During the years 1990-2000, I presented papers at scholarly conferences to audiences in nearly every academic discipline that I thought might be receptive to my ideas: political psychologists, anthropologists, psychoanalysts, sociologists, historians, and specialists in Holocaust Studies. Although the decade was not without political violence, warfare was unpopular. It seemed that we had reached The End of History (Fukuyama, 1992). And that John Lennon’s dream (1971) was coming true: “Nothing to kill or die for.”

What’s more, the study of warfare (and military history) was not in vogue among academics.

Nevertheless, my mandate was clear. I sought to “wrap up the 20th century” by providing insight into the causes and meanings of the episodes of massive political violence that had dominated the century.

After September 11, 2001, the world experienced a “return of the repressed.” Suddenly, political violence was again on the map. Bob Hall—owner of Learning to Live with Conflict—encouraged me to go beyond my research on the First World War, Nazism, and the Holocaust: to apply my understanding of the dynamics of societal violence to contemporary conflicts (the flyer on the right describes one of the lectures I presented).

American Aversion to Casualties

On January 20, 1964, John F. Kennedy declared: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Kennedy spoke in the traditional language of “national sacrifice.” After JFK, however—and up until 9/11—politicians rarely asked Americans to embrace sacrifice.

Subsequent to Vietnam, Americans became disenchanted with warfare and with the idea of dying for a cause. The televised return of body bags brought home the reality of what occurs in battle. America began to abandon romantic—romanticized— conceptions of warfare.

The United States became a nation focused on personal gratification and material gain. Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism (1979) identified and analyzed this trend. In 1985, Tina Turner belted out the anthem of a generation: “We don’t need another hero.”

In his paper, “Army Professionalism, the Military Ethic, and Officership in the 21st Century” (December, 1999), Army colonel and professor at West Point, Dr. Don. M. Snider, wrote about the military policy of “casualty aversion.” Snider tells the story of a combat-arms officer lecturing to cadets at West Point (January 25, 1999) about his service in Bosnia: “I tell my men every day that there is nothing there [in Bosnia] worth one of them dying for.” Queried by a cadet as to why he had communicated this to his men, the lieutenant responded, “Because minimizing, really prohibiting casualties is the top priority mission I have been given by my battalion commander.”

Military policy echoed the feelings of the general public. The life of each and every soldier was considered precious. Americans seemed to be unwilling to send troops into battle—even for a good cause—if there was a slight possibility that a soldier might be killed.

In September 1994, Senator John Glenn stated that the case for intervention in Haiti could not pass the “Dover test”: the return of dead bodies from Haiti to the air force base at Dover, Delaware. Dick Cheney, appearing on Meet the Press, agreed that Haiti was “not worth American lives.”

In his October 1994 article in Newsweek Magazine—while the invasion of Haiti was being considered—Jacob Weisberg noted that only about 400 US Soldiers had been killed in action in the 20 years since the end of the Vietnam War. This meant that serving in the armed forces was a relatively safe job. Driving a truck was three times riskier than being in the military; driving a taxi six times riskier.

Writing in The New York Times on July 16, 1995, Roger Cohen suggested that unwillingness to intervene in Bosnia spelled the “death of Western honor.” Eric Gans noted on June 26, 1999, that the model of heroism constituted by the sacrifice of the individual life for the sake of the collective was “rapidly losing its viability.”

Mogadishu

Political observers trace the American policy of casualty aversion to what occurred in Mogadishu in October 1993—when the US withdrew from Somalia after 19 Americans were killed in battle. Fear of a repeat of the events in Somalia shaped American foreign policy in subsequent years. Many commentators identified the “graphic consequence of the Battle of Mogadishu as the key reason behind the US’s failure to intervene in later conflicts such as the Rwandan genocide” (see Wikipedia on “The Battle of Mogadishu”).

What occurred in Mogadishu played a significant role in the thinking and rhetoric of Bin Laden. Writing about this event in his “Declaration of War Against the Americans” (August, 1996), Bin Laden taunted Defense Secretary William Perry, calling Somalia “the US’s most disgraceful case.”

“After vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA,” Bin Laden wrote, a pilot was dragged through the street—and the US left the area “carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you.” President Clinton’s threats had been merely a “preparation for withdrawal.”

“We love death the way you Americans love life.”

Prior to the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein expressed similar doubts about American courage and resolve (see Mark Bowden’s article in The Atlantic Monthly, May 2002). Hussein proposed to his generals—several weeks before the American offensive—that Iraq would capture US soldiers, tie them to tanks, and use the soldiers as human shields.

“The Americans will never fire on their own soldiers,” Hussein claimed triumphantly—as if such squeamishness were a fatal flaw. There would be many casualties on both sides. However, Hussein explained, “Only we are willing to accept casualties—Americans are not.” Hussein concluded: “The American people are weak. They will not accept the loss of their soldiers.” Both Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein equated national “weakness” with the unwillingness to accept casualties—to sacrifice one’s own soldiers. Hussein felt that the Iraqi people were superior: they were willing to die for their country, whereas Americans were not.

In his 1996 declaration, Bin Laden addressed Defense Secretary William Perry, expressing pride in his followers: “Our youths love death as you love life.” His young people, Bin Laden explained, were different from American soldiers. Whereas the American problem would be convincing troops to fight, Bin Laden’s problem would be how to “restrain our youths to wait for their turn in fighting.”

Both Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden felt that their culture and people were superior to the culture and people of the US. They measured this superiority in simple terms. Whereas their followers were willing to die—sacrifice their lives—for a cause, young Americans were not so willing. Americans were weak and inferior because they did not possess a sacred ideal for which they would sacrifice their lives.

Would Americans retreat when dead soldiers returned in body bags?

The US attacked Afghanistan in October 7, 2001. Now, a question arose: given the policy of casualty aversion that had dominated American foreign policy for so many years, what would happen when American soldiers began to die? Would the United States retreat? Would Americans turn against war once dead soldiers began returning in body bags?