The Next President Should Speak a New Language of War

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/opinion/biden-democrats-military.html

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The Democratic presidential primaries are continuing with little discussion about matters of war and peace, something I’ve found disheartening as a veteran. Yet for Democrats, who have often struggled to establish credibility with voters on national security, the 2020 race presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

The traditional language of how to support the military — increased spending, “staying the course” in long wars — is one that Democrats have never spoken as convincingly as have Republicans. From Gov. Mike Dukakis’s awkward ride in a tank to Senator John Kerry’s war record being turned against him, Democratic candidates have faltered around national defense, while Republican candidates from Eisenhower to Reagan to both Bushes have made national defense the centerpieces of successful campaigns.

If Joe Biden becomes the Democratic nominee, he could put forward an alternate vision for the nation’s military, which the public might be yearning for.

This includes reclaiming its stake as the antiwar party, a position that President Trump has tried to usurp. No candidate has yet addressed the way an all-volunteer military waging wars financed exclusively through national debt — as opposed to taxation — has transformed the nature of American war, anesthetizing our population to its effects, so that our conflicts are no longer multiyear affairs but rather multigenerational ones.

The leftward shift in the Democratic Party virtually assures that the nominee will be branded a socialist by Mr. Trump. That nominee would be wise to point to the military policies of countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark, which fund their military in far more sustainable ways than the United States, with military spending that doesn’t carve trillions into the national deficit and with conscription laws that ensure all citizens share equally in the burdens of war.

Mr. Trump has the advantage of being the incumbent and will lean on his foreign policy achievements, which in some cases are significant. They are, however, strategically incoherent: a shaky peace deal with the Taliban; the execution of an Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani; a U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria; nuclear threats against North Korea followed by photo ops with Kim Jong-un.

Just as he’s kept his adversaries guessing what he’ll do next, the president has done the same to the American people, who largely understand that the world is a dangerous place and that we are being led through it by a president known for uniquely low impulse control. No demographic feels this more acutely than military families, for whom Mr. Trump’s drastic foreign policy shifts often come with deployment orders attached.

Already, in the wake of the Suleimani strike, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has called for renewed scrutiny on presidential war powers. A Democratic nominee who continues to touch upon the importance of heightened congressional oversight of presidential war powers would find fertile ground among military members who have been deployed to combat zones as far-flung as Syria and the Horn of Africa under an Authorization for the Use of Military Force signed nearly two decades ago by President George W. Bush.

The backslapping solidarity that Mr. Trump will display with the military on the campaign trail — whether it’s reliving Conan the dog’s exploits when chasing down Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or hobnobbing with cable news hosts wearing shotgun blasts of military lapel pins above fuchsia pocket squares — can be undermined by a candidate who speaks to these rarely discussed, and often verboten, issues.

While campaigning alongside the likes of the disgraced retired Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher will translate into political capital for Mr. Trump’s base, such tough-guy posturing will backfire for Democratic candidates, whose voters trust the military nearly 20 percent less than their Republican counterparts. Bluster isn’t something Democratic voters are looking for in their candidate; and, after two decades of war, it isn’t something many long-serving veterans like myself are looking for either, with support for the president within the ranks at its lowest since entering office.

This election needs a candidate who can speak a truly new language of war and peace. A candidate who articulates the challenges of war powers, the hazards of a purely all-volunteer force, and even the possibility of a war tax or a new draft, could find himself the true choice of “change,” and “transformation.” That candidate could, in November, win the greatest battle of all.

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