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So Long Dr. Strangelove

by Kevin Mattson

Mr. Mattson is Connor Study Professor of Contemporary History at Ohio University and author most recently of Upton Sinclair and the Other American Century.

To get a sense of just how much the Iraq War has radically altered the political landscape, consider the recent string of retired generals criticizing Donald Rumsfeld and calling for his resignation. One after the other the generals appeared in the press lobbing criticisms at the Secretary of Defense – the Bush appointee who serves as the civilian overseer of military action. Marine General Anthony Zinni, for instance, called Rumsfeld “incompetent, strategically, operationally, and tactically.” The statement generated echoes that Newsweek called the “Revolt of the Retired Generals.”

What we are seeing is a profound inversion of the ordinary assumptions about the relationship between the military and the government in post-war American history. It suggests just how transformative Bush’s decision to topple the Iraqi regime has been. Personally I’ve witnessed some of my liberal friends suddenly praising those they would never have considered heroes before, and I’ve heard conservatives denouncing the top brass they used to love. It’s been profoundly surreal.

That’s because throughout the postwar period, it’s been Generals who seem most willing and eager to extend American power abroad. And it’s been civilian leadership that has reeled them in. Consider MacArthur’s desire to rollback communist power in North Korea and then open a new front with China. Truman was right to put the kibosh on that desire, no matter what damage it did to his presidency’s standing in the eyes of the American public (MacArthur was granted hero status). Then JFK – remembering the bad advice offered him before the Bay of Pigs – shot down the suggestion of Curtis LeMay who wanted a strategic take-out of the recently discovered Cuban missiles. Diplomacy trumped military action, and the tough generals went sulking away. Or, in the case of LeMay, tried to enter politics. In 1968 LeMay threw in his hat as the vice presidential candidate when George Wallace ran for president. What was his solution to the Vietnam problem? To “bomb North Vietnam back into the Stone Age.”

Those on the left-liberal end of the spectrum feared this extension of military power. Social critics like C. Wright Mills believed military leaders planning nuclear war suffered from “crackpot realism.” The left feared that technical competence stemming from military experience substituted for serious debate about the legitimate or illegitimate use of the American military.

You don’t have to read critics like C. Wright Mills to get a sense of this. Just watch Stanley Kubrick’s classic film, “Dr. Strangelove.” We typically appreciate the film for its dark comedy. But we sometimes forget how central the theme of the military’s relationship to civilian government is in the film. The decision to use preemptive force against the Soviet Union is made by the movie’s character, General Jack Ripper. Most remember Ripper’s rantings about the Communists trying to “sap” and “impurify” his “bodily fluids.” But the scariest lines are those he speaks to the British Air Force commander who questions his decision to unleash military force on Soviet Russia. Ripper explains that “war is too important to be left to the politicians” who lack any capacity for “strategic thought.” The rest of the film shows the president of the United States desperately trying to correct for Ripper’s dangerous gamble.

I’ve used “Dr. Strangelove” in courses that I teach on history and film. And I think that with today’s political culture, the film would make little sense to audiences. After all, it’s our civilian leaders who desire to test out their theories of military force – most famously Bush’s doctrine of preemptive force and Rumsfeld’s theory of a lean and mean military taking swift action. And now it’s the generals who are offering words of warning and, most weirdly, words of caution.

I worry how quickly some have granted the generals’ such a large voice in the debate over the Iraq War. No doubt we should listen to military commanders when they talk about strategy and what’s necessary technically to fight a war. But they don’t deserve any special standing in our debates about the legitimate or illegitimate use of military force abroad. That’s what worries me about the recent inversion I’ve just described. It gives generals too much power in their new-found role as critics of the Bush administration. And it narrows the debate to focus solely on technical know-how and strategy.

We would do well to remember today why critics in the past feared listening to the highest ranking officers in the past. And we would do well to enliven a debate about American foreign policy that doesn’t center on the words of our military leaders but on our values as a nation.