Before I write anything else, let me say that I think Reagan was the best president we had in the 20th century. Not that there was much competition. (See "Depressing Realization", "A Passing Thought", and "The Best Historical Example"  for some earlier thoughts on this topic.) The Republicans of this century were not an inspiring lot. Following Reagan, his VP was a far from inspiring president, whose main accomplishment was squandering Reagan's good will and handing the White House to Clinton. Preceding Reagan, Nixon was the worst sort of big government Republican. Eisenhower was passable, at best, and unfortunately gave legitimacy to the FDR-era changes in government. Hoover was essentially FDR-lite, doing the same things FDR did, just to a lesser degree, not to mention his insane protectionist measures. Coolidge and Harding were as good as could be expected from the last gasps of the old style Republicans, still mired in various forms of 19th century mercantilism. And finally, Taft and Roosevelt were both prone to the opposite trend in early 20th century Republicans, trust busting, regulatory agencies and other "reform" actions, akin to the policies proposed by the Populists recently absorbed by the Democrats. And obviously, 20th century Democrats, falling entirely in the period after the Democrats had ceased being the party of gold, states' rights and lassiez-faire economics, were even less impressive.

But even if Reagan was the best president of the 20th century, he was far from flawless. I already discussed some of his shortcomings in foreign policy in "Lebanon and Saint Reagan" and "Civilian Casualties", describing how his retreat from Lebanon was one of the earliest actions to convince the Arab world we were a paper tiger (only Carter's mishandling of the hostage crisis was earlier.)  However, there was another mistake he made that is still haunting us today.

Well, not actually a mistake. What Reagan did was almost inevitable, and was done for good reason, but it still has had negative repercussions. Of course, part of it was the fault of his successors as well, as their decisions simply served to reinforce Reagan's choices and change the way we view military action.

You see, when Reagan came to office, military action was seen in light of the legacy of Vietnam. The memories of military action were seen mainly in terms of our abandonment of the Vietnamese, with a little bit fo Carter's failed rescue attempt in Iran. (For some reason, Ford's action in the Mayaguez incident was completely forgotten in the 1980's.) And so, when Reagan became president, the public impression was of a nation militarily emasculated. The belief was that the US military existed mainly to stare across the border at the Russian military, any other use was doomed to failure.

Reagan, as part of his efforts to gain strategic advantage over the Soviet Union, was determined to change that impression. And so, when events arose which demanded military action, be it the occupation of Lebanon or the invasion of Granada, Reagan was not reluctant to involve the military. And he achieved his goal. He got us over Vietnam. Those who followed him did not continue the Carter-era reluctance to engage in military action.

But there was a cost, and one we are paying now. To get us used to fighting once again, Reagan had to engage in wars with foes that were not our equals. Rather than take on the Soviets, or even their strongest proxy states in eastern Europe, he took on lesser powers, be they Arab terrorists, or Granadan dictators. Reagan's battles were, for lack of a better description, easy conflicts. Conflicts certain to have low casualties and quick resolutions. It was the perfect formula to restore confidence, but it also gave us unrealistic expectations about conflict.

And what followed Reagan just continued that mistaken impression.

Bush, admittedly, was forced into the first Persian Gulf conflict by Saddam's actions and treaty obligations, but his refusal to pursue the Iraqi outside of Kuwait made it the first modern all air conflict. Yes, there was ground warfare, but for the most part that was mopping up after the air campaign. The first Gulf War was almost entirely an aerial conflict, and, as a result of the unequal match up, we enjoyed a continuation of abnormally low casualties.

And Clinton, for a variety of political reasons, continued in the same vein. Whether it was the almost casualty free set of conflicts in the Balkans, or his long distance bombing of suspected terrorist hideouts, Clinton indulge din any number of low risk conflicts, mostly to distract from his many political scandals.

As a result, by the time the second Bush administration began, we had become used to low conflict with death tolls running into no more than three digits. In 2000, we had a 20 year history of low casualty conflict. Even the barracks bombing in Lebanon did not compare to the every day casualties in World War II, Korea or Vietnam. We had come to think of war as nothing but a continual series of easy victories. War was not a long, slow slog beset with many casualties. It was a quick, flashy set of aerial campaigns, maybe a little bit of ground conflict, and that was it. War was fast, easy and pain free*.

And that impression is plaguing us today. Our occupation of Iraq, which capped off a war resolved in record time, has involved a small number of casualties, very few by any historical standard. But, thanks to the post-Reagan belief that war should be resolved with nearly zero casualties, the tiny number of deaths is held forth as a mark against it.

And that is why I say Reagan made a mistake. I admit, it may have been a necessary mistake. He had to restore confidence in the military and a sense that we could still sue our military successfully, but by starting what turned into a series of relatively painless victories, we eventually developed the unrealistic belief that war can be fought without casualties. That we can swiftly walk over a series of smaller nations, suffering few casualties, and quickly winning any conflict in which we find ourselves.

It is a belief we need to dispel. We need to realize that sometimes war involves deaths, that it sometimes takes time, that every conflict cannot be resolved quickly and painlessly. It is a truth we understood for most of our history, but, thanks to decades of quick and easy conflict, have managed to forget. But, until we get over this mistaken belief, we will be as crippled in terms of military action as we were in the 1970's.  Just as Vietnam incapacitated our military by removing our confidence in it, this modern insistence on eliminating all casualties will make politicians unwilling to involve our military in any but the most simple conflicts.And, knowing this, our enemies will realize that all they have to do is inflict a few casualties to make us turn tail and run.

In other words, it will be the conditions that made 9/11 possible all over again, the rest of the world convinced the US is a paper tiger, read to turn tail once the casualties begin to appear. And, sadly, they will be right. At least so long as we believe in the pain free war.
 
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* Oddly, the prolonged follow up "peacekeeping" missions in the Balkans under Clinton were forgotten both at the time and since. When the duration of our involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan is mentioned by the press and other critics, no one seems to recall the longer lasting involvement in various Balkan regions. Thanks to the media blind spot about our commitments there, the public also lost sight of them, reinforcing the "quick and easy" image of war we have to this day.