Presidents At War
By opting to invade Iraq, George W. Bush was following in the footsteps of history
Reluctant warrior. The success of Reagan's policies may now be fully measured. Ironically, he of all Cold War presidents was the most reluctant to use nuclear weapons; he was horrified at the destruction that would be caused by mutual assured destruction and initiated a strategic missile defense program, derided by his critics as "Star Wars," to make such mass annihilation impossible. During his presidency his defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, and his national security adviser, Gen. Colin Powell, enunciated doctrines that, had they been applied retroactively, would have prevented almost every American president from going to war. America, they said, should do so only when it had overwhelming force, consensus support from the American people, and an endpoint or exit strategy clearly in hand.
Reagan actually used military force sparingly. In 1983, he withdrew forces from Lebanon, after 241 marines were killed by a massive truck bomb. But when a military coup in tiny Grenada took the life of the prime minister, a Marxist who nonetheless wanted to forge friendly ties with the United States, Reagan dispatched troops without hesitation.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War in 1989 freed presidents from the fear that military intervention would lead to nuclear war between the superpowers. But they still went to war only reluctantly. Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait in 1990 presented George H.W. Bush with an occasion for war that met the standards set by Weinberger and Powell. The United States, still with a Cold War-size military and with plenty of allies, could deploy a sufficient military force (Bush asked his generals how many men they needed and doubled it), it had an easily realizable military strategy, and there was an obvious endpoint, the liberation of Kuwait. Even so, nearly half the U.S. Senate and a large minority in the House opposed military action. Ultimately, Bush rejected advice to continue on into Iraq, though that led to the massacre of many Kurds and Shiites, who had been encouraged to believe that they could count on American assistance.
Bill Clinton similarly seemed to follow the Weinberger-Powell prescription. When Army Rangers were killed in Somalia, Clinton quickly withdrew U.S. forces. He resisted intervention in Bosnia until it became clear that American forces would be called on to help Europeans withdraw, and force was used sparingly. The war in Kosovo was conducted entirely by air, to produce zero U.S. casualties. Actions against al Qaeda were limited to a few long-range airstrikes.
The way it was. The shock of September 11 set George W. Bush on a course closer to that which American presidents have followed in the past. He chose, with near unanimous support, to go to war in Afghanistan, even though it was not obvious that we had sufficient forces or a military strategy to ensure victory. The amazing capacities of the American military--with special forces on the ground directing precision bombing by B-2s flown in from Missouri--speedily ousted the Taliban regime. But Afghanistan is still a disorderly place, with a central government by no means wholly in control. Bush also chose to go to war in Iraq, this time against considerable opposition, with forces entirely capable of success in major military operations but not, or so critics have plausibly charged, sufficient to impose order in the months and years after. Nor is there a clear endpoint or exit strategy: Bush insists that American forces will leave when Iraqi forces can maintain order, but determining just when that might be will be a matter of fine and debatable judgment.
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