Resurrecting the Good War

Abstract

By 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed, American leaders faced a new challenge: how to field an all-volunteer army to fight discretionary wars not to defend American shores but to extend American economic and political power. With the defeat of the Soviet bloc and the triumph of global capitalism, the emergence of the United States as the world’s sole military superpower enabled this country to fill an apparent power vacuum in the resource-rich and geopolitically desirable Balkans and Central Asia. However, as a result of the loss of the Vietnam War and its accompanying “Vietnam Syndrome,” US leaders were limited to short-term tactical wars—brief land assaults supported with aerial bombing—to pursue a long-range agenda.

“There never was a good war, or a bad peace.”

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Josiah Quincy, 1783

“I think a curse should rest on me—because I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment—and yet—I can’t help it—I enjoy every second of it.”

—Winston Churchill, letter to a friend, 1916