The Brooks article sent me off looking for related material and I came up with this piece. It's very long. I've clipped just the first part.
army.mil
The Casualty-Aversion Myth
It's easy to see. . . . People go off to war and the bands play and the flags fly. And it's not quite so easy when the flag is draped over a coffin coming back through Dover, Delaware.
-SENATOR JOHN GLENN, 1997
That is the nature of the American public's sensitivity to U.S. military casualties? How does casualty sensitivity affect the pursuit of American national security objectives?1 The first question is easy to answer: There is no intrinsic, uncritical casualty aversion among the American public that limits the use of U.S. armed forces. There is a wide range of policy objectives on behalf of which the public is prepared to accept American casualties as a cost of success. Squeamishness about even a few casualties for all but the most important national causes is a myth. Nonetheless, it is a myth that persists as widely accepted conventional wisdom.
The second question is more difficult to answer. Avoidance of casualties is an unassailably desirable objective. It is precisely the natural nobility of the argument that makes it susceptible to misuse in the policy-making process, potentially leading to ineffective or inefficient choices. The persistence of the myth also causes adversaries to misjudge the likely reactions of the United States. In both of these ways, the myth of deep-seated casualty aversion among the American public hinders the pursuit of American national objectives.
The evidence indicates that the public response to casualties is a function of leadership and consensus among national policy elites, who have wide latitude in this area. They should not allow concern about casualties to replace thorough consideration of the larger context of costs and benefits. National leaders must not let unsubstantiated assertions of American casualty aversion distort the national security policy-making process or compromise professional military ethics.
This article briefly describes the nature of American casualty sensitivity, identifies some prominent negative effects of widespread acceptance of the casualty myth, and offers recommendations that may produce a more accurate understanding of the American public's casualty sensitivity.
AMERICAN CASUALTY SENSITIVITY
Are the American people in fact reluctant to risk lives? In a superficial and unhelpful sense, the American public is always reluctant to risk lives, particularly if there is some other reasonable way to accomplish objectives. No one wants casualties.
Myth and Conventional Wisdom
We had 500 casualties a week when we [the Nixon administration] came into office. America now is not willing to take any casualties. Vietnam produced a whole new attitude.
HENRY KISSINGER, 1999
It's obvious that there's a political agenda to have low casualties. . . . If my Achilles' heel is the low tolerance of the American people for casualties, then I have to recognize that my success or failure in this mission [in Bosnia] is directly affected by that.
MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM L. NASH, 1996
[America is] a nation intolerant of casualties.
EDWARD LUTTWAK, 1995
And the hearts that beat so loudly and enthusiastically to do something, to intervene in areas where there is not an immediate threat to our vital interests, when those hearts that had beaten so loudly see the coffins, then they switch, and they say: "What are we doing there?"
SENATOR WILLIAM COHEN (LATER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE)
These are just some of the many similar expressions of the conventional wisdom of American public casualty aversion.2 The conventional wisdom is strong among civilian, military, and media elites. Steven Kull and I. M. Destler have recorded many interviews-with members of Congress and their staffs, the media, the executive branch, and leaders of nongovernmental organizations-that support this view.3 Other interviews with members of the media and military leaders also confirm a widespread belief that the American public is unwilling to accept casualties.4
The wellspring of this conventional wisdom is generally understood to be the Vietnam War, as reinforced by experiences in Lebanon (1983) and Somalia (1993). The tremendous efforts by civilian and military leaders to minimize casualties in other operations-the Persian Gulf War (1991), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1995), and Kosovo (1999)-can be read as a reaction to the public's purported low tolerance for casualties. Rising casualties in Iraq following the end of "major combat operations" have also been portrayed as an important factor affecting the public's willingness to support the mission. The abandonment of military intervention in several instances in which it was seriously considered has also been attributed to casualty aversion. Examples include the Balkans (before 1995), Rwanda (1994), and Zaire/Congo (1995).
Manifestations of this conventional wisdom are many and widespread-the "Vietnam syndrome," the "Dover test," the "CNN effect," part of the Weinberger/Powell doctrine, the concept of "post-heroic warfare," and a social equity effect attributed to the absence of American civilian elites and their children from military service.
The "Vietnam syndrome" is commonly understood as a general reticence among Americans to use military force abroad as a result of negative lessons of the Vietnam experience. It is "that revulsion at the use of military power that afflicted our national psyche for decades after our defeat."5 It is a comprehensive generalization about the American public's unwillingness to continue to support U.S. foreign military efforts, particularly as casualties rise. This aspect of the Vietnam syndrome relates casualty aversion to the idea that public support for military operations in Vietnam declined because of the human costs of the war.6 A variant attributing the decline in popular support to media portrayals of events in Vietnam has fed negative attitudes toward the media, particularly among many members of the military.
Senator John Glenn's "Dover test" (alluded to in the first epigraph, above) refers to the American public's assumed response to American service people returning to the United States in flag-draped coffins. This oft-repeated image symbolizes the cost in casualties of American military operations. In an interesting response to its presumed visceral effect, the Department of Defense has prohibited media coverage of such events since 1989: "There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Dover AFB [Air Force Base] or Ramstein AFB [in Germany], to include interim stops."7 In a sense, this provides an official endorsement of the presumption that casualties have a powerful effect on the public.
The "CNN effect" refers broadly to the purported impact of certain types of visual images, to include American casualties, when broadcast on the news. Like the Dover test, it suggests that visual images of casualties will elicit an immediate response from the public. Its various formulations convey the idea that the public can respond precipitately to gut-wrenching depictions of human suffering, not only military casualties but starving children and other civilian victims of war.8 This dynamic is also assumed to induce a similar visceral response to such dramatic pictures as those of the body of an American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993.9
The Weinberger/Powell doctrine is a set of six tests, drawn in part from the Vietnam War experience, that, its advocates believe, should govern the use of American military power.10 One test is the presence or absence of the support of the American public and its elected representatives. In policy debates considering the use of force, it is in the framework of this test that assertions about the willingness of the public to handle casualties enter decision making.11
"Post-heroic warfare" is the idea that the scope of casualties resulting from the clash of armies at close quarters is no longer tolerable to the American public. Edward Luttwak asserts that America is "a nation intolerant of casualties";12 he relates this to the decreasing size of American families in the post-World War II era. Luttwak believes that there exists a powerful unwillingness among Americans to permit military operations that might endanger their children.
Finally, sociologist Charles Moskos posits that the American public's sensitivity is a function of inequitable social relations created by the absence of elite members of society or their children in the ranks of the military. "Only when the privileged classes perform military service does the country define the cause as worth young people's blood. Only when elite youth are on the firing line do war losses become more acceptable."13
THE NUANCED REALITY <snip> |
