Small Wars In US History

Current media attention is focused on the war the United States started with Iraq a decade ago.

I'm reading an interesting book I picked up a couple of weeks ago at the Marine Corps Exchange at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station: Just and Unjust Wars by Michel Walzer. The book's subtitle is "A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations."

Just war theory focuses on two aspects of warfare: 1) was there a just cause (as in, was it justified or moral to initiate military action or respond with military action) and: 2) was the war conducted in a just manner.

I would say there is another aspect of war that does not strictly fall under just war theory, but it relates: was the war wise?

In the United States we have a fourth recurring question: was the war constitutional? Specifically, critics of particular wars often claim that the war is not legitimate, because Congress did not declare war as specified in the Constitution.

On this latter point, I recommend reading a really interesting military manual: Small Wars Manual United States Marine Corps 1940. The manual is available here. It is a clearly written guide to planning and conducting small wars in all of their variety.

Just read the introduction and it will be clear that what I have written elsewhere is true. Up to the time of World War II, most of our military interventions were conducted by the Department of the Navy. That included some very substantial military undertakings, including our Quasi-War with France during John Adams' administration. In no case was there ever a declaration of war when the conflict involved only the Navy Department.

Only when the War Department was involved in the conflict did the United States ever declare war. That has happened only five times in our history.

The fine line between conflicts involving only the Navy Department and categorized as "small wars" and the more substantial conflicts involving the War Department disappeared with passage in 1947 of the Armed Forces Unification Act.

That act created a constitutional muddle that we have never resolved.

We would be better off to return to a time when the Navy/Marine Corps team did small wars. They knew how to do it. A number of our military interventions would have been more competently planned and conducted if they had followed the 1940 Small Wars Manual of the Marine Corps.

It would save a lot of money, too.