A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

It’s the national security state, stupid

Andrew Bacevich, reviewing several new books on the presidency, contends that the Imperial Presidency is a symptom, not the cause of our current troubles. The underlying problem is the state of permanent semi-mobilization that the country entered into after World War II and the attendant national security apparatus that it gave rise to. In matters of foreign policy and warmaking the president, Bacevich argues, has become more beholden to the various institutions within the national security state that act as quasi-independent centers of power and less beholden to the people.

In short, as the atmosphere of semiwar took hold in the later 1940s, the formulation of national security policy became less democratic, but it did not become less political. It’s just that politics became an insider’s game, shielded from public scrutiny; henceforth, the politicking that counted occurred within the presidency behind closed doors. Keeping the Joint Chiefs on board became more important than gaining the assent of Congress. Maintaining a consensus among the various entities represented on the National Security Council took precedence over attending to what was once called the common good.

If that’s right, then simply changing the current occupant of the Oval Office (however desirable that might be) will do little to restore democratic accountability to the conduct of foreign policy. Some kind of structural or constitutional change would be necessary, maybe along the lines of the Ludlow Amendment proposed in the late 30s to require a national referendum on any declaration of war except in cases where the U.S. had been attacked. Of course, the Ludlow Amendment applied to Congress, whereas nowadays presidents regard congressional authorization for war as a formality at best. But something in the same spirit might be one way of restoring some kind of check on the autonomy of executive branch, however unlikely such a thing is.

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10 responses to “It’s the national security state, stupid”

  1. gaius sempronius gracchus

    Neither he nor anyone seems to see that the problem of the presidency leading us into expansion and war has been with us from the beginning, and has only become all the more conspicuous and deeply entrenched with the rise to power of the most warlike wing of the oligarchy, the Military Industrial Complex.

    There is no way to end US military globalism without getting rid of the presidency altogether (and there is no good reason to keep it, anyway), disempowering the MIC through (at least) control of campaigns and assults on over-concentrated, politicized media; and directly empowering the people to prevent or end wars through such mechanisms as initiatives and referenda.

    A wide array of other constitutional reforms would be helpful. The curcial thing is to disempower the warmongering oligarchs and profoundly empowering the people.

    I repeat what I have said elsewhere. Urging necessary constitutional reforms to solve this problem (and others as well) is not utopian or Quixotic.

    Urging virtue on runaway institutions that no one can restrain, or (even worse and more futile) demanding that the voters, the most powerless people in America, somehow just fix everything in this most undemocratic republic, is both.

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  2. Chip Frontz

    “Empower the people” – code language for “empower some of the people.”

    Sorry, Gracchus – I can’t agree that your solution is not utopian or quixotic. Both Russia and Germany in 1917-18 seem to me ample evidence that power abhors a vacuum and will quickly fill it.

    Tell me, which people would you empower to ensure a peaceful nation and world?

    And let’s not forget that since 1945, Western Europe and much of Eastern Europe has profoundly benefitted from this American military-industrial complex. Methinks they’ve enjoyed not killing each other as they had been for oh, hundreds if not thousands of years.

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  3. Lee

    Chip, I think you’re right that simply creating a power vacuum isn’t a solution, but it doesn’t seem to follow that there can’t be more democratic accountability in the conduct of foreign policy. After all, the Framers explicitly envisioned that it would rest primarily with Congress, the most democratic branch of the Federal Government. No one, I think, denies that over time the executive has assumed greater control over foreign policy and war-making.

    I’m uncertain whether Congress could simply reassert its traditional authority or whether something more radical (Constitutional amendment, e.g.) would be required to restore some sort of balance. I agree with GSG that such a thing is more realistic than simply asking our national security elites to “do better;” it’s just that I don’t think either is very likely.

    Of course, “more democratic accountability” doesn’t necessarily equal “better foreign policy.” But if Bacevich is right (as he suggests at the end of the article) that citizen detachment is a big part of the problem, then making the whole process more democratic might be part of the solution.

    p.s. With the USSR gone I’m perfectly happy to let Europe pay for its own defense. 😉

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  4. Chip Frontz

    But Lee, GSG wasn’t talking about giving more power to Congress or a constitutional amendment. He said get rid of the presidency and empower the people directly. He’s talking about the end of representative government. And I do think that’s utopian and quixotic, not to mention wrong-headed.

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  5. Lee

    Ah, fair enough. I guess I assumed he was referring to some kind of Parliamentary-style government, but perhaps not. He can respond for himself, of course.

    For the record, I am in favor of representative gov’t. 😉

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  6. Gaius Sempronius Gracchus

    Whoa, guys!

    Get rid of the presidency in favor of a ministerial government, yes, based on a reformed House with an election/voting scheme in place to provide for proportional representation (no more first past the post, please). No senate needed, at all, thanks.

    As for empowering the people, I meant the voters (who else?). Various mechanisms could given them, for example, a veto on wars, or the power to force an end to any war at any time by initiative, say.

    These were my very words, earlier: “. . . directly empowering the people to prevent or end wars through such mechanisms as initiatives and referenda.”

    Actually, this is not a novel suggestion, and is far from unique to me.

    As for the other reforms I alluded to as possibly helpful, all intended to empower the people and disempower oligarchy, those would include such things as provision for recall of any federal office-holder, federal provision for initiative and referenda, and changes to the Constitution to provide at least as much power to the American voters over the US Constitution, itself, as we allowed the Iraqis, or as the Europeans allowed the populations of the member states of the EU when voting on Guiscard’s constitution.

    See Article V of the US Constitution. There is no role whatever for a referendum or popular consultation either in initiating an amendment or a Convention to propose amendments, selecting the members of such a Convention, or ratifying any amendment(s) that might be urged either by Congress or such a Convention.

    I have read that the Supremes have ruled that a referendum is not an acceptable substitute for ratification in a state legislature or in a state ratifying Convention. Swell. Just what we should expect from the least democratic branch.

    At least the Iraqis got to vote on the constitution drafted for them!

    And, by the way, how democratic is that? You get one choice presented to you, and you can take it or leave it. When we read some fake democratic country just elected El Presidente for the 6th time in just such a take him or leave him election, are we impressed?

    So, why do we think such a take it or leave it approach is adequate when the people are being asked to ratify something far more important? If the delegates in Philadelphia could vote on multiple plans, why not the people of Iraq, France, or even America? With a very definite “none of the above, go back to the drawing board” option, too.

    Still other reforms might include special qualifications for office that would be the reverse of those found to be so common in 18th century constitutions, excluding (say) people with incomes or personal wealth above a certain maximum, or people who have ever been soldiers (except enlisted draftees who left the service as soon as they could).

    Others might include provisions to prevent anyone in one lifetime being in any government position of oversight for industry X and also an employee in X, or a lobbyist for X.

    Did that help clear up what I meant?

    Quixotic? No.

    But it truly is quixotic to think that a broken constution that has given us nothing but “a rise to globalism” and war after war after war and sold power to the oligarchs and the MIC will somehow magically stop doing that if we just close our eyes and wish it hard enough.

    This constitution just doesn’t work. It was never inteded to empower the people, despite its braggart and lying preamble. It can’t be made to work except by radical changes of the sort described above that would revise it in the direction of greater democracy.

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  7. gaius sempronius gracchus

    Oh, I am not optimistic about getting such changes.

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  8. Brandon

    I have a quirky view on these matters, namely, that the ‘Imperial Presidency’ comes about because the Office of the President has become too weak within its constitutional jurisdiction — in particular, it is overextended, which diffuses the power of the Office, which gives Presidents an excuse to push for more power to get things done and makes it difficult for Congress to resist that push (because they too have to answer for the inability of the executive branch to accomplish effectively what it’s supposed to accomplish, and because the bigger the executive branch is the harder it is to monitor closely), which multiplies the things the executive branch (and therefore the Office of the President) have to deal with, which overextends it. And so it goes until the President has such an unbelievable amount of power, spread out over unbelievably many things, that nothing the President has constitutional responsibility for gets done effectively. The despotism of incompetence. Effectiveness of power is sacrificed for scope of power; nothing essential gets done, while the government begins to have a finger in every pie.

    The problem with Presidents trying to get us into wars and the like is not, as far as I can see, going to go away; the only thing that will handle that is a general tendency to view the President as having only a limited area of authority within which he must remain. Likewise, I don’t think a ministerial form of government, as such, would do much; ministerial governments, like presidential ones, tend to expand, and the legislatures don’t usually do all that much to resist the expansion, for similar reasons. Nor, as far as I can see, does a proportional representation system appear to do much to fence it in; on the contrary, due to coalition and strategic compromises among parties, it often increases the number of things the government is expected to do — which leads to the expansion (and diffusion) of powers.

    I think it’s clear that the only effective check on Presidential expansion is to shift power out of Federal hands entirely; if you just change the structure of the Federal government, all you’ve done is given yourself a brief reprieve because the expansion will begin again somewhere along the line. But the weaker the Federal government, the less means it has to underwrite such an expansion. In principle you could do that with just a more substantive application of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; but it’s pretty clear that such an application isn’t likely to originate from the Federal government itself.

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  9. Joshie (Poo)

    I have never understood why people assume that local governments are somehow less corrupt and opressive than the federal one. It seems to me that local governments are much more easily bought off and more hostage to the local baises and prejudices. Not that federal and international authorities can’t be bought, but at least it takes more cash and effort. In my experience here, nobody screws the little guy quite like the local government. Like how our county executive is pushing to have half our neighborhood bulldozed for interstate expansion.

    I think what people like Gaius see in constituional reform is a chance to bring the federal governement in closer contact with the electorate, like it is in constitutional systems where the national legislative branch runs the government. Most Americans, I suspect, favor limited governement, but don’t share the dream of the radical libertarian or anarchist to live in some sort of wild-wild-west situation where might makes right and everyone carries a gun all the time, threatening death for any perceived wrong. Unless of course, you believe that everyone is basically good and sin holds no power of humanity.

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  10. Brandon

    I don’t think people do assume that local governments are less corrupt; instead, they assume that local governments are smaller and therefore more easily counterbalanced. After all, county governments have to deal, somewhere along the line, with county folk, but federal governments can often ignore dozens of counties together without worrying about facing any consequences for it. And that’s really what’s attractive to many people when it comes to local government: our greater ability to make villains pay (however difficult it may still be).

    But, of course, there’s also a reason why people don’t usuall advocate abolishing all but local government, namely, that having a bigger government to appeal to can have its advantages in keeping local government itself in check. And that’s a more sobe and sane assessment, I think, than putting too much emphasis on local government. We don’t need all local government; that wouldn’t help in the least. We don’t need all federal government; that wouldn’t help, either. We don’t even need effective, efficient, or decent government, although those things are nice and we’re aiming at getting them. What we need is recourse, which lets us work toward those ends.

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