Алистер Смит - The Spoils of War - Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents

We have seen throughout that politicians generally adopt positions that serve their interests, even when that means not serving those of the nation’s citizens. LBJ’s approach to war may be the rare exception and also the telling lesson: a president who did what he thought was right even though it harmed him politically, costing him his chance for reelection. Presidents who put their own interest front and center have been particularly likely to get elected and reelected! Citizens should perhaps not be too harsh on such a politician, they are prone to do the same.

To gain traction on why Bush was reelected and Johnson’s prospects were so poor that he did not even run, it is useful to think about who fought in each war. We start by considering who served in Iraq. Since Vietnam, the United States has not drafted soldiers to fight. Instead, the government relies on an all-volunteer army. The socioeconomic and racial composition of the armed forces has undergone substantial changes from the 1970s. For instance, the proportion of nonwhites in the US armed forces has declined markedly from the Vietnam era, although whites are still underrepresented. The educational attainment of soldiers has also increased over this time—in part reflecting the military’s increasing reliance on technology and the skills needed to exploit it.

While in the Iraq era US armed forces were drawn from all walks of life, those from the top and the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder were underrepresented.57 Members of wealthy families were less likely to serve than those of the middle class. This somewhat reduced the likelihood that supporters and contributors to the Bush campaign would be directly affected by the war. A further consequence of an all-volunteer military is that casualties do not include local young men who were recently drafted, possibly against their will, as was the case in Vietnam. The impact of Iraq War casualties was keenly felt in military towns around the country, but the imagery of coffins of recently drafted young men going back to small towns around the United States was a feature of Vietnam and not of Iraq. Unlike Vietnam, “most Americans were not asked to make any sacrifice for the Iraq war.”58 Outside of military towns, people were unlikely to encounter the human tragedy of war as had been the case in Vietnam; hence casualties were less likely to turn supporters against the administration.

One of the great arguments for democracy is that it is the people who do the fighting, making them reluctant to go to war casually. As philosopher Emmanuel Kant stated:

[I]f the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared (and in this constitution it cannot but be the case), nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themselves all the calamities of war. Among the latter would be: having to fight, having to pay the costs of war from their own resources, having painfully to repair the devastation war leaves behind, and, to fill up the measure of evils, load themselves with a heavy national debt that would embitter peace itself and that can never be liquidated on account of constant wars in the future.59

However, as we saw in the case of Iraq, Kant’s argument only works if the cost of the war falls on the vast majority of people. If a politician can form a winning coalition of supporters who are immune from the human and financial costs of the war, then these supporters provide little impediment to the leader’s conduct of the war. Those groups of people outside of the coalition might suffer greatly as a result of the war and protest the war vigorously, but their suffering is no impediment to a leader kept in office by others.

As we have seen, Bush strongly alienated Democratic (and independent) voters, but he kept Republican voters happy. They turned out to vote for him and he retained office. On aggregate, the war generated protest and disapproval, but such negatives were not evenly spread across everyone. His policies insulated his supporters from the effects of the Iraq War. In contrast, Johnson’s drive for equality and fairness ensured that as disapproval for the Vietnam War grew, disapproval grew in all segments of society and, most important, from within his support base. We have already seen that his tax plan harmed middle-class voters who otherwise would have been likely to turn out and vote Democrat. Now we can see a similar pattern in his choice to pursue equality in individual risks during the Vietnam War.

In the Vietnam era, US professional armed forces were supplemented by a selective service draft. In the early 1960s draft boards were organized at the local level. Generally the rich, white, and educated could gain exemptions or deferments. In an earlier time Benjamin Franklin admonished us as to the fairness of such an arrangement: “The question will then amount to this; whether it be just in a community, that the richer part should compel the poor to fight for them and their properties.”60 Johnson certainly believed that it was wrong that the cost of fighting fell disproportionately on the disadvantaged in society. And as with his social and civil rights programs, he decided to do something about. He organized a board, whose members included blacks and other disadvantaged minorities, to design reforms to the draft procedure.

In a message to Congress regarding selective service, LBJ opened by quoting Franklin Roosevelt to the effect that “America has adopted selective service in time of peace, and, in doing so, has broadened and enriched our basic concepts of citizenship. Beside the clear democratic ideals of equal rights, equal privileges and equal opportunities, we have set forth the underlying other duties, obligations and responsibilities of equal service.” However, as we discovered earlier, FDR did not follow through on these lofty ideals. Johnson, for his part, intended to do so. He argued that the extant system was prone to favoritism and corruption. He asked the leading question: “‘Who serves when not all serve?’ Past procedures have, in effect, reduced the size of the available manpower pool by deferring men out of it. This has resulted in inequities.”61

Johnson called for a “Fair And Impartial Random (FAIR) system”; that is, a lottery system. The lotteries randomly drew 366 dates and young men born on the first date selected were the first to be drafted. The next set of draftees was selected from those born on the second date selected, and so on. The first of LBJ’s selective service lotteries was held on December 1, 1969, at the Selective Service National Headquarters in Washington, DC, and the event was televised. As the president’s adviser Joseph Califano observed, “Here was a system more to LBJ’s liking, one in which rich and poor, black and white, would face the same odds of military service in young adulthood.”62 Johnson concluded, regarding the revised selective service approach, “We must continue to ask one form of service—military duty—of our young men. We would be an irresponsible Nation if we did not—and perhaps even an extinct one. The Nation’s requirement that men must serve, however, imposes this obligation: that in this land of equals, men are selected as equals to serve. A just nation must have the fairest system that can be devised for making that selection.”63

Johnson may indeed have liked the more equitable treatment induced by his lottery system, but it turned out to work against him politically. In a reflection of local, personal interests at work in politics, regardless of the broader implication for equality and national well-being, it turned out that men with low draft numbers, and hence likely to be sent to Vietnam, were more likely to shift their position to oppose the war as compared to those with high draft numbers.64