Photo used under Creative Commons from: infrogmation (http://flic.kr/p/8SzFbo)
George W. Bush was criticized for spending the Vietnam War stateside as part of the Texas Air National Guard. His 2000 opponent, Al Gore spent several months in uniform in Vietnam. Voters chose Bush. In 2004, he defeated John Kerry, who received multiple decorations for his tour of duty. In all four elections, the candidate who faced greater danger lost.
In winning the 2000 nomination, Bush outdueled John McCain, who spent 5+ years as a POW in Vietnam. After winning the nomination in 2008, McCain lost to Barack Obama who never got close to putting a uniform on. How did this happen? While the aftermath of the Lehman collapse was a big part of the 2008 election, we had troops engaged in two wars. Wouldn’t the POW have a better idea of what is right to ask soldiers to do?
There are a couple of possibilities. First, standards for service change between generations. Virtually everyone of age contributed to the war effort during World War II. It was taken for granted that national politicians of that generation would have made their contribution. With a large proportion of voters having served as well, it was something many did, rather than a huge mark of distinction. While voters would rightly respect the service, it wasn’t extra credit.
Seeking a deferment during Vietnam was far more common. Some voters did the same thing themselves. With the current all-volunteer military, presidents are not in the position of ordering draftees into war. President Obama came of age during a time where an even smaller percentage of Americans were in the military. Like a majority of voters, he was never subject to the draft.
With the draft removed as an issue, and most Americans having spent no time in the military, voters concentrate far more on where a candidate or incumbent president is on foreign policy issues than what their military record was. In making this decision, voters are on strong historical ground.
Perhaps no president had more military experience than General Eisenhower. In assuming the presidency, he had spent a career in the military, after graduating from West Point. After commanding the D-Day invasion and acting as NATO Supreme Commander, Eisenhower was extremely qualified to make these decisions.
This background made Eisenhower cautious about overextending American troops. After negotiating an end to the Korean War, Eisenhower emphasized an expanded nuclear weapons arsenal over trying to match Soviet ground forces. Instead of costly military engagements, the Eisenhower administration favored CIA-influenced coups. While many of these decisions are still controversial, during a very intense period of the Cold War, Eisenhower managed to avoid sending large numbers of troops into battle and kept nuclear weapons in their silos.
In many ways, Eisenhower’s desire to rely on a powerful nuclear deterrent instead of engaging ground troops mirrors the strategy of President Reagan, who spent World War II making training movies. Reagan’s military involvement was limited by his horrible vision, but he wound up with a similar approach anyway, supporting Contra rebels in Nicaragua instead of sending in a large military force to topple the Sandinistas. Reagan also was a major proponent of using the CIA to destabilize regimes. While the practice of assassination was outlawed by Congress in the 1970s, the Reagan Doctrine to subvert and undercut communism was an appropriate adaptation.
On the other hand, both Harry Truman, who served with distinction in World War I and George W. Bush who never saw active duty wound up in controversial ground wars. Truman’s experience in the trenches did not stop him from sending troops to prevent South Korea from falling to the North Korean communists. After China fell to Mao’s rebels in 1949, Truman was not in a position where he could afford to see the entire Korean peninusla follow. The communist threat proved more important than any reservtions he might have had.
Maybe surprisingly, there does not appear to be any link between combat experience and willingness to send others into combat. What should we make of Ron Paul’s argument? Neither current voters nor the historical record place the importance on military service that his logic suggests. As odd as it may sound, you can make the case that Newt Gingrich’s background as a military historian renders him as well qualified to send troops into battle as a war hero.
Truman however, was somewhat reservationist in whatever choices he did have, at leat he didn’t let Douglas McArthur get his way and start WW3, and his choice of nuking Japan was probably partially out of the justification of reducing American casualties.
Your point is legit that of course, it depend on the generation of politician, though the folks in question here, Gingrich and Paul, are obviously from the Vietnam generation, so the question certainly apply to them to some extend.
America’s changing political dynamics and how wars are fought are obviously all part of the question, in Taiwan or example, because there is a mandatory service, the lack of it (even if it’s the Candidate’s sons) are often listed as an obvious stigma against the candidates.
For example, in 2000 the eventual winner Chen Sui Bian ran an ad which was stared by his son, who was serving in the army back then, it was a obvious attack on the other two candidates who’s sons avoided the draft either by citing health reasons or other reasons. of course it didn’t help that said son was later hinted to have drove sports car to his work as an army legal counseller, not exactly what most people associate with military service in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s political system has reserved party seats for nomination based candidates so parties can nominate folks with little to no political background and get them into ther parliment, of course often they are used as political spoils etc but also at times they nomiate distinguishd folks from variou fields (military, sports, academic, busniess etc) with no political background.
For US politicians today, it would be very very hard for a career military man to get into elected office.
The contrast to Taiwan is interesting. In the 19th Century, American presidents often came from the military ranks, but Eisenhower is the only example from the past 100+ years. Given how well Ike did (most historians have come around on him and consider his presidency comfortably above-average), it would be interesting to see how another General (i.e. Petraeus) would do. Given the political, logistical, foreign affairs obstacles in the military, you would think that someone who can handle that job would be at least as qualified for the presidency as the average top-tier candidate.
I agree, but given how politics work in the US these days it seems that a career military men would have no chance at all for elected office, US politics now seems way too ….. regional so to speak, almost anyone would have to at least have a considerable local base to posiblly hope to play nationally.
In Taiwan though, there’s a stigma against generals running for office as well, though that’s kinda fading, but it’s not hard to see why when just 20 years ago it was still an authoritarian state. the USA is very lucky to be one of the very few nations in the world that had never had to seriously worry about the seperation of military and politics