Veterans Day is a solemn but special day on the calendar. Every year, throngs of people trek parade grounds to celebrate the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who served on behalf of the country.
The holiday, however, shouldn’t just be a day of saying, “Thank you for your service.” The time should also be a period of retrospection, an annual refresher for the policymakers and lawmakers in Washington, D.C., responsible for determining when, where, and for how long the United States should wage war in order to protect and defend the country.
1. Remember the gravity of war. Taking the country to war is the most important decision any member of Congress will make in his or her career. No other vote comes close, not even a vote to impeach or convict a president. The process of authorizing the deployment of U.S. troops into hostilities should always be taken with care, skepticism, sobriety, and extreme reservation. Rushing the decision on an arbitrary time frame or succumbing to the emotions of the moment “to do something” cannot be allowed to hijack the deliberations.
The 2001 authorization for the use of military force was introduced, debated, and sent to President George W. Bush’s desk in one day. The vote to invade Iraq a year later was a two-week-long event, but it ended up being dominated by hyperinflated rhetoric, poor assumptions about Saddam Hussein’s motivations, inaccurate intelligence about Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities, and a make-believe working relationship between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. Many lawmakers have come to regret both of these votes: the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force because of its lack of guardrails and sunsets and the 2002 AUMF because it precipitated the worst U.S. foreign policy debacle in the 21st century.
In short: Going to war isn’t a game and shouldn’t be treated as just another vote.
2. War must always be a last resort. For strong nations such as the U.S., scrambling the fighter-bombers or sending a few dozen seaborne cruise missiles toward a target is often a tempting way to address a problem. This has come through loud and clear in recent history. In the last decade alone, the U.S. has acted kinetically in countries from Niger to Pakistan as if this were a normal occurrence.
Yet, because it’s so easy to engage militarily, juggernauts such as the U.S. have an even greater reason to act with restraint. Military action can’t be the option of first resort, taken whenever a stubborn adversary rears its ugly head or exercises abhorrent behavior. Nor can force replace every other tool Washington has in its toolbox, the most effective of which is the talent of diplomats.
3. Beware the rule of unintended consequences. War is an inherently unpredictable beast. Even the shrewdest military planner doesn’t have the capacity to tell you how a conflict will progress once the opening shots are fired, how long it will last, or how the enemy will react. Decisions made in the present could be looked upon by history as extremely shortsighted and mindless.
Again, the war in Iraq is instructive. It was thought that Hussein would mount a bloody, Stalingrad-like defense of Baghdad as tens of thousands of U.S. troops barreled toward the Iraqi capital. It was also assumed that Iraqis would jump at the chance to replace Hussein’s regime with a parliamentary democracy. It turned out that both assumptions were spurious and naive: Hussein’s regime didn’t put up a conventional resistance, but melted away. Some elements later instigating and joined what would become a jihadi-laced Sunni insurgency. And far from ushering in a political renaissance, Iraq’s post-Baathist system of government became just another zero-sum contest for power between the country’s sectarian and ethnic groups. Nothing in war goes according to plan.
Today, we salute our veterans. But we should also use history to learn our lesson. The best way to honor our vets is to ensure that future generations of American service members don’t have to go through the same mistakes.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
