Unified National Will as an Instrument of National Power

[Around Midnight]

Thanks Marc for your thoughts. I would indeed look forward to a round of drinks to sort this out! You can buy the first round, if I can buy the second one?

I actually do agree with your idea regarding the need for “trans-national will,” but I think that also requires excellence in domestic and political national leadership, at least in US contexts. Leadership decision making is well and good, but unless there is a intentional and effective mobilization of a supportive US constituency, how can any American decision or plan for intense and/or sustained combat succeed? Robert S. McNamara sites in his book “In Retrospect, The Tragedy and Lessons of the Vietnam” 11 major causes or mistakes for our disaster in Vietnam. He is so on point for this Iraq war that we are in. We have ignored the lessons of the past and are repeating our mistakes. I am convinced more than ever that it is the importance of a “unified national will” that we need to pay attention to right now. McNamara’s point #7 (p.321) says it well:

“A nation's deepest strength lies not in military prowess but, rather, in the unity of its people. We failed to maintain it.”

This concept of the commitment of the nation’s military being a co-commitment of the people is not a theoretical construct, but rather a harsh political reality. I was trying to make this connection with my earlier referral to Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln (as Steve Blair notes) did have a vision of the national mission. He was able to articulate the mission in a way that was clearly understood: preserve the Union. The connection I was trying to make was that Lincoln was able to form around this mission a “unified national will” that was so robust that it could tolerate tremendous casualties and multiple major battlefield defeats and still persevere. The way that Lincoln did this was by getting people who didn’t vote for him or agree with him to support the war. He did this by appointing generals and civilians who represented the diverse constituencies in America. President Lincoln was in fact the only president to represent two parties. In order to accommodate both the Republican Party and the Northern Democrats an alliance was created and a new hybrid political party was created: The National Union Party! The consequence of this kind of politics was to stress the national character of the war in such a way that it mobilized two adversarial parties into one wartime political effort. The National Union ticket won in 1864 with 42 Senate seats, and 149 House or Representatives seats. This was a critical component of the Union’s war making ability. This is the kind of excellence in Government that is needed it times of war.
Col Key in his paper noted above quotes Gen Fred C. Weyand as making the American context of the connection between the American People and their military crystal clear… I can’t say it any better:

“The American Army really is a people’s Army in the sense that it belongs to the American people who take a jealous and proprietary interest in its involvement. When the Army is committed the American people are committed, when the American people lose their commitment it is futile to try to keep the Army committed. In the final analysis, the American Army is not so much an arm of the Executive Branch as it is an arm of the American people. The Army, therefore, cannot be committed lightly.”