War - An Instrument of Politics

By Arthur Kerle--

Today I will be discussing the role of politics in war.  Or as I aim to show, the role of war in politics.  The notion of war as a subordinate to politics is one that, since Vietnam, our nation has been irked by.  Civilians, when playing armchair quarterback about America’s military actions, often lament about the level of oversight provided by ignorant politicians.  If they would just leave the business of war to the warrior!  Must they meddle in everything?

This was my opinion until relatively recently.  With the battles raging in Iraq and Afghanistan and family friends deployed overseas, I heard stories about how politicians were hamstringing the army and making it hard for them to do their job:  kill the enemy.  These stories backed up opinions I had already formed about politicians involving themselves in war.  The struggles of Washington regarding his political generals during the Revolution and the disastrous effects of the same during the Civil War were influencing factors in my view.  The term “political general” brought negative connotations rushing to the forefront of my mind whenever my eyes or ears encountered it.  My view of political oversight into war remained as thus until listening to a lecture on the topic:  Masters of War:  History’s Greatest Strategic Thinkers.  This lecture can be found at www.audble.com and is put on by The Great Courses series.  

First, a disclaimer.  As this blog aims to help Christians digest the complexity of today’s world and make well-educated decisions, in writing this, I am not condoning war as good.  I do, however, believe that war is not completely incompatible with Christianity – that is not to say by any means that I believe violence should be sought.  It is, nonetheless, important to have a basic understanding of politics because of the amount of influence it has over the happenings of both our country and the world.  War (or strategy) falls under the dominion of politics and the basic principles that I will discuss are applicable in many fields other than that of the battlefield.

Strategy is derived from the Greek word strategos.  Strategos, interestingly enough, means “elected general” and “politician.”  For the Greeks, a good strategist was, by the very definition, both a politician and a general.  A general, in the Greek sense of the word, had to consider not only military objectives but political objectives.  This is an important concept and as such, I would like to proffer a definition that is likely to be foreign to you: strategy is the process by which political purpose is translated into military action.  This definition of strategy is all important for our discussion.  By it, strategy is not an equal of politics but a tool of politics.  War is one means by which political goals are achieved.  Good strategy, therefore, effectively translates political goals into military action. 

Now that we have that out of the way, it is necessary to examine the purpose, thought process and goals of both a political leader and a general.  To illustrate, imagine the following situation:  Two football teams are entering the homestretch of a game.  The score is thirty-four to twenty-eight with the trailing team in possession and driving.  They have a first and ten with just over a minute and half on the clock at their opponents forty-five.  The quarterback wants to score and score quickly!  He wants the lead!  To do so he begins to use the no huddle offense.  His head coach, however, stops him.  The coach has considered the implications of a quick score:  giving the ball back to a very dangerous offense with plenty of time move the football.  If that happens, they lose.  They need to take more time off the clock before they score.

That difference in thinking in the analogy perfectly represents the differences in thought between a general and a politician.  The quarterback, representing the general, wants to do his job, he wants to score points!  The politician, or the coach in the analogy, is thinking in broader terms.  There are many other issues to consider than just scoring points or wining battles.  After all, history is littered with examples of generals who have won battle after battle but lost the war.

Before wrapping up, a quick example of just such a case in our nation’s history where a general won a battle but lost the war.  In Korean War, General Douglass MacArthur, hero of the Pacific in World War II, defeated the Soviet backed North and pushed them out of the South.  Had he stopped there, it would have been both a military and political victory.  But he did not stop there.  MacArthur drove his forces into the North, drawing too near to the Chinese border and prompting them to pour in their own troops, resulting in an ugly stalemate that settled little.  MacArthur exceeded the impetus of the attack in crossing the 38^th Parallel and scared the Chinese into action (fearing an invasion of China by MacArthur).  He had won, accomplished the main political objectives of the United States and their allies but because of a lack of political oversight, that victory morphed into a stalemate at the very best. 

Politics dominate the world, everything else is reliant on politics to a certain degree.  Warfare and its conduct is no different.  Not only should war be overseen by politicians but very closely monitored.  Without close oversight, war can quickly get out of hand and exceed the bounds of the political objectives that the military set out to accomplish.  Sound strategy should be conceived with political goals in mind and carried out by the generals under the watchful eye of the politicians.    

• Wilson, Andrew R. Masters of War:  History’s Greatest Strategic Thinkers. The Great Courses. Audio.