America’s morale and the “in between” wars

Mr. Robert Kaplan, author of the brilliant Imperial Grunts among other books and articles, has a new article out in The American Interest. Entitled On Forgetting the Obvious, (h/t RCP) Mr. Kaplan makes three assertions:

1) Much of the “Establishment” class in America, along with the urban and suburban populations in the United States that this class wishes to influence, lacks the morale and will to face the national security challenges of the future.

2) With a relatively small and professional military, the vast majority of American society, especially its most “elite” civil institutions, have no contact with military culture (nor is there much of any contact the other way). A society cannot sustain a long duration armed struggle in this manner.

3) American society can perform well at only two kinds of wars, either very large ones that mobilize all of society, or small ones that employ largely covert professionals out of society’s sight. The U.S. will flounder at “in between” wars like Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq which are large enough to be costly and visible but not large enough to require the full mobilization of society.

Readers of this blog and its brothers are already familiar with these themes. Mr. Kaplan performs a public service when he introduces these concerns to his readers in “The Establishment” who might be seeing them for the first time.

In his article Mr. Kaplan reminds us that even if the problem of radical Islam somehow soon burns itself out (not likely from today’s perspective), the U.S. still will face an immense challenge from rapidly rising Asian powers. Unlike the guilt-ridden and morally-paralyzed elites in the West, the Asian challengers, by the Western elite’s standards, are anachronistically nationalistic and largely unhindered by either guilt or doubt. Thus, there will be no end to the national security challenges the U.S. will face this century.

Mr. Kaplan has spent most of his time this decade living with detachments of the U.S. military scattered to every corner of the world. He knows that there is a large slice of American society that is ready to face these challenges. This part of America has no questions about its morale, its resolve, or its purpose.

As long as its wars stay small, the U.S. will have the warriors and the tactics to prevail. But what about the next “in between” war? Mr. Kaplan thinks there are two Americas, a pacifist Establishment and a warrior class, two Americas that hardly know each other. These two Americas need to meet and find something to agree on before the next big challenge arrives.