The Warfare State and the Welfare State

One of the great joys of being a generalist is that I no longer feel the need to read articles and attend presentations in "my field" if I think they're boring. 

Example: During graduate school and in my early years at CBC, before I had made the thorough transition  from "specialist" and "scholar" to "generalist" and "teacher," I would go to conferences and attend the most brain-numbingly boring panels merely because they were  in my "field," which, at that time, was the history of the American West, Native Americans, and the environment.

Now my "field" is simply history (US and World, any and all topics) and, of course, teaching history.  So when I went to "the OAH" (the Organization of American Historians' annual conference) in Milwaukee last weekend, I did not feel compelled to attend panels that sounded boring.

On Friday afternoon, I gleefully opted to pass by a panel on "Studies of Three Hydroelectric Dams in Washington State" (which I would have dutifully attended in the past because it was my field) in favor of a roundtable discussion on "The Warfare State since the Vietnam War."

The simultaneous expansion of the "warfare state" (think "military industrial complex") and the "welfare state" (think Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Benefits--the concept that the federal government has an obligation to promote the "general welfare" through various social programs) in the post 1945 period is a major theme in my History 148 course (US since 1945).  I thought to myself, I should go to this panel.  The expansion of the warfare state is my field!

Well--I was very glad I went.  The presentations were engaging and thought-provoking, which, frankly, is not common at academic conferences.  I scribbled pages of notes, asked a couple questions, and stayed afterwards to talk to the luminaries on the panel. 

The panel was focused specifically on the expansion of the warfare state, but it occurred to me that you cannot deal with that development without linking it to the growth of the welfare state.  There are obvious connections between the two: programs like the GI Bill, for example, serve the purposes of both the warfare state and the welfare state.  The expansion of the higher education (and universities as a nexus of government and corporate research) is another obvious link, promoting individual opportunity, economic development, and bolstering the warfare state at the same time.   Even the Manhattan Project, which was clearly part of the warfare state, served "welfare state" ends, promoting jobs and economic development in communities like Los Alamos and the Tri-Cities (a nice local example that John Findlay and Bruce Hevly talk about in their book "Atomic Frontier Days").

Anyway, here are some compelling insights from the panel (nothing new, but good thoughts nonetheless)

1. The warfare state (military spending) has been largely immune from the rising-tide of conservative anti-government rhetoric.  Military budgets have expanded dramatically without protest from small-government, deficit-hawk conservatives, who seemingly have never seen a defense-spending program they don't like (Ron Paul is one of the few exceptions to this).  And this had been true of the larger American public, who, in one poll, give a 67% favorability rating to the American military but only a 22% favorability rating to the "federal government" generally, which is criticized for being bloated, inefficient, and intrusive.

Why is this so?  Why have Americans been so unyielding their support for the growth and expansion of the warfare state in the post Vietnam era (and indeed in the entire post 1945 period)?

One answer is that politicians have cynically or unwittingly engaged in "threat inflation," playing upon the fears and insecurities of the American people (this has certainly been the case in the post 9/11 period where our military establishment has expanded exponentially while the world, arguably, has become a much safer place).

Another answer is that the post-Vietnam all-volunteer military establishment has offered seeming protection from these manifold global threats while at the same time asking very little of most Americans (no extra taxes; no conscription).  It's a great deal!  They keep us safe and we (American civilians) sacrifice very little. (Of course, this will have to change, given our looming deficits.)

2. The structural change to an all-volunteer army (moving away from conscription) has helped to foster the expansion of the warfare state.

It is interesting to note that Richard Nixon voiced support for ending the draft in 1968 because he felt that it would help bring an end to anti-draft rioting (which he conflated with anti-war protest generally) while at the same time peace protestors believed that ending the draft would make America less likely to go to war.

Richard Nixon was more correct than the peace protestors.  It is a great irony of modern American history that our move to an all-volunteer army, a move so much advocated by anti-war protestors,  has dulled criticisms against the growth and expansion of the warfare state.  Without the draft, citizens have less investment in large questions of war and peace.

On a related note, fewer of our current politicians now have actually served in the military than in previous decades, and this lack of experience may influence their decisions concerning the use and withholding of troops--the panelists suggested that politicians with no military experience might actually be more likely, not less, to deploy troops.

3.  The move to an all-volunteer force has also escalated the costs of the warfare state, since the need to recruit and retain military personnel has necessitated increasing salaries and benefits.

I would argue that most Americans see the warfare state as just another arm of the welfare state: it provides jobs and keeps us safe.  It's popular.  And the wars are distant and non-intrusive. And the taxes are still low (so far).  And until now, American have not really had to choose between spending on the military and spending on social programs,  guns and butter

Anyway, my students this quarter are hearing a lot about the relationship between the warfare state and the welfare state, guns and butter.

Sometimes you learn things at conferences.  Or at least think about things in new ways.