficient emphasis to protecting the Iraqi population. They may not feel enough urgency about advocating changes in policy that are needed there -- like much better protection for Iraqi security forces, which remain badly under-armored, and a jobs program to directly target the high unemployment rate.
Ed Morrissey directs his attention at what he perceives to be the root cause of the divergence in opinion--media bias:
O'Hanlon only barely mentions the root cause of this problem -- a national media addicted to a narrative that embues every story with fatalism. The media has become addicted to body counts even though, historically speaking, they have remained low for a conflict of this scope and size. The national media continues to avoid reporting any positive developments from Iraq except those which cannot be ignored, like the national elections. In fact, the reason the successful elections seemed like such a big story was because they were seen as such an anomaly, not because they represented a conscious effort resulting from American plans to establish democracy in stages throughout the country.
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Until the media starts reporting honestly from Iraq, the divergence will continue to grow as civilians continue to operate from ignorance, while the military operates from a position not only of intelligence but from experience. The real danger presented will be the self-fulfillment of the Starship Troopers (movie, not book) paradigm, where the only people qualified to control the military are the military themselves -- and the press will have created that atmosphere based on their short-sighted adherence to their anti-military and anti-Bush biases.
I tend to agree that the media focus on the metrics of the war, i.e. the number of terrorist attacks, the number of Iraqis and Americans killed, tends to create a negative impression, although as body counts go, the American dead is far and away much lower than any other war of this scope. Media attention on metrics may be a result of the short-attention span nation we have become. We seek quick, SMS style updates of events, updates best suited by simple recitation of numbers. But numbers tell only part of a story, but that is another post. Regardless, I think Ed has made too simple a charge, media bias is only part of the problem.
For a long time, well before the current conflict, well before 9/11, and even well before the first Gulf War, there has been a growing cultural divide between the military and the general population. Since the advent of the all-volunteer force in the mid-1970's, the military has grown more culturally conservative. Prior to Vietnam, the military was much more reflective of society, a fact ensured by the draft. The social and military elites tended to be reflections of each other and there was much more coherence in message and purpose. Indeed, the old adage of the military is a reflection of the society it protects held true.
However, as the all-volunteer force to root and the Vietnam generation of officers and enlisted who remained in the service have retired, resulting in a force of all-volunteers, the conservativeness has taken hold at a time when much of the social elite outside the military has at best remained neutral or at worst tilted much more to the left of the political spectrum. The pace has accelerated as a result of the Iraq war, but the divergence has been growing since the mid-1980's.
Nor is the trend likely to be reversed anytime soon. As has been pointed out in many studies, the military, particularly its officer corps, tends to be comprised of southern, Great Plains, and midwestern men and women, largely from smaller towns who view service as a duty to be undertaken, where patriotism runs deep and a culture that is by nature somewhat more conservative.
This is not to say that because the military is more conservative they automatically support the President's plan or agenda. I believe the military's optimism reflects a more complete picture of the facts on the ground rather than the view through rose-colored glasses. On the other hand, the mainstream media seem less included to probe further into the facts on the ground, instead relying on simple presentations of the facts to the public it deems incapable of deeper understanding.
Rather, the divide Mr. O'Hanlon and Ed discuss is the result of much deeper cultural divide that has been present for a period of time pre-dating the current crisis. The solution for the divide is worse than the disease. A return to a conscripted military may eliminate the military-social diverge, but at an unbearable price. Outside of its expertise, that of warfare, the military will remain an institution not particularly amenable to change. By the same token, the pace of change socially does not accept the glacial pace of change in the military. Each segment has its place and instead of bemoaning military optimism as Mr. O'Hanlon does or media bias as Ed Morrissey does, perhaps we need to look for a real common ground--the safety of America and the maintenance of our legacy to the world.
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