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

Conclusion

Fixing Flaws

A country may be ruined in making an Administration happy.

—Josiah Quincy III, December 1812

AMERICA’S FOUNDING FATHERS WERE PRESCIENT IN RECOGNIZING THE need to constrain executive power. Their intention was to limit any president’s chance to pursue war for personal, rather than national, reasons. We have seen that their efforts notwithstanding, presidents have managed to use war for their own benefit. The fear that James Madison expressed, and that we quoted in the Introduction, was well justified. And in his fear of executive aggrandizement he was not alone, though other founding fathers tended to emphasize this danger among monarchs. John Jay, Madison’s cocontributor to The Federalist Papers , warned in Federalist No. 4 that

the safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes for war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult; for it need not be observed, that there are pretended as well as just causes of war.

It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that . . . absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for purposes and objects merely personal, such as a thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These, and a variety of motives, which affect only the mind of the Sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice, or the voice and interests of his people.1

Jay warned of the danger that the United States could be dragged into wars by the urge of foreign monarchs to fight for their own benefit. Real though that danger was and as real as it remains today for nations that are led by dictators, we have endeavored to show that the danger of war motivated by personal gain is prevalent as well even among the presidents of the United States. War, as James Madison noted, and as we have illustrated, too often provides American presidents with the opportunity to put their welfare or partisan politics above the welfare of the rest of us, helping their partisans at the expense of the many, “all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.”2

War is indeed a dangerous political beast that needs to be tamed. Our plan in this chapter is to state clear, implementable plans that could significantly improve America’s war decision making. Only someone wearing the rosiest of colored glasses could believe there is any hope of eliminating presidential eagerness for fame and glory from decisions about war. But there certainly is a hope of tilting the balance of calculations about war and peace more toward the prosecution only of just wars in which the people’s interests are truly endangered.

The stories we have told of American presidents at war have been aimed at exposing how important personal interests are in even the gravest choices facing any nation, even a democratic one. The cases we chose to study are not an exhaustive list of presidents who placed their interests above those of the people. We have not, for instance, delved into the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) in detail. However, James Polk’s decision to bring Texas into the Union and foment war with Mexico had deep partisan roots that echoed many of the themes of territorial expansion behind Madison’s invasion of Canada and the theft of Indian land. Just as readily we might have addressed Woodrow Wilson’s World War I, a war he campaigned against vigorously in 1914, promising not to involve the United States in Europe’s conflagration. We might have examined William McKinley’s Spanish-American War, which was promoted by unabashed imperial expansionists who succeeded in browbeating the president into submission at the threat of his reelection. That was yet another war in which, as James Madison faced in 1812, the urge to remain president outstripped sensible resistance to an unnecessary conflict. But we believe our point has been made and does not need an “exposé” of still more wars. Now we want to use the lessons we have exposed to identify a few practical, feasible steps that the United States as a nation could take to diminish the danger that wars arise out of personal ambition, avarice, or vanity. Of course, we must be realistic. Not every danger to collective welfare can be eradicated, but many can be diminished. We should not let a quest for perfection stand in the way of genuine but incomplete progress.

Improving War Decision Making

WE REITERATE THAT WE CANNOT HOPE TO SOLVE ALL THE DEFICIENCIES and failures in presidential decision making; indeed, the Economics Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow has proven that, given a few assumptions about creating fairness, there is no political system that can assure a match-up between the people’s desires and a government’s policy choices.3 In fact, what may look like broad support, even supermajority support, for a war (or a candidate) can be converted to equally large opposition simply by changing the method for counting votes.4 The same thing can also be achieved by introducing an “irrelevant” presidential option, such as Ralph Nader in 2000, or James Birney in 1844. Ralph Nader’s decision to run in the 2000 election cost Al Gore votes—not many votes but enough to prevent his victory in Florida. But for Nader’s candidacy, the 2000s might have been spent combating environmental problems rather than insurgents in Iraq. Likewise James Birney had a profound impact on the course of American history. As a third-party candidate in the election primarily between James Polk and Henry Clay, he “made” Polk president, thereby giving us the Mexican-American War.

You see, Polk’s call for “Manifest Destiny” and in particular the annexation of Texas was a policy supported by only a minority of US voters. The Whigs opposed such expansion, as did the northern Democrats. So, the only people that really supported Polk’s plan were the southern Democrats. Making an extremely crude calculation, we might say that the plan was supported by one quarter and opposed by three quarters. However, the annexation of Texas was not dealt with in isolation. Polk supported America’s Manifest Destiny and successfully tied expansion into Texas with expansion of free territories in the Oregon territories—a position popular in northern states. With such a position, Polk went on to defeat the Whig nominee, Henry Clay, by the narrow margin of about 39,000 votes. During the campaign, Clay, who as you will recall was a southern gentleman from Kentucky and may have supported slavery, vacillated on the extent of his opposition of statehood for Texas. In New York, his failure to commit to the antislavery position led to robust support for the third-party candidate, James Birney. By obtaining around 64,000 votes for the Liberal Party, Birney denied Clay New York’s 36 Electoral College votes, thereby electing Polk and giving us the Mexican-American War. But for Birney’s campaign it is likely Clay would have been elected and the country perhaps would have gone in a different direction.

While creating institutions that guarantee the implementation of the people’s will is impossible, because what the will of the people is depends upon how the questions are asked and how the answers are assessed, still we can offer straightforward solutions to improve the correspondence between what “We, the people” want and the foreign policies that presidents pursue. Further, in the process of making it harder for presidents to fight wars that are not supported by a broad majority, our proposals will also improve the conduct of war, leading to shorter, cheaper, and less bloody wars.