Preserving the Nation

WAS WAR NECESSARY? National Security and U.S. Entry Into War by Melvin Small '60 Sage Publications, 1980. 304 pp. $8.95

High school and college teachers may find this paperback useful for discussion in their introductory social science courses. As the title indicates, Professor Small answers the single question of whether American wars were "necessary" for national security. He uses three criteria to assess the "legitimacy" of war. First, a nation may resort to what Small calls the "irrationality" of armed conflict if its territory is invaded. Economic preservation is a second adequate justification for fighting, although it is clear from the body of the book that little short of economic ruin excuses the sacrifice of one American life. Third, national prestige - or more accurately, national humiliation - is an element in national security that can justify war. Here Small's analysis is shaky, because psychological factors are harder to measure than land and money.

Armed with this tripartite definition of national security, Small evaluates U.S. involvement in six "major international wars": the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, the two World Wars, and Korea. Why he stops with Korea is not explained. It seems strange, for Vietnam was the only war from which the U.S. did not profit and thus would seem an ideal illustration of the book's thesis.

Small concludes that none of the American wars he analyzes was "necessary" to our national security. We could have lived nearly as well, he argues, without the war-acquired Mexican territories of California and New Mexico. Presumably our nation could also have survived without the expansion into the Mississippi Valley that resulted from the War of 1812. Certainly we did not need the bases acquired from the Spanish in 1898 that permitted the U.S. to build a two-ocean Navy and thus enormously expand foreign trade. Nor did the survival of the U.S. depend on the tremendous profits of World War I, which made us the most powerful nation in the world. Likewise, the great boost to productivity conferred upon us by World War 11, Small argues, was a luxury Americans did not require for security against attack. This assessment is undoubtedly true.

Indeed, we might have remained a parochial confederation clinging to the Atlantic slope, one whose small population enjoyed the idyllic life of farming and fishing. But had we followed Small's strict criteria, we would have remained colonies, since our "national security" was not really threatened by Great Britain, and so we were not justified in provoking the Revolution.

If we grant Small's premise, then certainly he proves his case. But how relevant is the question to the American experience? I doubt that more than a handful of Americans have ever supposed that our wars were fought for national preservation. Small's book is a confirmation of our consistent, and very successful, use of military power for national gain.

Still, if the book puts up a straw man, it does stimulate thought. Serious readers will find summaries of the background of American wars useful, and the short, though highly selective, bibliographies at the end of each chapter good guidelines for further inquiry.

A specialist in military history and author of arecent book on the Civil War, Rowena Reed isassistant professor of history.