Parameters, the quarterly journal published by the US Army War College, is a great resource. The service colleges are, perhaps surprisingly for some, known for their solid academic standing. And this journal publishes articles from a variety of perspectives. Some of them, like in any journal, are better than others. But the editorial standards are high. (The publication of an article by Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the spring issue was a hopefully rare exception to that.) And the editing itself is apparently good, because the articles read well.
The summer issue is now available online. And it has an article on one of my favorite topics: War Policy, Public Support, and the Media by Col. William Darley (Army Director of Strategic Communications and editor-in-chief of the Army periodical Military Review) Parameters Summer 2005.
The conventional wisdom is that the reporting during the Vietnam War, especially the televised images from the front, was a decisive factor in turning public opinion against the war. For many military officers and rightwing Republicans, the press gets the role of chief villain in a stab-in-the-back excuse for the military failures in Vietnam. Those attitudes play a major role today, as we've seen in the military management of reporters in the Iraq War and in the latest Republican frenzy over the now-retracted Newsweek report on Qu'rān desecration in the gulag.
As I've said here before, I think the conventional wisdom on the media and Vietnam is way off base. Darley's article makes the same argument. But he also makes an interpretation that is dominated by the Army's preferred military doctrine, and does not meaningfully apply his findings to the experience of counterinsurgency warfare, as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Darley's argument, which is true as far as it goes, is that the two decisive factors in securing the support of the American public for a war are "bold battlefield operations and commensurate administrative supporting actions to achieve clear and specific politicaland military objectives."
The following sentence really contains the core of his argument, as well as it weakness; speaking of fluctuating public support for the Iraq War in 2004 as determined by opinion polls, he writes:
However, following similar “rally round the flag” patterns observed in conjunction with events in previous conflicts, public confidence in the President as reflected in all major polls had a modest but significant uptick in apparent correlation to bold military actions associated with counterinsurgency operations in Fallujah from September through November 2004, as well as after positive events stemming from determined coalition support of Iraq’s elections and the resulting Iraqi voter turnout. (my emphasis)
The Vietnam War and public opinion
Darley summarizes very well the findings on which he relies for his conclusion that "media bias" and editorial positions did not decisively affect US public support for the Vietnam War. He quotes from John Mueller's War, Presidents, and Public Opinion (1973), which Darley calls "perhaps the most widely quoted study of the relationship between public opinion and news reporting in Vietnam," which found that changes public attitudes about the Korean War were very similar to those in the Vietnam War, even though he found the press coverage during the earlier conflict to be less critical in its approach:
Many have seen Vietnam as a “television war” and argue that the vivid and largely uncensored day-by-day television coverage of the war and its brutalities made a profound impression on public attitudes. The poll data used in this study do not support such a conclusion. They clearly show that whatever impact television had, it was not enough to reduce support for the war below the levels attained by the Korean War, when television was in its infancy, until casualty levels had far surpassed those of the earlier war. (my emphasis)
Darley summarizes the findings of Daniel Hallin in The "Uncensored" War (1986)and Clarence Wyatt in Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War (1995) this way:
Among the most respected studies were those conducted by Daniel Hallin and Clarence Wyatt, who, after analyzing the effect of so-called negative media images of the war on the American people, found virtually no evidence to support any causal relationship between editorial tone and bias in the media with loss of public support for the war. (my emphasis)
I was especially interested in his discussion of two RAND Corporation studies, a 1994 one by Bernard Schwarz who argued:
Much anti-war sentiment, in fact, reflected disillusionment with the [Vietnam] war and the concomitant desire not to withdraw troops but instead to escalate the war to get it over on terms favorable to the United States.
But a later (1996) study for RAND by Eric Larson that did not confirm the findings of Schwarz' study about the public expressing discontent over the conduct of the Vietnam War by increasing their support for military escalation. In a conclusion that Darley makes central to his own argument, Larson stated:
One of the most important findings of this study is the central role of leadership—and divisions among leaders—in support for military operations and preferences regarding strategy and the level of commitment. Many public opinion analyses tend to ignore leadership or to treat it simplistically as presidential manipulation of public opinion or a search to find justifications that will resonate with the public. . . . Substantial evidence supports the proposition that leadership consensus or dissensus is an essential element in the character of public support for US military interventions.
And Darley cites William Hammond, whom he describes to be "regarded by many as the premier authority on military and media relations during the Vietnam War" in The Military and the Media, 1968-1973 (1996) as finding no clear "causal relationship between the tone of editorial reporting and the general public opinion" on the war. Hammond found, also contrary to conventional wisdom, that the 1968 Tet offensive as such did not mark the "decisive final irrevocable downturn in public support for continuation of the war." Instead, hefound that press reporting affected public opinion indirectly, by raising doubts among the national leadership about the conduct of the war. Lyndon Johnson's famous withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race served to increase public skepticism over the war.
At this point, any good Jacksonian Democrat would start to hear alarms bells in his head. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw the eyes on the little bust of Jackson that I keep on my desk flash red a couple of times as I was typing that last part. Public opinion wasn't turning against the war, Darley is arguing, until leaders like Johnson started giving the public reason to doubt their own confidence in the war. Darley is debunking part of the stab-in-the-back argument, "the media did it" part. But he uses it to promote a civilian stab-in-the-back notion:
Consequently, it is worth highlighting that the moral center of the plurality [?!?] supporting continuation of the war (either at the same level of commitment or through escalation) appears to have held more or less firm somewhat beyond the [1968] Tet Offensive. But this moral center appears to have given way when President Johnson, the policy figure who had led the country in the war and was therefore the moral center of gravity in maintaining support for continuing the war, announced in one televised flourish that he would not run for the presidency, would order a halt to the strategic bombing of the north, and would spend the balance of his remaining time in office trying to negotiate an “honorable” peace. When the man who led the war gave it up, American war policy was apparently converted in the eyes of many [in a way that resulted] in a loss of faith and an irrevocable, permanent downturn in support for the war among elements that were formerly holding firm. (my emphasis)
Before going on to how Darley applies these dubious lessons to the Iraq War, I would observe that he has constructed a narrative of the course of public support for the Vietnam War in such a way that only the actions of leadership mattered, and in effect on the actions of civilian leadership. It's one thing to debunk the notion that the media coverage as such, and/or the alleged "media bias," turned the public against the war. It's something altogether different to argue that public opinion had no effect on the actions of the national leadership, and that public opinion on the Vietnam War was mainly a passive response to actions by the civilian leadership. (I also highlighed the word "plurality" - which means less than a majority - in the quote above. I haven't checked the detailed polling data on which he's relying for that time, but if only a plurality supported escalation by that time, how can he argue that it was Johnson's withdrawal that decisively shifted public opinion?)
This approach lets the military leadership off the hook for any missteps affecting public opinion. The military's constant declarations of major progress, boosted by lots of statistics including those famous "body counts," had no effect on public perceptions in this analysis. If anything, in his presentation, the public was ready to escalate some more and keep on believing those military assurances that this next increment of troop strength would do the job.
Public opinion and the Iraq War
To return to the second quote from Darley given above ("However, following similar ..."), he makes a convincing argument that decisive military action perceived by the public as a victory, plus bold and confident civilian leadership supporting such actions, gives a favorable boost to public opinion on the war.
James Galbraith's analysis of polling data which I discussed in a post last September, gives some support for Darley's argument. Galbraith was focusing specifically on President Bush's approval ratings, but so is Darley in that quotation. Galbraith found Bush's job-approval ratings had declined steadily in the polls ever since he took office, with three notable exceptions: the September 11 attack, the invasion of Iraq, and the capture of Saddam Hussein. The last two involved a "decisive" moment in the Iraq War. And the first two involved assertions of presidential leadership, although the public perceptive of presidential leadership immeidately after 9/11 was more wishful thinking than substantial action.
But its also notable that Bush's decline in the polls resumed thereafter in each case, with the favorable bounce being longer in the case of the 9/11 attacks. And that brings us to the weakness in Darley's argument.
Decisive military events and bold civilian leadership postures work very well in the context of conventional war. The quick and victorious military drive to Baghdad in spring 2003, capped by the decisive leadership of Bush's famous visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, all decked out in his flight suit and his manly codpiece, fits that model beautifully.
But the daily slog in the counterinsurgency war in Iraq that's been going on ever since is a whole different thing. Look at which "bold military actions" Darley identifies in that quotation: "counterinsurgency operations in Fallujah from September through November 2004" and "determined coalition support of Iraq’s elections and the resulting Iraqi voter turnout." Yes, those were perceived as bold actions. But what happens if the "bold action" is then followed by more of the same?
The military levelled Fallujah (or at least large parts of it), and victory was dutifully proclaimed. But the insurgency has become stronger and more deadly since then. Darley disingenuously describes "counterinsurgency operations" in Fallujah "from September through November." But the "bold military action" that looked so decisive for a while was the conventional-style assault on Fallujah after the US presidential election. And in a counterinsurgency war, that kind of conventional "victory" can have the effect of strenghtening the resistance if the response among the public toward the assault is negative.
The January 30 elections undoubtedly looked good to the US public in the weeks immediately following. But where is that positive bounced now? The administration hype over the election included the seemingly good news that enemy attacks were down and that new Iraqi government forces had played an important role in guarding the polls to make that happen. But then, a couple of months later, we've got a public report to Congress saying that the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency claimed that election day in Iraq saw twice as many insurgency attacks as in any previous day of the entire conflict.
Similarly, up until a couple of weeks ago, military spokespeople were talking optimistically about how the insurgency seemed to be less aggressive and that the elections were one big reason, and so on. There were even noises and reducing American troop levels by 2006. Then the number and severity of insurgent attacks grew to a level that even the American press had to start paying more attention to them. And the military spokesmen went back to talking about the long slog ahead. Troop level reductions? What troop level reductions? Whoever said anything about that?
Darley's article has the great virtue of debunking the conventional wisdom about the effect of news reporting and "media bias" on public opinion during the Vietnam War. It wasn't knowing facts about the war and seeing war footage that turned public opinion around.
But it was the facts themselves, such as the costs and length of the war, the repeated instances of optimistic talk by both civilian and military leaders being undermined by the realities of the war, and the shifting rationales for the war, that undermined public confidence in the war. Darley doesn't word it this way, but he presents the loss of Will by the civilian leadership as being responsible for the public's loss of faith. It's worded in academic prose. But it's an ugly stab-in-the-back theory, nevertheless.
Applying that framework to Iraq, the lesson would be that if the civilian leadership in the Executive branch and the Congress just maintain their Will to keep on fighting the counterinsurgency war in Iraq, that public opinion will support it if the military can supply "bold military action" to give the public victories to cheer.
The problem is, the Army isn't fighting Soviet Army Group Central in Iraq. And they aren't fighting the conventional army of the previous regime. Those kinds of wars provide plenty of "bold military action." But in Iraq, the US is fighting a counterinsurgency war that looks to be a long one. Going in and levelling another city or two like Fallujah may provide some momentary boost in the polls. But with nearly 60% of the public already saying the war wasn't worth it, the time is already foreseeable when all the tipping points that don't tip anything, the well-publicized operations to break the back of the resistance that instead break Iraqi support for the Americans, the torture that is always discontinued by keeps popping up as an ongoing scandal, the endless stream of whitewash reports over various failures and misconduct - at some point even Congress will start to pay serious attention to the public rejection of failed policies that were based on lies about non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" from the start.
Darley's conceptual framework can provide an excuse for the officer corps to duck responsibility for the disaster that the Iraq War is. But it's not much use in understanding the factors that affect public support for a counterinsurgency war.
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