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Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Beso Hated Michael Morgan Naval War College Review Volume 56 Article 14 Number 3 Summer 2003 Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to BeSo Hated Michael Morgan Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Morgan, Michael (2003) "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to BeSo Hated," Naval War College Review: Vol. 56 : No. 3 , Article 14. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol56/iss3/14 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BOOK REVIEWS 163 Morgan: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to BeSo Hated the Dominican Republic actually bene- example, the first charging of a serving fited when forcibly placed on a fiscal flag officer with a war crime, the use of diet by the United States. Although the torture to extract information, and mu- U.S. Marines were ensuring that nearly tinies of such U.S. trained units as the half the Dominican Republic’s revenues Nicaraguan National Guard were part went to repay foreign creditors, their of the small-war experience. However, honesty in disbursing the remainder Boot discusses these events in clear and was so notable that the country received unequivocal terms, leaving the reader more funds than it had under its own to come to grips with how these aspects rulers. Boot also points out that of war played in U.S. successes. Veracruz reached a record standard of What make this book so timely and one cleanliness and hygiene, with an atten- that should be read by almost anyone dant improvement in public health, with an interest in political-military than it had known previously. Boot re- issues, are the tie-ins that Boot identi- minds us that far from resulting in fies as existing between the wars of the quagmires of despair and failure, many past and the realities of the present. Is- of these conflicts have to be seen as U.S. sues such as exit strategies, expected ca- successes. sualties, the difficulties of working with There are, however, several criticisms local allies, and the complexities of state that might potentially be leveled at this building are not things the United work. Some may say that like so many States is facing for the first time. In- correspondents before him, Boot deed, as Boot demonstrates, the nation excessively admires the U.S. Marines, has been dealing with these dilemmas extolling their triumphs at the expense since the beginning of its existence. of the other services. However, while Well written, timely, and provocative, there is no denying that Boot has high Savage Wars of Peace is well worth regard for leathernecks, he does provide attention. ample examples of Navy and Army ac- RICHARD NORTON tions. It is also important to remember Naval War College that the Marines were the service of choice for the great majority of these conflicts. A significant portion of the Marines’ senior leadership in the 1930s felt that the future of the Corps should Vidal, Gore. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: be bound up in mastering the chal- How We Got to Be So Hated. New York: Thun- lenges of these conflicts. This resulted der’s Mouth Press, 2002. 160pp. $10 in the Marines’ Small Wars Manual, It would be difficult to find a book on published in 1941. It was later shelved; world affairs more contrary to the opin- Boot believes that it would have bene- ions of most readers of the Naval War fited the United States in Vietnam had College Review or other members of the those in charge read the dusty tome. American national security community Another criticism that might be made than Gore Vidal’s Perpetual War for by some is that Boot glosses over the Perpetual Peace. darker aspects of small wars, focusing As a military officer myself, I disagree on the successes and personalities. For with many of Vidal’s assumptions and Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2003 1 164 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW Naval War College Review, Vol. 56 [2003], No. 3, Art. 14 propositions, but the book is worth- Vidal’s sharp mind and readable writ- while because it challenges one to think ing style make his arguments on the about inconsistencies and issues in World Trade Center attacks and the af- American foreign policy as well as do- termath compelling. For instance, the mestic security. The book is extremely declaration of an ambiguous “war” on well written, as one would expect from terror has been the subject of much dis- a writer of Vidal’s caliber. It is highly cussion in the pages of foreign affairs engaging, and most military profes- journals and newspaper editorials. sionals interested in American national Vidal notes that insurance companies security will probably find it easy to benefit from a state of war due to ex- read (although fewer may find it easy to ception clauses in insurance agree- agree with). ments, although previous U.S. case law Gore Vidal is a noted novelist, perhaps has established that “acts of war” can one of the most prominent living originate only from “a sovereign na- American authors. In 1943 he enlisted tion, not a bunch of radicals.” in the Navy and served in World War Some of his other comments lean more II, so his background lends relevant ex- toward “Swiftian literary exaggeration,” perience in military affairs. He wrote of which he accuses H. L. Mencken in a his commentary shortly after the 11 letter to Timothy McVeigh. His por- September attack, but after both Vanity trayal of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Fair and The Nation declined it, a ver- and Vice President Dick Cheney as ea- sion of this book was printed in Italy, ger for a police state seems excessive. where it became a best-seller. After Also, he compares the terrorist attacks subsequent publication in Europe, in the United States to such state- Vidal was finally able to get the book sponsored atrocities as the burning of published in its present form. the Reichstag (secretly perpetrated by Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace con- the Nazi government in order to con- tains seven chapters and an introduc- solidate Hitler’s police power) and tion, but much of the material predates rapes by bogus Vietcong squads to dis- “9/11,” which is one of the book’s chief credit the communist insurgency. This weaknesses. Three chapters were re- paranoid proclivity toward conspiracy printed from his The Last Empire theory is revealed in his assertion that (Doubleday, 2001), and these were re- Opus Dei is a conservative Catholic cycled from earlier articles. Another conspiracy in the United States. He chapter, “The Meaning of Timothy makes a point about Thomas Jefferson’s McVeigh,” appeared in the September and John Adams’s opposition to Jesuit 2001 issue of Vanity Fair. There are activity in America, which is probably sparse updates throughout the older more an indicator of American chapters, including asterisked footnotes anti-Catholic bigotry several hundred and comments, such as one briefly years ago than any prescient warning of comparing the Oklahoma City bomb- the dangers of religious incursion into ing to “Dark Tuesday” (“9/11”). How- state affairs. ever, the meat of the new work appears There are, however, several arguments in the first chapter, “September 11, that are more convincing. Vidal con- 2001 (A Tuesday).” tends that terror attacks caused more https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol56/iss3/14 2 BOOK REVIEWS 165 Morgan: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to BeSo Hated damage to civil liberties than to the na- American Scientists has published a tion’s physical well-being. “Once alien- twenty-page listing of American mili- ated, an ‘unalienable right’ is apt to be tary operations dating from 1948 to forever lost.” He documents this asser- 1999, documenting how the United tion with a list of police killings of in- States (like the nations of Orwell’s nocent people in their homes and of 1984) has an “enemy of the month indefensible searches and seizures. club” and thus engages in a “perpetual While a reasonable reader may dismiss war” hoping for “perpetual peace.” This these discomforting examples as well theme is underdeveloped, however, and researched exceptions to normal law Vidal’s discussion of the United States enforcement activity in the United emphasizes domestic repression, while States, Vidal also brings up the chang- his reprinted chapters focus too exclu- ing nature of the law. He refers to U.S. sively on an apology (in the Platonic v. Sandini (1987), which established sense of an explanation) of Timothy that police were able to seize property McVeigh. permanently from an individual if the Altogether, Perpetual War for Perpetual property has been used for criminal Peace presents a provocative argument purposes, even if the individual has had that will be of intellectual appeal to no involvement with any crime. This professional military officers. It is ad- ruling has highly negative implications, mittedly an alternative perspective, but considering that 90 percent of Ameri- it may give members of the American can paper currency has traces of narcot- national security community insight ics on it from use in the drug trade. into how our European allies think, as Vidal also points out a common prob- well as our Third World adversaries, lem that is not commonly pondered— who often share Vidal’s perspective.
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