Bush's Second Inaugural: the Question of Vital Interest and Competent Authority

Religious commentators are busy writing about the religious code language in Bush’s address. Little attention has been paid to the national security code language. The phrase “vital interest” contains some national security code language. This language should be compared with moral doctrines on the decision to go to war. Unfortunately, religiously literate people are likely to miss the point of Bush’s national security language. Their comparisons will be off base and ill-informed.

National interests are categorized as follows:
• Survival interests which, during the cold war, we would defend by massive retaliation or, possibly by pre-emptive first strike
• Vital interests which we will defend by committing troops to combat
• Major interests, which we will defend by using other elements of national power (e.g. economic, diplomatic, public information),

Given this context, what did President Bush mean when he said "America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.”?

Interpreted strictly, he appears to be saying that we will commit troops whenever and wherever our deepest beliefs are threatened.

He backed off from this implication when he added, “From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time. So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own.”

We are left with a question: What conditions will lead us to defend freedom by force of arms? Remember that this administration that has adopted pre-emptive attack as a national security strategy. It is possible to reconcile a doctrine of pre-emptive attack with the just war criteria of last resort. This reconciliation must assume that intelligence has correctly predicted an imminent attack. This strategy must be viewed with skepticism. The intelligence community failed in its assessment of an imminent military WMD threat and has yet to correct the underlying errors .

The just war doctrine constrains a nation’s propensity to war by restricting the decision to wage war to a legitimate authority. Our constitution restricts this power to Congress. In practice, the constitutional requirement for a declaration of war has worked poorly. After Vietnam, Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger announced six criteria to be met in making the decision to go to war. The fifth criteria required that the administration obtain “reasonable assurance of public support. President Bush met this criteria by going to Congress before launching Operation Iraqi Freedom. His case was undercut, however, by relying on intelligence assessments on WMD's. He could have made a just war case based on elimnataing Saddam's tyranny. The public, however, might not have supported it.

The just war and Weinberger doctrines evolved in era of modern war. States initiated war against other states using large, symmetrically armed forces. We are now in a different era, one which Victor David Hanson calls Postmodern War. (Thanks to Lane Core for this link.) In postmodern war small, asymmetrically armed forces can gain an advantage merely by inflicting damage on a more a powerful enemy. They are helped by a media that has a distorted view of Iraqi reality.

Small transnational terrorist and criminal groups are not subject to the just war constraint of legitimate authority. Their view of grievances as a just cause and view killing non-combatants as merely another way to undermine legitimate authority. One bombing in Spain killed a relatively small number of civilians. It also forced a change of governments and removed Spanish forces from Iraq. Other groups, termed by Ralph Peters as apocalyptic terrorists, are bent only on destruction. (Go here and scroll down for a pdf file.)

Thus, Bush, identification of our belief in freedom throughout the world with a vital interest presents a dilemma: There will be times when the challenge to freedom must be met with force. The challenge will be asymmetrical in nature and so small and ambiguous that the administration will not be able to seek the legitimate authority by going to Congress and seeking “reasonable assurance of public support.” Having invoked religious language by saying that ending tyranny in the world, Bush will take actions in line with his lofty language. He will be surprised when religious leaders find that his actions are immoral. This situation will be exacerbated by the failure of moral theologians to consider the ramifications of postmodern war. (Church leaders don’t read the strategic literature. Instead, they rely on the mainstream media suffering from its own collective distortions.)

Bush started out with a speech crafted in religious terms- legitimate in my view. Thomas Jefferson was right: all people are endowed by their Creator with an inalienable right to freedom. America is in a position to foster freedom world wide. However, by identifying this cause as a vital interest, Bush runs the risk of undercutting his support. He will need to carefully articulate to Congress exactly what he means and intends to do. He must reinforce this message to the public in clear and compelling terms, stating generally what he means and intends to do. Failure in this task will be repetition of the strategic error of Vietnam. The administration will lose support, the public will turn against it, forcing withdrawal. Terrorists will then conclude that spectacular attacks against non combatant targets will further weaken America. The administration will then be forced into even stronger action – an the cycle begun by 9/11 will continue.

In short, religious language in Bush’s second inaugural is not enough. It must be supplemented by clear and compelling statements of the nature of the threat and our response.