Voices of Leadership in Time of War

Contents

Political Leadership and War

Perhaps no demand for political leadership is as great as war and peace.  War can be a profound experience:

• Lives are on the line.  Wars kill.  They make widows and orphans.  They make parents bury their children instead of the other way around.  In 20th century culture these were unnatural events.
• War erodes a society's wealth.  Although war may boost industrial production, it does so for goods that are blown up.  As a result, economic production does not go toward enhancing a standard of living.  When production is directed towards goods that are blown up it cannot produce goods to expand the economy or goods to make lives better.
• War restricts freedoms.  Wars demand greater regimentation of society than is normal in a democracy.  Criticism becomes unpatriotic rather than a sign of lively democracy.  Normal rules of behavior are distorted in everything from how soldiers are treated to how prisoners are treated.  Even in a low commitment war like the war on al Qaeda, those of us living in the Washington area can see how our freedom to travel and our freedom to access our government is restricted.
• Total war changes societies profoundly.  One historian has observed that whatever the objectives for which we enter wars, the society emerges from the war much different than anyone envisioned.  Wars distort normal social development for better or for worse.  The society on the day the war starts will never be again.

War is a major element of the 20th Century

The century has been marked by four levels of military engagement:

• Total War. In conditions of total war, the societies themselves are engaged in the struggle. Life in the societies is distorted toward the war effort and the war becomes the dominant fact molding the character of life in the culture. In the 20th Century, World Wars I and II and the Cold War were total wars.
• National Confrontations. National confrontations are marked by nations warring with nations and governments, but the armies battle rather than the total commitment of the society. Other forces control the character of our society more than the war, although the war certainly has an impact. In the 20th Century, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq were the national confrontations that marked American life.
• Military Diplomacy. Often in the century there have been military ventures that the society hardly noticed except for blips in presidential popularity. They are often small scale operations against weak countries that do not tax American military strength. Examples from the final quarter of the century are Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Bosnia, and Afghanistan
• Organizational Targets.  Late in the century the military has been asked to contribute to quasi-wars growing out of commitments to destroy non-state organizations the political leadership or the society has judged worthy of destruction.  These wars generally require little societal commitment, are often fought with deception and clandestine activities, often drag on for years with minimal evidence of success, and command little attention from the society.  Support for them varies considerably.  Rhetorically they tend to have hit and miss visibility.  Examples of targeted organizations include the drug cartels of the Western hemisphere and the Islamist terrorist group al Qaeda.

Rhetorical Leadership in war

With so much on the line, war requires many leadership skills. Primary among these is rhetoric's power to transform material events and facts into motivation.

There are two absolutely crucial rhetorical requirements when the United States (or any nation) goes to war:

• Justification: Leaders provide good reasons to go to war. This requirement for leadership is to justify military action for an international and a domestic audience. Resort to military force must be legitimate according to "Just War Doctrine." This rhetoric calls upon our argumentative analysis.

• Motivation: Leaders must motivate dedication to fight, die, sacrifice in order to win the war. This is primarily a domestic audience. Leaders use all their rhetorical resources to motivate support for the military action. The community must adopt a rhetoric that textures the discourse of the community in a way that reinforces the motivation of everyone to support the war. This rhetoric calls upon the total breadth of our rhetorical analysis.

We will look at justification later; now look at motivation.

Rhetoric to Motivate War

Layers of motivation are required to fight a war

• A personal motivation. At base, all citizens involved in the war must have a personal rhetoric that motivates their actions required during wartime. Families must explain their sacrifice of sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. Today there are typically two such rhetorics: "He gave his life for a greater cause." and "He died doing what he loved to do." And families who make economic sacrifice to support the war effort must justify that sacrifice as well. So, every family needs a rhetoric to use to motivate their support for the war.
• A National Motivation. The rhetoric of "a greater cause" requires a national motivation. Presidents must nationalize motivation through the rituals of war. He explains how the war is required by the needs of the community. The president often has his words echoed in media and by others.

Stages in Rhetorical Campaigns for War

If we study the rhetoric with which we go to war it has a particular pattern. All of the following must develop, and they tend to develop in the order indicated.

1. The War opens with a "Declaration of War." American Presidents are required by the Constitution, the War Powers Act, and by the success of the venture to request Congressional approval for war. Generally, Presidents have found that getting such support is one rhetorical strategy required for effective war. And generally, they appeal for that support in a speech -- either to Congress or the American public through the mass media -- which establishes the justification for the war and provides the "official" rhetorical motivation that will spread throught the public.

2. A propaganda campaign maintains the commitment. In this century, propaganda campaigns are a feature of warfare. Although the term "propaganda" is often used as a pejorative for the rhetoric of the enemy, the rhetorical strategies which characterize such campaigns are used by all combatants. Militaries oppose democratic and open communications in time of war because of the threat open communication offers to secrecy; the failure to maintain secrecy threatens their troops and their power. Propaganda campaigns diffuse the justification for the war through the people of the community and provide ways of maintaining the strength of the commitment.

3. A day-to-day rhetoric of war coordinates the community's war effort. A complex web of activities such as victory gardens, war production, economic controls, and so forth develop a vocabulary and a motivational framework that turns the normal life of the community toward productive contribution to the war.

Requirements for an Ongoing Motivation for War

There are certain things that an effective motivation for war must accomplish.

• To divide the enemies from allies. A vocabulary typically develops that allows allegiances to take form that permits opposition. This vocabulary is often pejorative and dehumanizing.
• Promoting values of heroism and sacrifice. We celebrate the bravery of soldiers. Our media has role models of our heroes. We celebrate the sacrifices at funerals.

American motivations for war

American leaders have typical ways in which they motivate war.

• Characteristic ideographs serve as the central wellspring of commitment.
  • Central theme is <rights>. The concept of <rights> is a particular symbol -- an ideograph -- which Americans use to rhetorically enforce limitations on governments and on other people. The American use of <rights> is grounded in the strategy of the American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution's Bill of Rights. This ideograph, because it is a symbolic reservoir of what the American community values enough to sacrifice or die for, becomes a central symbol in the rhetoric of Presidents who seek to justify war.
  • In the 20th century, <democracy> and <law> has been the main support for <rights>. Typically, there are other terms -- we might call them "God terms" because of their power -- which interact with <rights> to form the justification. In the 20th century, these terms have been <democracy> and <law>. Thus, we come to think of those we fight as anti-democratic and violators of international law. These three ideographs form a triumvirate of ideals.
  • In the 21st century, <freedom> and <evil> have become the primary ideographs.  These are juxtaposed.  Thus, we fight for the sake of "lovers of freedom" and those we oppose us do so because they are "evil."   <Democracy> remains as an auxiliary ideograph, subordinate to the others.  Thus, <freedom> comes with <democracy> and the <evil> oppose democracy.  The <evil> are also known because they have a cheap view of <human life>.
• Presidents build a narrative of crisis for this sacred American ideal. Real events of the world must be transformed into the relationships of the ideographs. Thus, we must contextualize the deaths at Pearl Harbor into violations of basic human decency. We must describe an Iraqi army moving into Kuwait as a violation of a people's rights and of international law. In building this narrative the rhetoric constructs
• The character of the enemy. The rhetoric of war features blame as strong and focused on an enemy. Savagery is often a theme. Our rationality contrasted with the irrationality of the enemy is another. Typically, the rhetoric of war contains strong narratives of the kindness and skill of our troops and the evilness of the enemy.
• A constructed sequence of events (plot) that leads to war. War for Americans must be the final resort. Typically, Presidents tell narratives of the events leading up to war that feature American efforts to avoid war. Americans must be dragged into war by war loving enemies.
• Thus, war is constructed as a must to defend the ideals announced in the ideographs.

Presidents weave these themes and strategies into a rhetoric which justifies the commitment of the nation to war.

United States in 1940

• The memory of World War I is strong. Eighty percent of adult population had direct memory of World War I. We had gone to war, invested American blood and treasure to help Europe. They are in it again. We tried to help them construct a system to avoid war and they rejected our ideas. Don't do it again.

• Strength of isolationists and even pro-Axis organizations in conversation. Isolationism was still controlling public opinion.

  • American First Committee. A well organized effort with speakers including Charles Lindburgh, the first human to fly the Atlantic solo, an American hero, and members of the US Senate such as Burton K. Wheeler.

  • The American Bund. A German-American organization of Nazis led by Fritz Kuhn drew 20,000 people to Madison Square Garden in New York City.

  • Il Progresso. The largest ethnic newspaper in the United States, printed in Italian, championed Mussolini.

• The Depression continued. The problem on everyone's mind was still the Great Depression. The unemployment rate remained at 15 percent, down from 25 percent in 1933, but still one of every six in the labor market. Funding a military was difficult when 40 percent of the federal budget went to social services. Everywhere the depression was all around you. The war was just an unwitnessed story in a far off land for the American public.

Our Study

With World War II as our object of study, arguably the most necessary of 20th century wars, we want to look at:

• Franklin Roosevelt seeking to maneuver public opinion into opposition to fascism before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (his Arsenal of Democracy speech)
• Roosevelt's marshaling of Pearl Harbor into the commitment to go to war
• The propaganda messages constructed to motivate the citizen army