The terms “means” and “ends” bring to mind relations among self-centered nations competing with one another. “A mean to an end.” “The end is worth its means.”

It is one way of looking at the international political situation. This world looks very different from the top looking down and from the bottom looking up. For many policy makers, it involves judgments made in the name of national interests and security; and in more recent years additional concerns have been about international interests and security. From the bottom looking up, especially among combat veterans, the major concern is simply survival.

In 1927, Carl Schmitt in The Concept of the Political wrote, “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy … The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing. War follows from enmity. War is the existential negation of the enemy.”  About 100 years prior to Schmitt, Carl von Clausewitz observed, “War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with a mixture of other means.” These, the view from the top down.

A perspective from the bottom looking up is a passage by William Broyles, Jr. in his often quoted 1984 essay, “Why Men Love War,” “War is ugly, horrible, evil, and it is reasonable for men to hate all that. But I believe that most men who have been to war would have to admit, if they are honest, that somewhere inside themselves they loved it too, loved it as much as anything that has happened to them before or since.”

These perspectives pose challenges for veterans of all sorts and for those who have either antiwar or pacifist beliefs. War is a tool of politics, and it has consequences. Alternatively, the unwillingness to use war as a tool also has consequences.

Veterans Day sparked some remembrances which help make these principles more concrete. These reflections, it seems to me, have implications beyond the historic and are applicable to the current world situation.

In my memories

As an elementary school student in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I recall going through civil defense drills in which we would hide under our desks, or in hallways without windows to “protect” ourselves should a nuclear attack occur. As a managing editor for my college newspaper, I recall listening to the radio in our editorial office as the United States went to DEFCON 2. This is the highest level of military alert ever for our military forces as the United States and the Soviet Union faced each other on October 25, 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis ultimately seemed to defuse as 14 Soviet ships chose to turn around.

I recall feeling a sense of relief as both countries stepped back from nuclear annihilation. In contemporary history classes, the Cold War is being discussed along with the competition to win over unaligned nations, and find ways to stop the expansion of international Communism. This perspective ultimately contributed to the U. S. involvement in the Vietnam War. My participation in it going very much from the theoretical to the personal.

For policy makers, it was much easier to distinguish friends from enemies than it was for combat troops where identifies weren’t nearly as clear.
During the Vietnam War, combat troops consisted of volunteers and draftees. Some supported the war, and others didn’t. This is very different from the composition of the military forces today in which all members of the military have enlisted.

Yesterday, today

What these two groups of veterans share are experiences that most of the rest of the population have never experienced. Regardless of whether or not members of the military support a given war, or war at all; what is more important is their common need to distinguish friends from enemies in order to survive.  These experiences create communications gaps with other citizens that are difficult to overcome. While combat veterans today may receive more respect today than they did during the Vietnam War, their concerns are largely ignored and misunderstood by non-veterans.
Few battles of consequence, if any, were lost by the U. S. military during the Vietnam War; yet, the war was lost. U. S. forces left in 1973 and in 1975 the South Vietnamese government fell to the North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front. Ultimately, emphasis shifted from battlefield actions to nation building for which the military is not suited.

The willingness for North Vietnam to wage an endless war and suffer incalculable casualties doomed the U. S. effort from the beginning. The U. S. was not able to understand the interconnection of nationalistic and communistic beliefs by the leaders of North Vietnam.  The U. S. grew weary of involvement, withheld aid and assistance from the South Vietnamese; and walked away. For US political leaders, the ends were not worth the means required of them.

Is it possible that the same pattern is being played out in Iraq and Afghanistan: the difficulty of distinguishing friends from enemies; and the insurmountable challenge of nation building by the military? Will the U. S. tire of its involvement, and leave both countries to settle their own affairs? It has consequences. It has consequences for policy makers and for combat veterans.

There were a number of consequences after the Vietnam War. There was a mass migration of “boat people” refuges that fled Vietnam to escape repression and poverty. Many died at sea as they tried to escape. I, myself, hosted a child of a refugee Vietnamese family during his high school years. We rarely discussed Vietnam, and his family was scattered all over the world.

Today, some have returned after major reform began in 1986.

What will be the consequences of the disengagement from Iraq and Afghanistan? No one really knows. It is possible that the U. S. involvement in Vietnam may have slowed the expansion of international communism. Will the U. S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have a lasting effect? In the end, policy makers will still distinguish friends from enemies, and combat troops will have to practically make this distinction, and find ways to survive. Means and ends are always a challenge. Means and ends have consequences, anticipated and unanticipated.