Reviewed by Jay Lehr
Angelo Codevilla is a serious scholar of history, emeritus from Boston University and affiliated with the Hoover and Claremont Institutes. He recently headlined The Heartland Institute's annual banquet. His new book will prove to any reader as the most succinct and penetrating summary of the most famous wars in history and every war in which the United States has participated. His insights and perspectives place you almost in real time as an on sight observer of the individuals and events that drive each war for better or worse. While in the end Codevilla points to the failures which have lead to the lack of peace, it is not a book about peace but rather about war and the "ruling classes" that have kept our nation and others from achieving peace, more by design than ineptitude.
At the outset he tells us that America has been big enough and powerful enough to establish an agenda leading toward peace, but in the past century our ruling classes have invested too much in interfering with problems around the globe, and their own selfish interests. But his review of all our wars indicate it has never been much different, after all it is neither their money nor their blood. Yet it was clear from the Federalist papers he references of Hamilton, Madison and Jay, that their focus was on winning the peace. John Quincy Adams as perhaps no other president, the author tells us, dedicated his decades in politics to achieving the mandate of the Declaration of Independence. He had three rules, first, assert America's identity and interests, second, prevent troublesome forces from getting among us or even near us, and third, "what is nearest is dearest"'
As early as 1836 he warned Southerners to treasure peace because, should their states become theaters of war, the law of war would invest the belligerents with the power to end slavery.
While he credits Lincoln for wanting peace, though perhaps at too great a cost, he explains how the moral and economic conflict over slavery divided Americans into two nations, both of which lost contact with the founders priorities.
He describes all the conflicts of the twentieth century where foreign policy no longer was disguised as efforts to achieve a just peace. He feels however that communism began to flourish as it pretended that equality would eliminate conflict.
Codevilla draws from a deep understanding of Ancient Greece , Roman and Persian history as well as the French Revolution to draw parallels for our modern miscalculations which have brought disaster from every aggressive interference, or passivity before foreign threats and a near complete lack of concern for the populations they controlled. He focuses many pages on the role Christianity played through the ages and how modern leaders failed to see the impact of the rise of Islam.
He says the "Devine Right of kings, is only one of the many rationales for subordinating the peoples's natural interest in peace to the 'raisin d'etat' of self aggrandizing governments." He makes it clear that the framers of our constitution were convinced that the executive branch is likelier to choose war over peace, because war enhances its powers which "often serves narrow interests close to it."
Few before or since George Washington ever adhered to the goals stipulated in our constitution and Codevilla proves to the reader that he was one man whose greatness could never be exaggerated. On the other hand the world renowned Theodore Roosevelt became the most powerful advocate for "aggrandizement abroad".
By 1905 imperialism was a dead issue: Codevilla says "ardent anti-imperialists agree that the Panama Canal Zone was an extension of the U.S. coastline, and that Hawaii and Puerto Rico were out works for continental defense." The advocates of empire succeeded in branding their opponents as 'isolationists' who stood in the way of America's greatness. He was not kind to Roosevelt though far less so to Woodrow Wilson and his party years later when he says peace had come to mean "a pacifism as mindless as it was frenetic and provocative". But the outcome of World War I convinced most Americans that they had been misled into a meaningless loss of life and that "statecraft" means war and thus that peace means not even contemplating the use of military force. This changed ever so slowly under the rule of FDR. So many believe that he got us into both the war with Germany and Japan, but Codevilla documents how very hard he worked to avoid this for more than four years before it became no longer possible.
Perhaps the reader will most appreciate his analysis of current history including, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and ISIS. Familiarity with the immediate past and present will not reduce your appreciation of his illuminating inside track of these events and the vast sums of money and human life wasted upon them. But peace has long since ceased to be the objective of American statesmanship, and the public has become accustomed to fruitless, endless military commitments made on the authority of its inept leaders who ignore the need to strengthen their own civilization. Along the way the author offers scathing criticism of Homeland Security. He says "The attempt to establish security without identifying, much less eliminating, those responsible for insecurity has transformed American life."
This is truly an eye opening book pulling no punches over the fix we find ourselves in, but Codevilla leaves the reader with a call to action.
"America needs a new generation of statesmen who regard minding America's business - acting as American people's fiduciary agent minding America's peace and winning America's wars......as a calling that absorbs the highest human talent and confers the highest honors."
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