Those of us who bother to study history we don’t have to look far to find correlations between past events and what is transcending in real-time today. We do not have to reflect on hundreds of years of history, we only have to look back, oh about 60 years or so. That’s not too far, but perhaps it is too close for us to recognize the similarities and patterns that have arisen in our nation’s history.
For the benefit of those who can’t name the presidents in order, I will provide a brief lineage starting at the turn of the 20th Century: Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), Taft (1909-1913), Wilson (1913-1921), Harding (1921-1923), Coolidge (1923-1929), Hover (1929-1933), FDR (1933-1945), Truman (1945-1953), Eisenhower (1953-1961), Kennedy (1961-1963), Johnson (1963-1969), Nixon (1969-1974), Ford (1974-1977), Carter (1977-1981), Reagan (1981-1989), George H.W. Bush (1989-1993), Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush (2001-2009), and Obama (2009-present).
Nineteen Presidents since 1901, all of whom have been president at a time of war, or charged with picking up the pieces following a war. That is pretty telling if you ask me. Since 1901 the US has been involved in seven stated wars, that doesn’t include the countless other small conflicts in which we have dedicated troops in the support of other nations or as part of our duty to the League of Nations, UN or NATO.
To put those numbers in a bit more perspective, the US in its history since the conclusion of the Revolution has only been in twelve wars: The First Barbary War (1801-1805), The War of 1812 (1812-1815), The Mexican War (1846-1848), The Civil War (1861-1865), The Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (1914-1918), World War II (1941-1945), Korea* (1950-1953), Vietnam* (1959-1975), The Persian Gulf (1990-1991), Afghanistan* (2001-Present) and Iraq* (2003-Present). However, if you remove the police actions, internal conflict and wars in which there was no country of origin to declare war on that leave us with 7 total wars since the birth of America. That doesn’t seem like a large number of wars especially when you speak to European military historians. However, if you take into account that each generation of Americans have been impacted in some way by war since the country was founded, you begin to see a different picture. The picture that has been painted is that of conflict, rebuilding and repeat.
The economic cost this places on not only the federal government, but more importantly the American people is enormous. Contrary to popular belief, not all wars generate revenue. We know this to be true of the current conflicts we find our country involved in, but we also know this to be true of past wars. The only war in our nation’s history that did not virtually bankrupt the country was World War II. It was the right kind of war at the right time in manufacturing progress. The two lined up near perfectly to create an economic boom that we have yet to experience since. This is not meant to be read as an isolationist plea, but rather to cause us for a moment to reflect on what the cost truly is.
The cost of war in lives is as we know great, but have you ever taken the time to examine the numbers in detail: World War I (116,516), WWII (405,399), Korea (53,686), Vietnam (58,209), Persian Gulf (258), Afghanistan (1747), and Iraq (4430). Again, these numbers reflect only a fraction of the total losses, they do not include those who died later in life as a result of complications of wounds physical or mental. The best estimated numbers for total Americans lost in all wars fought since the Revolution sum in the vicinity of 2.5 million. Six of the ten most costly wars have been fought in the 20th and 21st centuries.
With all war and conflict come peace protests. Prior to World War I and World War II the citizens involved with these peace protests were called Isolationist, maintaining a stance of non-interventionism, or the desire to remain neutral in wars that were not directly related to the territorial self-defense of the nation. The Korean War brought about the “Red Scare” if you did not support the war you were labeled a Communist. Vietnam gave us the educated peace protesters and the hippies. America has maintained a relative level of peace from the conclusion of Vietnam to the onset of the War on Terror. During this time the country’s military forces were involved in small quickly resolved conflicts that hardly made newspaper headlines with the exception of perhaps Grenada, The Gulf War and Somalia. Most Americans were unaware or uninterested in the UN/NATO involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo or the support the US military provided, therefore there was little resistance to the conflict.
It was during these years following Vietnam (1975-1991) that our country entered another isolationist period. Preferring to only involve ourselves in the business of other nations if invited, supporting other actions only if casualties remained low or it was economically warranted. The lend-lease mentality of pre-WWII resurfaced and resulted in the Iran-Contra scandal, placing arms in the hands of future enemies (Iraq and Afghanistan) and generally creating a less safe world for future generations to inhabit, all in a desire to remain superior to the Russian Soviets.
The military history of America is littered with bad wars entered into on false pretenses and with little regard for the lives of its citizens. The 20th century American knows better than generation past the greed involved in war and the decision to wage war. Human suffering is generally an afterthought, as well as the human capital lost during these wars. The War on Terror is not the first of its kind, nor will it be the last.