how many wars are we in today? harder to tell

For the past few years the number has stayed at 19, as measured by the twice-yearly war powers report to Congress by the president. The latest letter, sent June 9, has several changes from the December, 2019 letter, and several omissions of other reported figures.

The new letter is mostly a copy and paste version of the earlier one.There is, however, mention of the peace negotiations in Afghanistan, the kill strike on Iranian General Soleimani, and additional troops to Kenya. Where numbers are given, the report shows more troops to Saudi Arabia and Jordan,  but fewer in Lebanon and the Sahel. In contrast to December, the June letter has no mention of US troops in Libya, Cameroon, Chad, or Nigeria.

Even more curiously, there is no mention of US troops ion Kuwait, Oman, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates despite large deployments reported earlier this year.  Maybe the classified annex has more.

As someone who has long valued these war powers reports as valuable information for Congress and the public, and accountability for the executive branch, I'm now much more skeptical. The letters haven't forced any tough decisions on presidents or received careful scrutiny by Congress.

thinking about US-Chinese relations

Stimulated by a student paper which I hope will eventually be published, I see that there are valuable ways of thinking about US-Chinese relations that go beyond our current focus on things like “the Thucydides Trap” or “a new Cold War.” One of the flaws in these popular analogies is that they quickly lead inexorably to self-fulfilling prophecies, the ill-fitting anti-Soviet playbook, or even nuclear war.

                Other ways of looking at the US-Chinese competition include rivalries in Europe in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The most optimistic and least applicable analogy is the peaceful British-American transition detailed in Kori Schake’s Safe Passage.  Another example is the British-French rivalry following the Seven Years’ War in 1763.  French officials consciously adopted a policy to “enfeeble” the British, first by strengthening their continental alliances and then by trying to dismember the British empire, starting with support for the American rebels.  That worked – until the costs of that global war and other domestic problems triggered a revolution in Paris.

                I’m especially intrigued by a third example: the British-German rivalry in the several decades before the First World War. I was aware of the military arms race between the two countries but needed reminding of the much greater breadth of the competition. Three Princeton economists show how Germany sought to leap ahead of Britain by promoting national technologies, using financial tools, blunt tariffs, and even massive infrastructure projects like the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway, which would have ended Berlin’s reliance on the Suez Canal. [A German geographer coined the “silk road” term.]

                Consciously or not, China already seems to be copying Bismarckian Germany’s multi-pronged approach, competing with America in trade, technology, finance, and infrastructure, as well as alliances and weaponry. I worry that the United States has been narrowly focused on military capabilities and espionage, while giving insufficient attention to other technology matters and broader diplomatic and economic relations.  My takeaway is that we need a deliberate industrial policy including large government R&D expenditures and targeted technology trade measures.

how many wars are we in today?

The number is still 19, according to the latest presidential letter to Congress reporting on troops deployed abroad equipped for combat.

There's really no news here, just a reminder that U.S. forces are still engaged in operations around the globe, most with no end in sight.

Congress can't complain, as some members did after U.S.military deaths in Niger a couple of years ago, that they haven't been told.

Regrettably,there is still insufficient political will to replace the 2001 AUMF with something that actually deals with the situations where 3 presidents have sent forces.

forever wars

The title was provocative: Why America Loses Wars. The author, Donald Stoker, has taught at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. So I read the book...and was profoundly disappointed.

Stoker doesn't like "forever wars." Neither do I. His critique of vague and changing goals in U.S. military operations after 1945 is reasonable. I believe policymakers should think carefully, weigh options, give clear policy guidance, especially to the military, and then frequently reassess whether ends, means, and ways are in balance.

But Stoker seems to believe that limited wars become forever wars. My problem is that unlimited wars can spiral out of control. There are strategic and moral reasons to keep conflicts limited.

Another book I've just read, Austin Carson's Secret Wars, show how often nations collude to keep secret their enemy's covert operations in order to limit escalation. I never knew, for example, that U.S. officials knew that Russian pilots were engaged in Korea but chose not to make that public. Carson, who teaches at the University of Chicago, also shows how American and enemy officials colluded to keep important facts about covert operations secret in the Vietnam and Afghan wars.

Carson's analysis thus provides another reason for keeping wars limited that makes sense to me.

FDR unsurpassed

Franklin D. Roosevelt was exceptional in many ways, but a new book by a Stony Brook professor demonstrates his amazing popularity. Helmut Norpoth's Unsurpassed: The Popular Appeal of Franklin Roosevelt (Oxford U. Press, 2018) draws upon little-studied opinion surveys from 1937-45 and beyond to make these points:

• FDR's approval rating his 70% in January, 1941 and stayed there or higher for the rest of his presidency. [One slight dip to 67% in November 1943.]
• His push for large defense budgets after 1938 not only slashed unemployment rates but also boosted his own approval ratings. [Throughout the book, Norpoth argues that FDR's foreign policies helped increase his political support.]
• The turning point, when American opinion shifted from avoiding war to supporting Britain even at the risk of war, came in the summer of 1940 after the fall of France. [At the same time, opinion jumped from opposing a third term to supporting the idea.]
• Unlike postwar presidents, FDR saw no loss of support as the casualties and costs of the war mounted.
• The point when public opinion first concluded that America would win the war -- jumping from 45% to 80% -- came just after the landings in North Africa in November, 1942. The numbers stayed that high or higher for the rest of the war. [This outcome underscores why FDR pushed so hard, but unsuccessfully, for the operation to begin before the 1942 congressional elections, when Democrats suffered substantial losses.]
• Being commander-in-chief probably tipped the balance for FDR in both 1940 and 1944. Surveys at the time showed the GOP candidates winning if there were no war.
• Soldiers voted for FDR in 1944 in large numbers [estimated at least 62%] and stayed Democrats long afterward. [Lincoln got 77% of Union soldiers' votes in 1864.]

My own research convinced me that FDR followed the polls closely and pushed things to the limits, especially in 1940-41, when he felt public opinion would be supportive. Norpoth also links his fireside chats as important devices to boost and sustain public approval of his policies. The evidence in the book lives up to its title.

propinquity = power

Readers here know that I get really excited about deeply researched books that change the common view on historical events. I've just read another, Phillips Payson O'Brien's new biography of Admiral William Leahy, The Second Most Powerful Man in the World.

Until I read O'Brien's book, I had long believed that General George Marshall was the military hero of World War II and the most influential officer advising Franklin Roosevelt. I also thought that the most influential civilian around FDR was Harry Hopkins, who even lived in the White House for over three years [1940-43].

What O'Brien documents is that Leahy had a longstanding relationship with FDR and spent long hours and numerous personal meetings with the president. He assiduously avoided publicity, however, and frequently said little in group meetings.  Once he became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and de facto chief of staff for all White House matters in 1942, he became the closest confidante and advisor to the president. While Hopkins was also influential and given several key assignments to fly to foreign capitals, he was frequently ill and hospitalized.  Leahy traveled almost constantly with FDR, to Hyde Park and elsewhere, and was always close at hand.

I'm willing to believe that propinquity is a good measure of power, and Leahy had that. O'Brien also demonstrates [there's even a chart on p. 281] that on key disputes over wartime strategy, FDR always sided with Leahy and against Marshall: the North Africa invasion; priority for air and sea construction programs; limiting the army's size in favor of war production; delaying D-Day until 1944.  O'Brien argues that Leahy stealthily worked to send assets to the Pacific despite the declared "Germany First" strategy.

Using the name metric, O'Brien persuasively argues that Cordell Hull and even Henry Stimson were bit players in the wartime strategy. 

From mid-1943 until FDR's death and the German surrender, Leahy was often "acting president" during the many low points in Roosevelt's declining health.

I see that there are several recent books on WWII leaders, but this is the best for explaining how the inner circle worked.

muddling through, 1945-56

I have long believed that a defining characteristic of American foreign policy is a tendency, perhaps even a preference, for muddling through. U.S. policymakers frequently make incremental decisions and then make minor adjustments as time goes on. What they call "strategy" is rarely more than an agreement on some vague overarching goal.

I've just finished a fine book that persuasively argues that is how the United States and Britain developed their foreign policies during the first post-World War II decade. In his Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945-1957 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018)  Derek Leebaert says that period "was a world without any American 'grand strategy,' and one in which most every move by Washington was a desperate improvisation."

I wish I could write a book like this, deftly combining vivid personal details with big picture analyses. Leebaert has read widely, both in recent academic tomes and in archival boxes of numerous officials.  He was the first to get declassified a seminal document, NSC-75 on British Military Commitments from July 1950. He knows and explains easily what was going on in Washington and Whitehall.

Among his arguments: Secretary of State Acheson was no Anglophile.
- The British bluffed America into aiding Greece in 1948; they weren't really ready to pull out.
- Truman stumbled into the Berlin blockade, following the British innovation.
- George Kennan is highly overrated by later historians and was often sidelined by others when he was a senior official.
- One of the key players, rarely mentioned by most historians, was Trruman's Treasury Secretary John Snyder. He often presided at US-British meetings held in Acheson's office.
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff time and again opposed overseas involvements.
- US foreign policy was weakened by the influx of "emergency men" and later women, who took over from the career professionals.

Refreshingly revisionist but deeply sourced.