But it worked for Rome! Sort of…

Andrew J. Bacevich has a characteristically smart piece in the new Atlantic Monthly on the largely internal debate over military tactics fought between what he terms the Crusaders and the Conservatives.

It’s not a long article, so you’re best off just reading it yourself, but to sum up, the Crusaders are concerned with transforming (or completing the transformation of) the army into a vehicle for fighting counter-insurgencies around the world, replete with language experts, cultural hands, and other colonial types — you know, the sort of thing Robert Kaplan is forever nattering on about.

And the Conservatives, well, disagree, believing

that an infatuation with stability operations will lead the Army to reinvent itself as “a constabulary,” adept perhaps at nation-building but shorn of adequate capacity for conventional war-fighting.

Bacevich is ultimately (and rightly, I think) concerned with the political ramifications of this debate. As then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright memorably said to Colin Powell, “What’s the point of having this military if we’re not going to use it?” (Powell claims he almost fell out of his chair.)

And of course with a neo-colonial military, we will be compelled to use it for its given purpose.

Embedded within this argument over military matters is a more fundamental and ideologically charged argument about basic policy. By calling for an Army configured mostly to wage stability operations, [the Crusaders are] effectively affirming the Long War as the organizing principle of post-9/11 national-security strategy, with U.S. forces called upon to bring light to those dark corners of the world where terrorists flourish.

With a military reorganized according to these parameters, egged on no doubt by a stable of Washington Post editorialists, our strategic direction for the coming decades will be a fait accompli.

And underneath this idea is another one: events create their own momentum. If we as a civic body, or the leaders we elect, essentially ignore this debate, it will largely be decided for us. Strategy is meant to be set by civilian leaders. What happens when civilians, regardless of party affiliation, utterly abdicate their responsibilities?