ESSAY 31IN THE TRUMP ERA, BOTH
FREEDOM AND POWER AREUNDERGOING CONCEPTUALTRANSFORMATIONSon several wars, while sustaining some sixty thousand casualties. Post- 9/11
interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere have also contributed
directly or indirectly to an estimated 750,000 “other” deaths. During this
same period, attempts to export American values triggered a pronounced
backlash, especially among Muslims abroad. Clinging to Marshall’s formula
as a basis for policy has allowed the global balance of power to shift in ways
unfavorable to the United States.
At the same time, Americans no longer agree among themselves on
what freedom requires, excludes, or prohibits. When Marshall spoke at
West Point back in 1942, freedom had a fixed definition. The year before,
President Franklin Roo se velt had provided that definition when he de-
scribed “four essential human freedoms”: freedom of speech, freedom of
worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. That was it. Freedom
did not include equality or individual empowerment or
radical autonomy.
As Army chief of staff, Marshall had focused on winning
the war, not upending the social and cultural status quo
(hence his acceptance of a Jim Crow army). The immediate
objective was to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan, not to
subvert the white patriarchy, endorse sexual revolutions, or
promote diversity.
Further complicating this ever-expanding freedom
agenda is another factor just now beginning to intrude
into American politics: whether it is possible to preserve
the habits of consumption, hyper mo bi lity, and self-
indulgence that most Americans see as essential to daily
existence while simultaneously tackling the threat posed
by human-induced climate change. For Americans, free-
dom always carries with it expectations of more. It did in
1942, and it still does today. Whether more can be recon-
ciled with the preservation of the planet is a looming
question with immense implications.
When Marshall headed the U.S. Army, he was oblivious
to such concerns in ways that his latter-day successors atop
the U.S. military hierarchy cannot afford to be. National
secu rity and the well-being of the planet have become
inextricably intertwined. In 2010, Admiral Michael Mul-
len, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that
the national debt, the prime expression of American
profligacy, had become “the most significant threat to our
na tional security.” In 2017, General Paul Selva, Joint
Chiefs vice chair, stated bluntly that “the dynamics that
are happening in our climate will drive uncertainty and
will drive conflict.”
As for translating objectives into outcomes, Marshall’s
“great citizen-army” is long gone, probably for good. The
tradition of the citizen-soldier that Marshall considered the foundation of
the American military collapsed as a consequence of the Vietnam War.
Today the Pentagon relies instead on a relatively small number of overworked
regulars reinforced by paid mercenaries, aka contractors. The so-called all-
volunteer force (AVF) is volunteer only in the sense that the National
Football League is. Terminate the bonuses that the Pentagon offers to induce
high school graduates to enlist and serving soldiers to re-up, and the AVF
would vanish.
Furthermore, the tasks assigned to these soldiers go well beyond simply
forcing our adversaries to submit, which was what we asked of soldiers in World
War II. Since 9/11, those tasks include something akin to conversion: bringing
our adversaries to embrace our own conception of what freedom entails, en-
dorse liberal democracy, and respect women’s rights. Yet to judge by recent
wars in Iraq (originally styled Operation Iraqi Freedom) and Afghanistan (for
U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, 2004 (detail) © Moises Saman/Magnum Photos