Chapter 2
Why America Goes to War and Who We Fight
In This Chapter
Explaining the reasons the nation does battle
Identifying enemies
Since the 18th century, Americans have fought a variety of enemies. For the first 100 years of U.S. history, the country fought almost entirely against continental enemies, such as Native Americans, Mexicans, and colonial Europeans, normally for territory or national sovereignty. That changed at the turn of the 20th century, when the United States squared off in conflicts with overseas enemies such as Spain and Germany. By the middle of the 20th century and thereafter, Americans began to lock horns with ideological enemies such as Nazis, Communists, and Islamic radicals.
In this chapter, I examine the major reasons why the United States fights wars. I also give you a nice sense of the various enemies Americans have faced in combat. Overall, the chapter tells you everything you need to know about the why and the who in relation to American wars.
Why Do We Fight?
In the early 19th century, Karl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military strategist, summed up, in one sentence, the most famous explanation for war’s existence. “It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means.” Is that really true? Actually, sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t.
Throughout U.S. history, Americans have gone to war for a variety of reasons, ranging from political to economic to ideological, with a heavy emphasis on the latter. American wars have seldom been the result of dispassionate political calculation. This is because Americans tend to value individual human life because the country, after all, was founded on the idea of individual civil liberties. Obviously war destroys many of those individual lives. So, typically, Americans only support wars that appear to have some higher moral purpose than mere political maneuverings or economic gain. Of course, hard-core economic interests and power politics have sometimes been the real underlying reasons for our wars, leading to postwar disillusionment among many Americans, especially those who did the fighting.
The question of why we go to war provokes strenuous debate among American military historians. Some see our wars as the result of economic imperialism. They say that the United States always fights to expand its economic influence and enhance its own prosperity. Others argue that the United States has fought to spread its ideas and culture around the world. Other historians believe that self-defense and preoccupation with the security of the Western Hemisphere are the primary motivations for American wars. Thus, different historians often advance a variety of explanations for the same war.
The beauty of history is that there isn’t always a 100 percent correct answer to every question. Sometimes, historical understanding comes from absorbing several possible explanations and deciding for yourself which makes the most sense. So, in this section, I relate several such explanations for American wars, with plenty of examples to explain what I mean.
When words fail: Politics
Our friend Clausewitz would, of course, champion a political explanation. He would say that Americans go to war when they find it necessary to advance their political agenda with violence, rather than peaceful persuasion. Sometimes this has been true. Political disagreements have indeed flared into outright warfare numerous times in American history:
The American Revolution resulted from years of angry political debate between colonists and Great Britain. In fact, if you read the Declaration of Independence, you see that much of it is a listing of political grievances against King George III rather than a manifesto of great ideals. (Read about the United States’ quest for independence in Chapter 7.)
In the years leading up to the War of 1812, the United States attempted to resolve its differences with Great Britain by passing embargo laws to restrict American trade with Britain. When those laws failed to bring about the necessary political change in London that the Americans wanted, they declared war on Britain (Chapter 9 hits the highlights).
A controversial election actually led to the Civil War. When Abraham Lincoln, an antislavery northerner, won the presidency in 1860, many southern slave states seceded from the Union rather than submit to his political authority. This secession, in turn, led to a terrible war that pitted the free-soil, free-labor, industrial, pro-Union political philosophy of the North against the proslavery, states’ rights politics prevalent in the South (see Chapter 11 for more details).
The United States entered World War I, in part, to support fellow democracies Britain and France. (Chapter 14 outlines the first World War.)
Economics: The root of all evil
Some historians argue that economics is the driving force behind all wars. They have a good point. From the ancient world until now, kingdoms, empires, nations, and interest groups have often fought for economic gain. In that sense, the United States is no different, even though American policymakers usually deny their economic motivations for war.
In reality, economics has been a major factor in nearly every American war, from the days when colonial Americans thirsted for control of French North American fur-trading routes to our own times when Americans demand open access to Middle Eastern oil. Time and time again in American history, U.S. soldiers have fought to protect the economic interests of their country:
During the French and Indian War, many American militiamen fought in hopes of inheriting control of French fur-trading businesses (see Chapter 6).
Some historians argue that the patriots of the American Revolution were primarily motivated by the economic advantages of separation from England (see Chapter 7).
During the War of 1812, the main sticking point between the United States and Great Britain was the fact that the United States wanted to engage in free overseas trade without British harassment. When the Royal Navy continued to interfere with American trade in Europe, Americans opted for war (see Chapter 9).
Economics was a major cause of the Civil War. The North’s industrial, free-market, free-labor entrepreneurial economy clashed with the South’s agricultural, plantation, slave-based economic system (see Chapter 11).
From colonial times onward, economics was a major component of every American conflict with Indians because Americans often coveted resources they found on Indian land (see Chapters 8 and 12). For instance, the famous Battle of Little Bighorn in the summer of 1876 happened, in part, because American settlers discovered gold on Sioux Indian land.
American desire to expand economically overseas and win access to foreign markets helped lead to the Spanish-American War (see Chapter 13).
During World War I, American industrialists and bankers had an enormous stake in the Allied cause. Most historians believe this was a major reason why the U.S. entered the war on the Allied side. (Chapter 14 covers other reasons why the U.S. fought in World War I.)
The U.S. fought in World War II, in part, to protect its overseas markets in Asia and Europe. (Chapter 15 explains the factors that led to World War II.)
Economic historians argue that the Cold War resulted from America’s desire to protect worldwide market capitalism against Communist encroachment (see Chapter 17). This led Americans into wars in such distant places as Korea and Vietnam (see Chapters 18 and 19).
In 1990–1991, when Iraq took over Kuwait, the United States and a coalition of allies reacted with military force, not just to free Kuwait, but to protect the free flow of oil at market prices (see Chapter 20). Some commentators and historians claim that the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to gain control of that country’s oil resources (see Chapter 21).
Territory: Really major land grabs
Before the 20th century, the American desire to acquire territory caused several wars. From colonial times through the late 1890s, Americans were constantly on the move, expanding their influence, usually to the west. The American nation steadily grew from a seaboard collection of 13 original states to a bicoastal, continental colossus. To a great extent, this happened because of war.
Here’s a good rule of thumb to keep in mind. From 1914 onward, Americans never fought a war to acquire territory. Before that time, they rarely fought a war in which they didn’t win territory.
Here are several examples of wars Americans fought over territory:
One of the main reasons for the French and Indian War in the 1750s was because Americans were moving west from the 13 seaboard British colonies, encroaching on French land (see Chapter 6).
During the Revolutionary War, many patriots fought because they expected to gain land at the expense of Loyalists and pro-British Indian tribes (see Chapter 7).
In 1803, the U.S. government bought substantial amounts of North American land from France in the Louisiana Purchase. Several years later, in the War of 1812, the U.S. fought to keep the British from encroaching on the Louisiana Purchase (see Chapter 9).
Many times in the 19th century, Americans fought Indian tribes for their land (see Chapters 8 and 12).
The best example of a territorial conflict is the Mexican-American War. This war originated from a disagreement between the two countries over a common border. The American president, James K. Polk, wanted to expand to the southwest, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Much of that territory was under the loose control of Mexico, though. Polk attempted to purchase the land. When Mexico refused to sell, war soon followed. (Get more details in Chapter 10.)
As a result of the Spanish-American War, the United States acquired Spain’s former colonies in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines (see Chapter 13).
The thinking person’s reason: Ideology
The United States is a constitutional republic founded on high-minded notions of inalienable human rights. In the broad sweep of human history, that’s a rare thing. So it’s only natural that Americans would fight and die for big ideas. Thomas Jefferson saw America as an “empire for liberty.” Abraham Lincoln often referred to American representative government as a noble experiment that was the “last, best hope for the Earth.” Cold War–era presidents such as Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan often contrasted American liberty with Communist tyranny. During the Global War on Terror, President George W. Bush described terrorist-sponsoring nations as an “axis of evil.”
When Americans have felt that their ideals of liberty and justice were in danger, they have chosen to fight. Ideas, then, have been a powerful motivator for American wars. Fiery, patriotic rhetoric from politicians has often rallied Americans for war. Although sometimes the reasons for war went deeper than mere patriotic ideals, there is no doubt that idealism has been a major cause for most every war the United States has ever fought:
Many patriots of the American Revolution were inspired by the ideals espoused in the Declaration of Independence, namely that all men were created equal and everyone was endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They believed that the British king and Parliament threatened those God-given liberties (see Chapter 7). Nearly every signer of the Declaration was a wealthy man with much property and treasure to lose by going to war. Many suffered terribly for joining the patriot cause. To them, the ideals of the Revolution were more important than mere dollars and cents.
During the War of 1812, quite a few Americans fought to protect their national sovereignty. They felt that Britain had no respect for America’s status as an independent nation. They decided that only war would force the British and other European powers to respect American sovereignty (see Chapter 9).
A notion called Manifest Destiny was a strong motivator for American westward expansion and the ensuing conflicts with Indian tribes (see Chapter 12). Proponents of Manifest Destiny argued that the United States was a special country founded on liberty, and thus was destined by God to spread across the continent. Americans had a duty to “settle” the continent and disseminate their ideals far and wide, even if it meant killing Indians and pushing them off their land.
During the Civil War, northerners and southerners believed they were fighting for freedom. Southerners equated states’ rights with their individual liberties. In separating from the North, they believed they were carrying on in the tradition of Revolutionary War patriots who had chosen separation from England. Plus, most of the war was fought in the South, so rebels were often defending their very homes. Northerners equated the Union with the Constitution and thus their own liberty. They thought that if the South prevailed, the Constitution would forever be threatened. Later in the war, northerners also fought for the abolition of slavery — literally to free other human beings. (Chapter 11 covers all these points in greater detail.)
A major cause of the Spanish-American War was American anger with Spain over its poor treatment of Cuban rebels who were fighting for independence from Spain. Americans thus fought Spain to free Cuba (see Chapter 13).
In the wake of that war, President William McKinley decided to occupy the Philippines as an American colony to spread the “benefit of American culture, institutions, and ideas” to the Filipinos. The trouble was that many Filipinos wanted independence more than these “benefits.” They chose to fight the Americans in what became known as the Philippine-American war (see Chapter 13).
In World War I, a major American war aim was to “make the world safe for democracy” by ending German militarism. Many Americans viewed this conflict as the war to end all wars, a struggle that would secure worldwide democracy once and for all (see Chapter 14).
World War II was among the most idealistic of all American wars. Nearly every American loathed Nazism and Japanese Fascism and believed the war must be fought to expunge this kind of tyranny from the earth (see Chapter 15). President Roosevelt articulated these notions in his Four Freedoms.
During the Cold War, Americans saw Communism as a mortal threat to human liberty. This belief led to major American wars in Korea and Vietnam, along with small conflicts in a litany of other places (see Chapters 18 and 19).
A major reason for the Persian Gulf War was the American desire to free Kuwait after the Iraqis gobbled that little country up in an unprovoked invasion (Chapter 20 has the details).
Ideology was a major motivation for the Global War on Terror. In the wake of terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, Americans saw Islamic radicals as a serious threat to American freedom. The desire to roll back such radicalism and spread American-style liberty was a powerful motivator for U.S. invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 (Chapter 21 covers both conflicts).
Which explanation for American wars do I prefer? I would have to say ideology. The United States grew out of the Enlightenment, an era of European history in which notions about inalienable human rights, representative government, and personal liberty were powerful agents for change. In fact, I would argue that, in all modern history since then, ideas, whether good or bad, are what really drive events. Think, for example, of the effect that Marxist ideas about inequality and ending human poverty, economic exploitation, and private property have had on modern history. American ideas of market capitalism and individual liberties have had a similarly massive influence on humanity. Americans are traditionally an idealistic lot. Not surprisingly, American leaders are the product of this idealism, as are their decisions for war.
Who Do We Fight?
Over the course of U.S. history, Americans have fought a variety of enemies. At times, bitter enemies — such as Britain, Germany, Italy, and Japan — have later turned into friends. The opposite has also been true. China went from a good friend in the early 20th century to an implacable foe after World War II. During World War II, the Soviet Union was an ally. But, after the war, the Soviets became public-enemy number one.
The United States has never had any continuous, traditional enemy. Over time, our enemies have fit into one of three categories: continental, overseas, and ideological. Enemies in the early days of American history were continental. As of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we began to fight overseas enemies. In more modern times, America’s enemies have all been ideological.
Continental enemies: Battling on our turf
From 1776 to about 1890, Americans were primarily fixated with expanding across the American continent. In fact, during that time, nearly every American war was fought here in North America, against enemies who were either threatening American sovereignty or competing for influence on this continent. These enemies fit into three subcategories:
Colonial European powers
Until the early 19th century, Britain, France, and Spain collectively controlled most of North and South America. Throughout the colonial period, Americans fought against the French, most notably from 1754 to 1763, in what became known as the French and Indian War. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Americans at times engaged in small skirmishes with the Spanish in such places as Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana. The biggest tilts were, of course, against the British. Americans launched a revolution to be free from Britain. Later, from 1812 through 1815, they fought another war with the old mother country. (The chapters in Part II cover these wars.)
Native Americans
Native American tribes were the most powerful and feared continental enemies of the United States. Before 1890, as the U.S. relentlessly expanded westward, Americans fought a dizzying series of wars against various tribes. The deadliest, and most important, of these struggles were
The Seminole Wars, 1817–1818, 1835–1842
The Black Hawk War, 1832
The Creek Uprising, 1835–1837
The Dakota War, 1862
The Black Hills War, 1876–1877
The Nez Perce War, 1877
The Apache Wars, 1864–1886
Eventually, through sheer determination, economic power, and ruthlessness, the United States overwhelmed all these tribes.
Continental competitors
In 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain. The Mexicans believed they had inherited significant portions of the Spanish empire — roughly today’s southwestern part of the U.S. — that lay right in the path of American westward expansion. This disagreement between Mexicans and Americans over who should control the Southwest led to a war between the two countries that the United States won decisively. (Chapter 10 addresses this war with our neighbor to the south.)
There’s another wrinkle to this subcategory. From 1861 to 1865, during the Civil War, Americans were actually continental competitors with other Americans. Over the course of those four bloody years, northerners and southerners fought to determine whose vision would prevail for America. Southerners wanted their own independent nation based on an agricultural system of slave labor. Northerners wanted one indivisible nation based on free-labor capitalism and industrialization. The North’s vision prevailed. (Chapter 11 has the ugly details.)
Overseas enemies: Fighting on foreign soil
After 1890, the United States fought all of its wars overseas. With the continent fully under control, Americans now became interested in overseas markets for their products and world-power status for their nation. Indeed, the goal of American policymakers was to fight their enemies not here on U.S. soil, but far from American shores.
The U.S. has battled with the vast majority of its overseas enemies because of ideological differences. However, from 1898 through 1918, the U.S. fought three overseas wars in which ideology was not the major point of contention:
The Spanish-American War (1898) was an imperial contest between a declining Spanish empire and a rising American economic superpower (see Chapter 13).
The Philippine-American War (1899–1913) was the only time the United States ever fought to establish a colony overseas. The war led to 50 years of American colonial occupation in the Philippines (see Chapter 13).
Although the United States hoped to spread democracy by entering World War I, Americans fought in that war mainly to prevent imperial Germany from dominating Europe (see Chapter 14).
Ideological enemies: Standing up for what we believe
From World War II through the present, Americans have fought against enemies whose ideologies differ dramatically from the American philosophy of free trade, individual liberties, and constitutional government. The U.S. has fought bitter, costly wars against Fascists, Communists, and radical Islamic fundamentalists (whom Americans generically call “terrorists”).
Fascists
In World War II, the enemies of the United States were all Fascists. Fascism was an ideology that espoused racial supremacy, total government control at the expense of civil liberties, wars of conquest, and genocide against certain “inferior” ethnic groups, most notably Jews. Italy, Japan, and Germany were all controlled by such aggressive, conquest-minded Fascist governments, the most notorious of which was the Nazis in Germany. The Nazis plunged Europe into war, and the Japanese did the same in the Pacific. The United States participated in an Allied coalition that fought a successful two-front war to destroy Fascism once and for all. (Chapters 15 and 16 cover World War II.)
Communists
From 1945 through 1991, the United States was almost totally preoccupied with stopping the spread of Communism, yet another ideology that was opposed to American values.
Communism was based on the prolific writings of Karl Marx, a 19th-century social critic and philosopher. Communists believed that, in the emerging industrial world, capitalism and private property were inherently exploitive of the average person. Communists wanted to eliminate private property in favor of collective ownership through the government. They also derided religion as an “opiate of the masses.” In other words, they believed that, throughout history, the elite simply used religion to exploit the poor and the weak.
Communists espoused something called the dialectic that basically meant that the triumph of world Communism was inevitable. Although Communists supported racial and gender equality, they viewed individual liberties as unimportant. Only the collective truly mattered. Communist parties in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba all tried to create societal equality by force. As a result, millions perished.
The ideological differences between the capitalist United States and the Communist Soviet Union were a major cause of the long struggle known as the Cold War (see Chapter 17). The triumph of Communism in China ended the friendship between that country and the U.S. During the Cold War, Americans fought in such faraway places as Korea and Vietnam to prevent the spread of Communism (see Chapters 18 and 19). Americans also fought Communists in small proxy wars in such places as Laos, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Grenada. In the end, most Communist regimes collapsed under the weight of their own tyranny and economic failures. This included the Soviet Union in 1991.
Radical Islamic fundamentalists
With about one billion believers, Islam is one of the world’s major religions. Islam is prevalent in the Arab Middle East, along with large portions of Africa and Asia. Members of this monotheistic faith (the worship of one god) are generally known as Muslims. The majority of Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding people. However, some are not.
From the late 1960s onward, radical Islamic fundamentalists have deeply resented oil-motivated American encroachment on the sacred Muslim soil of the Middle East. They view Americans as infidels, which means they are non-believers in Islam, and hence worthy of contempt. The radicals believe in no separation of church and state and that women should be completely subservient to men. Islam, in their view, could never reconcile with Christianity, Judaism, or any other infidel religion.
Another reason they hate the U.S. is because of American support for Israel, the Jewish nation-state in the Middle East. Islamic fundamentalists loathe Israel for two reasons. First, they believe that Israel exists at the expense of the Palestinians, a neighboring Arab-Muslim group. Second, they just plain hate Jews for religious and racial reasons.
Radical Islamic fundamentalists, hailing from a multitude of countries, have repeatedly attacked Israel and the United States. Their main weapon has been terrorism, a tactic of indiscriminate violence, including the wanton butchery of women and children, for some sort of political, religious, or ideological goal. Terrorists generally operate within small, cohesive, shadowy groups of true believers. They thrive on intimidation, bombing crowded places, hijacking airplanes, and randomly killing anyone who doesn’t submit to them.
The most dangerous of all radical Islamic terrorists are groups like Al Qaeda, the outfit that unleashed the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda wanted to create something called a caliphate. This meant they wanted to subject major portions of the planet to an absolute theocracy (form of government) under their control. Those who would live in an Al Qaeda–run caliphate would enjoy no semblance of civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, freedom of worship, or freedom of assembly. Women would be treated as mere breeders. Anyone diverging from the dictates of religious authorities would be swiftly punished.
After September 11, 2001, the United States prosecuted a Global War on Terror against these ideological opponents. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were major components of this war against radical Muslims. (Chapter 21 takes a look at these wars.)