Is America Exceptional? "Not So Much"- E.L. Doctorow

Here are today's thoughts by the author E.L. Doctorow on the issue of American Exceptionalism. Or how to achieve unexceptionalism. He seems to think we have already accomplished that.

Republicans

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute have penned a very interesting article in last Friday's Washington Post examining causes of the vicious partisanship and gridlock in Washington. The article's title telegraphs their conclusions: "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem."

The article opens with a quote from Florida Congressman West asserting that "78 to 81" Democratic congressmen are members of the Communist Party. Shades of Joe McCarthy! But when Senator McCarthy was censured by the Senate, senators of both parties joined in the censure. As did Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower.

But that was then. Mann and Ornstein observe: "We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party."

They continue: "The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."

These observations are not made by partisan operatives, but by serious scholars with a longstanding reputation as objective observers of our political processes.

We should all take them seriously.

On Service

I don't remember when it started, but I was startled the first time someone, on finding that I was retired military, said: "thank you for your service."

I understood that the person who said it was sincere, and meant it respectfully, but it made me uncomfortable all the same. Ever since, I have tried to understand the source of my discomfort.

I just finished reading Drift by Rachel Maddow, and I think I now understand why such statements make me uncomfortable. It implies that military service or, perhaps more broadly any kind of public service is an extraordinary thing. According to Ms. Maddow, in today's America, only one percent of adults have served in the military.

It was not that way in the America in which I grew up. Service was taken for granted. Every young man was subject to military service, and public service in general was viewed in a positive light. A half century ago, President Kennedy told an entering class at the Naval Academy, "I can imagine a no more rewarding career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worth while, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'"

But America's youth in those days were inspired to serve their fellow citizens in other ways as well. Young people flocked to the newly-created Peace Corps and recent college graduates actively sought positions in government service.

Like their predecessors who struggled to bring America  out of the Great Depression and who served victoriously in World War II (Tom Brokaw called them the Greatest Generation), this new generation chose to serve in a cause greater than themselves.

Would that those of us who remember those times can inspire our latest generation of Americans to such service.

War And Rumors Of War

I am reading Rachel Maddow's new book, Drift, The Unmooring of American Military Power.

I'm not finding it enjoyable - Ms. Maddow hits too many nails right on the head. In particular, the heart of her book reminds me why, after nearly three decades of service in the navy, I decided I could no longer serve the foreign policy and national security policy imperatives of a US administration - that of Ronald Reagan.

As Brutus observes in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, "the evil that men do lives after them..." The Reagan departure from our historical traditions and the policies of every US President in my lifetime, from FDR through Nixon and Carter, is captured in Maddow's book by an exchange between Senator Edward Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in 1990:

Kennedy: "....do you agree that the president must obtain the approval of Congress in advance before the United States attacks Iraq?"

Cheney: "Senator, I do not believe the president requires any additional authorization from the Congress before committing US forces to achieve our objectives in the Gulf . . . There have been some two hundred times, in our history, when presidents have committed US forces, and on only five of those occasions was there a prior declaration of war. And so I am not one who would argue, in this instance, that the president's hands are tied or that he is unable, given his constitutional responsibilities as commander in chief, to carry out his responsibilities."

This was a pretty breathtaking repudiation of the Constitutional provision that only Congress has the power to declare war.

But what about those two hundred-odd instances of military action without declaring war? Actually, the figure Cheney cited is a bit inflated, because it includes some very minor actions that would not plausibly constitute war.

But the list also includes some very major military undertakings, including the three-year "quasi-war" with France, the two Barbary Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and countless foreign interventions, including the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippine Insurrection.

On close examination, what is striking about the list is that vast majority of such military actions involved the navy and marine corps, not the army - to be more precise, not the War Department.

It seems too simplistic, but prior to 1947, there were two military departments of our government, the Navy Department and the War Department. If a military action involved only the Navy Department (which includes the marines), there never was a declaration of war. Only if the War Department was involved in a foreign action was there ever a declaration of war.

In one other interesting respect, the Constitution treats the Army and Navy differently. Article I, Section 8 lists the powers of Congress, including:
"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Capture on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy...."

For whatever reason, the Constitution does not include a two year limit on naval appropriations. One could conclude that our founding fathers were deeply suspicious of standing armies, but had no such suspicion of navies. The suspicion of standing armies was also memorably expressed in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

What undid more than a century and a half of Constitutional practice and tradition concerning military affairs was the Unification of Armed Forces Act of 1947. Since that action, creating the Department of Defense, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an independent Air Force, we have yet to sort these issues out satisfactorily.

Pentagon staff officers in my day often shared the observation that "before the Department of Defense, we never lost a war and since then, we have never won one."

Reviewing the history of our very successful operations during World War II, including significant joint Army-Navy undertakings, one can conclude that Unification of the Armed Forces was not the solution to a problem, but rather a solution in search of a problem. Or a solution that created a problem.

Oriental Comprehensive Plan

Next Tuesday night, May 1, Oriental's Long Range Planning Committee will unveil its draft of a comprehensive plan.

I haven't completely digested the plan, but there are features of it that I like. Here is a link to the Town Board agenda. Click on the second item to see the 24-page draft of the comprehensive plan.

A second item on the agenda that may make attendance worthwhile is that the town attorney, Scott Davis, will provide an update on South Avenue.

Report On The War: Apr 23 1944

Here Is Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King's Report to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox dated April 23, 1944.

The report is worth reading, since it gives an official view of preparation for and conduct of World War II from the standpoint of one of its principal leaders.

My favorite quote from the report is Admiral King's explanation of the Navy's peacetime efforts to meet its responsibilities:

The Peacetime Navy

Prior to the War in Europe

THE fundamental United States naval policy is "To maintain the Navy in strength and readiness to uphold national policies and interests, and to guard the United States and its continental and overseas possessions."

In time of peace, when the threats to our national security change with the strength and attitude of other nations in the world who have a motive for making war upon us and who are-or think they are-strong enough to do so, it is frequently difficult to evaluate those threats and translate our requirements into terms of ships and planes and trained men. It is one thing to say that we must have and maintain a Navy adequate to uphold national policies and interests and to protect us against potential enemies, but it is another thing to decide what is and what is not the naval strength adequate for that purpose.

In the years following World War I, our course was clear enough-to make every reasonable effort to preserve world peace by eliminating the causes of war and failing in that effort, to do our best to stay clear of war, while recognizing that we might fail in doing so. For a number of years, the likelihood of our becoming involved in a war in the foreseeable future appeared remote, and our fortunate geographical position gave us an added sense of security. Under those circumstances, and in the interest of national economy, public opinion favored the belief that we could get along with a comparatively small Navy. Stated in terms of personnel this meant an average of about 7,900 commissioned officers, all of whom had chosen the Navy as a career, and 100,000 enlisted men more or less.

This modest concept of an adequate Navy carried with it an increased responsibility on the part of the Navy to maintain itself at the peak of operational and material efficiency, with a nucleus of highly trained personnel as a basis for war time expansion.

For twenty years in its program of readiness, our Navy has worked under schedules of operation, competitive training and inspection, unparalleled in any other Navy of the world. Fleet problems, tactical exercises, amphibious operations with the Marines and Army, aviation, gunnery, engineering, communications were all integrated in a closely packed annual operation schedule. This in turn was supplemented by special activities ashore and afloat calculated to train individuals in the fundamentals of their duties and at the same time give them the background of experience so necessary for sound advances in the various techniques of naval warfare. Ship competitions established for the purpose of stimulating and maintaining interest were climaxed by realistic fleet maneuvers held once a year, with the object of giving officers in the higher commands experience and training in strategy and tactics approximating these responsibilities in time of war.

Our peacetime training operations, which involved hard work and many long hours of constructive thinking, were later to pay us dividends. For example, it would be an understatement to say merely that the Navy recognized the growing importance of air power. By one development after another, not only in the field of design and equipment, but also in carrier and other operational techniques-such as dive bombing-and in strategic and tactical employment, the United States Navy has made its aviation the standard by which all other naval aviation is judged and has contributed its full share to the advances which were to make aviation the sine qua non of modern warfare. It may be stated here, with particular reference to naval aviation, that the uniform success which has characterized our naval air operations is unmistakably the result of an organization which was based on the conviction that air operations should be planned, directed and executed by naval officers who are naval aviators, and that in mixed forces naval aviation should be adequately represented in the command and staff organization.

WWII: Were We Ready?

The "standard narrative" of US entry into World War II insists that the US wasn't prepared for war.

Balderdash!

I have recently focused on a single event early in the war - the Doolittle raid on Japan, and conclude that our armed forces were amply prepared for war. They would like to have had more stuff, but they had very good stuff and very well-trained people.

The truth is, no general or admiral is ever entirely satisfied with the readiness of forces under his command. In the US Civil War, General George McLellan never felt his forces were ready for battle.

But successful military leaders know that perfect readiness never happens.

The standard narrative extols the Battle of Midway as the turning point of the Pacific War. That was six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Every ship and airplane at the Battle of Midway was already in service at the time of Pearl Harbor.

Assessments of "turning points" are always a bit arbitrary, but I find it striking that Japan actually made no significant advances in the Pacific after the Doolittle Raid of April 18, 1942. (To be sure, the Japanese landed on Guadalcanal in July, but the US landed in August, and the Japanese had to withdraw before year's end.) After the Doolittle raid, Japan withdrew their carrier force from the Indian Ocean to defend their main islands, and moved other forces back to Honshu.

The Japanese operation to capture Midway was, itself triggered by the Doolittle raid. The Japanese high command wanted to make it impossible for the US to conduct similar raids unopposed.

I think that strengthens the case for the joint Army-Navy attack on Japan of April 18, 1942 as the real turning point of the war.

And the US was prepared.

More on this theme later.

Keynes Was Right

It is worth pointing out that the British economic policies that have led Britain back into recession are exactly the same policies pushed by Congressman Ryan and other Republicans in Congress. What we need, instead, is more government spending to bring us back into prosperity.

I am not the only one who has come to that conclusion. Increasingly, members of the business community are recognizing that austerity is exactly the wrong approach.

Read, for example, this article in Business Insider by its editor, Henry Blodgett. Blodgett explains clearly why austerity doesn't work:

"The reason austerity doesn't work to quickly fix the problem is that, when the economy is already struggling, and you cut government spending, you also further damage the economy. And when you further damage the economy, you further reduce tax revenue, which has already been clobbered by the stumbling economy. And when you further reduce tax revenue, you increase the deficit and create the need for more austerity. And that even further clobbers the economy and tax revenue. And so on."

Of course, that is what Keynesians have been saying all along. 

So, how did we get where we are? Blodgett explains:

"Most of the debt mountain we've piled up is the result of what we did before the crisis, not after it. In the years leading up to 2007, our absurdly undisciplined leaders took a nice big budget surplus and then squandered it. And they created absurdly loose lending standards and encouraged the whole country to lever up and buy stuff we couldn't afford. And they never said "no" to anything except tax increases, no matter what, and denied all the structural problems that were building up for decades.

"And by 2007, they had put us in one hell of a hole.

"And, given that, it seems reasonable to think that, as Krugman has long argued, one of the problems with the economy now is that the original stimulus just wasn't big enough."

By the way, businessmen realize that the problem holding back business investment is lack of customers (aggregate demand), not regulation or "confidence" in any psychological sense. Show them some customers and they will invest.