how many wars are we in today?

 On December 7 the White House sent Congress its latest biennial war powers report.  No surprises. It cites the 2001 AUMF as authority for counter-terrorism operations in Iraq and Syria -- and forces "postured outside Afghanistan." It notes previous reports of "discrete military actions" in those countries as well as Yemen, Somalia and Lake Chad Basin and Sahel Region. It also includes US forces as part of multinational forces in Egypt and Kosovo.

The same day as the report, the Senate voted 83-11 against a measure that would have required the withdrawal of US troops in Syria.

Despite what House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Mike McCaul [R-Texas] said earlier, he has not yet introduced legislation providing authorization for US military support to Israel. While Congress have voted military equipment for Israel, there is no congressional authority for combat support.

the American way with plagues

 One reason for historians to revisit topics already covered by others is that later generations have new questions and new perspectives about the subject matter. Robert P. Watson, writing about the yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia in 1793, tells a story we can resonate with because of our own experiences with Covid-19.

His book, America's First Plague: The Deadly 1793 Epidemic that crippled a young nation,begins with the irony that one of the most likely vectors was a British ship Hankey that was sent to found a colony of free blacks and whites off the coast of Guinea but was driven away, with sick and dying passengers, to the Caribbean and Philadelphia. The venture was funded by British abolitionists.

The strange disease was first noticed at the Philadelphia wharf, where the Hankey and other ships from yellow fever hotspots in the Caribbean had docked. Although Philadelphia, then the capital of the new country, was the leading site for medical and scientific research, doctors were puzzled by the illness and unable to agree on a proper treatment.

Watson highlights the bitter disagreements between Benjamin Rush,the most prominent American physician of the age, and some other local doctors. Rush believed that most epidemics were caused by miasmas, bad air, and were best treated by bloodletting and purgatives. Some of the other doctors favored fluids and rest. Only in the late 19th century did doctors conclude that yellow fever was caused by mosquitoes.

After about ten weeks of high casualties, the first frost led to a quick dropoff of the disease. During and after the worst period, the Philadelphia media clashed with political messages. Jeffersonian Republicans like Rush opposed quarantines and blamed the Federalists for mishandling the plague. Federalist politicians and doctors countered that Rush and the Republicans had made things worse.

Other American cities banned entry of people and ships from Philadelphia or imposed quarantines of new arrivals.

The U.S. Government collapsed. About half the people of Philadelphia left the city during late August and September. President George Washington had long planned to go to Mount Vernon in mid-September, but most of his cabinet and other government employees were already leaving on their own. He finally returned and convened a cabinet meeting in early November and decided Congress could return as scheduled in December.

A happier story is about Philadelphians, who already had a system of almshouses and care for the poor and sick as part of their Quaker tradition. A large suburban house was seized and turned into a hospital for fever victims; doctors and caregivers were recruited and paid; and major improvements in hygiene undertaken. While the news media maintained their partisan passions, they also gave valuable and timely information during the crisis.

This was the first time, but not the last, that Americans grew scared and angry about a medical emergency, vollied political points as they tried to figure out what to do, and learned how better to prepare for future problems. Read the book.

how Washington really works

 I've long told my classes, "If you know how the system works, you'll know how to work the system." And the way Washington really works is through connections and conversations and perseverance.

The New Yorker has an excellent example this week, an article by historian Kai Bird about the effort to nullify a denial of a security clearance for the leader of the Manhattan Project that built the atom bomb, Robert Oppenheimer.

Bird and Martin Sherwin, who had co-authored a book about Oppenheimer, tried to get a DC law firm to take up the case, only to be blocked by a partner whose father had chaired the panel that punished Oppenheimer. Later they used Hill connections from long ago to try to get the Obama Administration to reconsider the matter. A legendarily effective Senate staffer, Tim Rieser, got his boss and other Senators to sign a letter to the Secretary of Energy, who has jurisdiction over the weapons labs and thus their security procedures. Unsuccessful at that time, they renewed their effort in the Biden administration, got additional letters from former officials, and finally favorable action by Secretary Granholm.

People mattered, both for and against Oppenheimer's case. Organizations mattered: DOE officials were reluctant to revisit the issue or make legal rulings. The process mattered: connecting the advocates with people empowered to act. What a neat story, especially with a happy ending.

how many wars are we in today?

 The White House released its twice-yearly War Powers report on June 8. No surprises and few specific numbers. The letter to Congress this time doesn't mention a classified annex.

the rogue secretary of defense

I’ve been studying America’s secretaries of defense for a long time. I wrote a book comparing the first 21 in 2006, just before one of the best ever, Robert Gates, began his service. Once former secretaries started writing memoirs, I began collecting them. But save your money when it comes to Christopher Miller’s Soldier Secretary.

That’s uncharitable. Let me put it differently. Don’t buy it unless you want to read –

-- the geriatric congressional leadership ”cowering like frightened children” on January 6 [xi]

-- the Iraq war conducted “all for a god-damned lie” [108]

-- the Army War College’s devotion to  the “dogmas of the ruling regime” [138]

-- how civilian control in the Pentagon made him “nauseous” [141]

--his first NSC boss, John Bolton, was a “classic ‘chicken hawk’” [158]

-- he concluded we need only “800 military personnel” in Afghanistan [159]

-- Chairmen MIlley in 2021 was “either lying or grossly incompetent” about Afghanistan [160]

-- he was an internationalist until he “was mugged by neoconservatives” [190]

-- Milley was “prone to histrionics” [218]

-- we should “cut  military spending in half,”[230] “demolish and rebuild the intelligence community” (the vast majority of whose products are “worthless and a colossal waste of time and resources”)[241], and “fire the generals” [248]

 

What he doesn’t say is how he maneuvered to be named Acting Secretary of Defense. He went to work on the NSC staff in March 2018, later had a political job at DOD, and was nominated by President Trump to head the National Counter Terrorism Center in March, 2020. The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on his nomination on July 22, and the Senate confirmed him with a voice vote and no debate on August 6. That confirmation made him legally available to be named Acting Secretary of Defense, and he admits that he “had been on standby throughout the later summer and early fall.” [183]

 

President Trump waited until after the election, then fired Secretary Mark Esper on November 9 and announced Miller’s appointment. Miller had a long Army career, but slim accomplishments compared to the other men who have headed the Pentagon. What counted most was that he had the confidence of the president.

 

The most curious omission was any discussion of the November 11, 2020 meeting when the senior leadership was presented with memorandum signed by President Trump ordering the withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel from Somalia by December 31 and from Afghanistan by January 15. The document had been prepared by the team sent to the Pentagon with Miller but without the usual staffing by the NSC. General Milley protested the unorthodox process and Trump was persuaded to withdraw it. Miller brags that he was later able to fly to Africa and get the Somalia withdrawal accomplished before Trump left office.

 

I believe a soldier can become disillusioned with a war in which he fought bravely. I can appreciate that an official in the Pentagon and intelligence community can witness enough examples of unwise spending that he favors big cuts. I understand that Donald Trump’s impulsive and ignorant policymaking could appeal to someone with a shattered world view. But it’s scary to realize that such a  person could have been given such extraordinary power by a president actively trying to overturn a democratic election.

 

Books that changed my mind

 [I mentioned some of these items a few years ago, but now my list is longer.]

I was exchanging reading recommendations with a friend and realized that there have been a few books in recent years that actually changed my mind regarding what I thought happened in history. I read a lot of disappointing books -- too shallow, too heavy, too incomplete -- but I generally enjoy revisionist historians, especially if they have a provocative thesis and ample evidence. If you want to buy one of these, the best place to look  is https://www.bookfinder.com/ So here's a short list:

World War I: I'm now persuaded that Russia shares much of the blame for the start of the Great War by its policies to dominate Turkey and by mobilization during the July 1914 crisis. After deep dives into long-hidden Russian archives, Sean McMeekin showed in The Russian Origins of the First World War that even Barbara Tuchman got the sequence wrong by relying on the falsified memoirs of the Russian Foreign Minister. McMeekin's books on Russian diplomacy and the July crisis changed my view of German war guilt, though Austria-Hungary still deserves shared blame with Russia. See also his Russian Revolution, July 1914, and Stalin's War, which describes World War II from Stalin's viewpoint rather than the usual FDR/Churchill one.

Philip Zelikow's The Road Less Traveled persuaded me that leaders missed a chance to end the war in December 1916 with a poorly staffed peace initiative by Woodrow Wilson that was undercut by Secretary Lansing and "Colonel" House.

FDR's boldness: I had long admired Franklin Roosevelt's strategic bravery in maneuvering the United States in support of Britain and against Hitler, believing that he was just ahead of public opinion, skillfully pulling it along. Lynne Olson's Those Angry Days persuaded me that, much of the time, FDR vacillated, doing less than many of his advisors urged and hoped. He still was a great leader, just not quite as bold as I had thought.

World War II: James Lacey's The Washington War, a bureaucratic politics analysis of FDR's leadership, persuaded me that administrative and economic policies had as much to do with America's ultimate success as its military operations. Phillips Payson O'Brien's The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt's Chief of Staff persuaded me that Leahy was far more influential on FDR's war policy than General George Marshall. Jonathan Schneer's Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and His War Cabinet persuaded me that much of Britain's success was due to the way the cabinet worked together; Churchill dominated, but the cabinet mattered.

Postwar American policy: Derek Leebaert's, Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945-57, persuaded me that Britain hoodwinked America into doing what it wanted until the collapse at Suez. Samuel F. Wells, Jr.'s Fearing the Worst: How Korea Transformed the Cold War, convinced me that American misjudgments in the Korean war made the nuclear arms race with the USSR more likely. Serhii Plokhy's Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, persuaded me that JFK lied about his policies and we came dangerously close to a full-scale nuclear war.

Slave Power's influence on foreign policy:  I never thought that slavery and its perpetuation had much impact on American foreign policy until I read Matthew Karp's eye-opening history, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy.

Karp details how the South dominated key foreign policy posts and consciously advocated policies to protect and even extend slavery in the decades before the War of the Rebellion. Defenders of slavery really had a "deep state."

The Revolutionary War:  I used to have a typical American high school student's view of our war for independence as a story of brave patriots, toughened at Valley Forge and led by George Washington, who finally triumphed at Yorktown. Two books have changed my understanding of that conflict. One was Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's of British politics during the conflict, The Men Who Lost America. He argues that the British gave up for broader strategic reasons. Add to this Holger Hoock's Scars of Independence,   which describes the local violence on both sides and the mistreatment of Loyalists during and after the war. The good guys won, but they won dirty.

How many wars are we in today?

 The president sent Congress his latest report on troop deployments under the War Powers law on December 8. It shows that combat-equipped forces are in 15 named countries plus 90,000 in various NATO countries and others "postured outside Afghanistan." There is also a classified annex.

No surprises here. The letter has a defensive tone. For example, it says US forces in Yemen are doing counter-terrorism and are not engaged in hostilities against the Houthis.

I remain convinced that the war powers laws are useful in providing some transparency on US military activities and will continue to draw attention to the reports.