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DEMOCRATS AND THE MILITARY.
I tend to think that Democrats have too much of a What's the Matter With Kansas approach to reknitting their relationship with the military. There's an odd tendency to focus extremely intensely on the economic rewards that an alliance with the Democratic Party would produce: Better veteran benefits and educational subsidies and health care. You see it in the Truman Project's new (and admirable) Strong Military Project, which defines its mission as "leadership that uses our military might wisely, provides them with the tools they need while in the battlefield, and gives service members the health and educational benefits they deserve when they return home." You see it under their "get the facts" tab, where they let you compare the records of various politicians on funding for veteran health care and support for the GI bill.
It's not that these things aren't good -- they are. But the tension in the relationship between the Democratic Party and the military comes, as far as I can tell, because the Democratic Party isn't quite sure what it thinks about the military, and the military isn't quite sure where it fits inside the liberal worldview. And neither side is wrong on this: Much of the Democratic coalition has complicated feelings on the role of military might and the influence of military culture, and the military, like any institution, feels more comfortable with administrations that view them with awe than skepticism. It's possible that the grueling course of the Iraq War has created a desire for a respite (Obama and Ron Paul got the most military donations this year), but I sort of doubt its changed those underlying facts.
The fundamental problem, as Heather Hurlburt argued in her seminal piece "War Torn," is that Democrats don't spend much time thinking about war policy (not military benefits policy). As Hurlburt argued, "Democrats are in this position precisely because we respond to matters of war politically, tactically. We worry about how to position ourselves so as not to look weak, rather than thinking through realistic, sensible Democratic principles on how and when to employ military force, and arguing particular cases, such as Iraq, from those principles. There are a lot of reasons for this failure, including the long-time split within the party between hawks and doves. But we will never resolve that split, nor regain credibility with voters on national security, until we learn to think straight about war. And we will never learn to think straight about war until this generation of professional Democrats overcomes its ignorance of and indifference to military affairs."
Right now, Democrats are able to think straight because opposition to Iraq is a fairly obvious, unifying, position. But Obama and Biden didn't do much to define a liberal foreign policy in this election. And until such a policy achieves sharper definition, Democrats can never have a particularly strong relationship with the military, because no institution likes ambiguity about the nature of their role. It's worth saying, incidentally, that a liberal foreign policy may not be one that the military likes, and may not solve tensions with tat institution. But at least in that scenario, folks would have something more concrete to talk about, and work through.
COMMENTS (8)
I don't know, just about every Democratic politician I hear doesn't hesitate to slobber all over the military. Listening to the candidates argue over whose positions have the approval of generals is kind of alarming.
Every institution in America--the government, the press, big business, academia--is looked upon with mass skepticism and even cynicism, except for the military. That strikes me as potentially dangerous.
Posted by: jeebus | October 21, 2008 12:17 PM
Good post. I hope someone more wonk-ified than myself can provide an outline of what such a policy might look like.
Isn't Ms. Maddow writing a book on the military influence in the US?
Posted by: Margaret | October 21, 2008 12:22 PM
Please read and reflect on Eugene Jarecki'a thoughts (also appeared yesterday on the Daily show); from Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/20/eugene_jarecki_on_the_american_way
I'd also recommend his documentary "Why We Fight".
Posted by: SoilCreep | October 21, 2008 12:37 PM
The military budget HAS to be on the table. Citizens would reject US foreign policy if they really understood it instead of believing the "consensus" taught in schools and propagated by both parties and the media.
Obviously, the world is a dangerous place and defense is crucial. Offense being crucial is debatable.
Posted by: jealousmonk | October 21, 2008 12:46 PM
i think you're conflating widely disparate constituencies into one thing called - the military. lots of pundits do it but it has actually been harmful to any meaningful analysis of political trends within the military. having served five years, i was struck by a number of things related to this issue.
there's a military lobby, which trends towards any party that supports big military pork spending. in the past 30 years, that's been the republican party. but that's not exactly by design. by an accident of history, it was clinton and not bush I who presided over the "peace dividend" which saw the reduction of the military mission from a cold war standing to post-cold war.
then there's an officer class. since many officer academies and the most storied military schools are in the southern parts of the country, a core pool of officers are coming from extremely conservative areas. and the lifelong officer class, the officers who make the military their career are disproportionately products of these academies and schools, since graduating from these schools is a big advantage for promotion. but there's a professional class of officers (lawyers, dentists, doctors) as well. and i would imagine that their political demographics are much more aligned with that of the rest of the country.
finally, there's the enlisted servicemembers. and speaking from five years of experience as a servicemember, the support for republicans and bush, in particular, among this class is largely exaggerated. most of my friends in the army, by the time i got out in 2005, were passionately against president bush.
i don't think the democrats have a problem with the military, or vice versa. the conservative voices and bush supporters from the military have been able to speak freely about that support for 8 years. it's okay from a military policy standpoint to publicly support the commander in chief. but the reverse is not true, which has caused quite a bit of misleading coverage on this issue.
Posted by: oldmancoyote | October 21, 2008 3:31 PM
let's face it, liberals don't join the military and especially aren't well represented in the command staff.
If you have an institution that is both predominantly Republican and controlled by Republicans--well, what do you think is gonna happen?
Posted by: raft | October 21, 2008 5:30 PM
raft -
i'm a liberal. i joined the military and served proudly for five years and made every promotion on time.
most of my friends were liberal too, for that matter.
i know it makes it easier to conflate things into simple statements like "liberals don't join the military" and "democrats hate the military" and "the military hates democrats" and "straights and gays can't serve together" but none of these are true.
get over it.
Posted by: oldmancoyote | October 21, 2008 8:06 PM
Giving raft the benefit of the doubt, I'm fairly certain he/she realizes that there are, in fact, some liberals in the military.
I appreciate the larger point you are trying to make, but I just hate it when somebody makes what is an obvious generalization, and someone objects by saying, nuh-uh, I know of a handful of exceptions .... For example if I say, in another context, "African-Americans vote for Democrats," it's not really a refutation for somebody to pipe up and say "Hey I'm black and I'm a Republican, and so are my mom and dad."
Posted by: jeebus | October 21, 2008 10:08 PM