The Emergency State: America's Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs

Citation

Richardson, J. (2013), "The Emergency State: America's Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs", Foresight, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 240-242. https://doi.org/10.1108/fs-05-2012-0035

If a futurist follows carefully the rational analysis offered by historian David Unger, he or she will find a fascinating exercise in retrostrategy as well as an intriguing account of combating risk and uncertainty. Unger tells the story of how, progressively and steadily, the United States proceeded over three‐quarters of a century to overlook the canonical rule of law in its own democratic republic, violating its constitution, and bestowing on the president powers that the republic's founders did not want.

The “emergency state” came into being with the conflicting efforts of Franklin Roosevelt to avoid America's entry into the Second World War while striving by any means to help save Nazi Germany's and Japan's victims from continuing terror. The turning point came in 1940 when, to use the American sportsman's expression, the president had to “fish or cut bait” (choose between two obligations). Either the USA would come to the rescue of Britain and continental Europe or suffer mortification in its isolationist cocoon for not doing so.

Action took the form in 1940 of providing Britain 50 destroyers from Washington's “moth‐balled” (reserve) fleet, in exchange for the use of British naval bases in the Western Hemisphere under 99‐year leases. Ubger terms this a non‐congressional decision, and it could have been interpreted by Berlin and Tokyo as a bellicose move on the part of the American nation as a whole. The bases also came to be the beginnings of an American armed presence (by 2012) in nearly 80 countries. In 1941 followed the Lend‐Lease Act, meant by Congress to finance temporarily armaments and supplies purchased by Britain and the USSR. Inside the country, meanwhile, the Roosevelt administration ordered unilaterally the internment of scores of thousands of Japanese‐origin citizens.

These acts further complicated America's relations with the already Berlin‐prone Japanese military dictatorship. For their politico‐military forays into East Asia (especially China), the Japanese militarists badly needed petroleum and ferrous metals for their war industries and armed‐force clients. Roosevelt did the historically unknown to preclude Japanese access to such resources intended for the conquest of East Asian territories. Intensification of America's Pacific/Asian posture soon became an exercise in mutual menace by Japan and the USA. Such use of presidential authority, stresses Unger, was totally incompatible with the country's constitution. Roosevelt should have sought congressional validation for his decisions, which he did only for Lend‐Lease.

The permanent emergency state develops

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor transformed the American policy stance brutally: a large part of the population could no longer be evasive about “foreign entanglements”. The nation was now ensnarled, and the war went its way. Roosevelt's death at the end of the conflict brought another headstrong leader to the fore in Washington, Harry Truman. By late 1945, there was open disagreement between the western Allies and Soviet Russia, beginning with Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and the hegemony of the West implied in use of the atomic bomb. Nuclear rivalry remains a contentious diplomatic element today, despite much rational endeavor to limit weapons severely if not disarm outright.

These all‐threatening developments, Unger systematically argues, produced the framework for the evolving “permanent emergency state”, i.e. the USA today. Truman had retained the “unlimited state of national emergency” (p. 51) initiated by his predecessor; since then, subsequent chief executives have maintained, to one degree or another, similar ultra‐armed preparedness. The National Security Act of 1947 authorized creation of, among new bureaucratic structures to ensure holistic and continuing readiness, the National Security Council. One of the NSC's first acts was to formulate a policy of containment of international Marxism‐Leninism, a document known as NSC‐68. This posture continues until the present, notwithstanding the changed nature of the Russian state since 1991.

The abuse of executive initiative continued, reminds analyst Unger, taking shifting forms. John Kennedy won a breath‐stopping round with Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 in an extra‐congressional resolution of the world‐threatening Cuban missile crisis. The war in Vietnam, an exercise in futility and tragedy from the outset, was handled largely by enduring presidential fiat. In 1977, during an interview with journalist David Frost, Richard Nixon justified the Watergate incident and related actions with the remark “when the president does it that means that it is not illegal”. And the emergency state continued, spurning the productive potential of an otherwise capable, intelligent, and peaceable population.

Presidents Jimmy Carter and Obama have not fared much better. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton tolerated gross irregularities on the part of Washington officials responsible for security at home and abroad. America reached the nadir with the younger Bush, a lightweight in the ring of international relations and oblivious to the long‐term economic damage of wars of choice. Bush and the neo‐conservatives saw “war against another state as the strongest available tool in the foreign policy toolkit, even though no enemy state had sponsored the 9/11 attacks and Al Qaeda could easily survive the defeat of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein” (p. 261). And Al Qaeda did.

What can be done?

The time has come to initiate a reasoned transition to “beyond the emergency state” (p. 281). So as a coda of correction, David Unger – long associated with the editorial pages of The New York Times – proposes ten ways of reinforcing, without amending, the constitutional law of the USA.

Differentiating war and peace

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  Presidential war power should come only with a congressional declaration of war, since “wartime presidential powers alter the normal constitutional balance”.

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  Congressional members on military authorization and appropriation committees should not vote on military contracts in their districts. Otherwise the influence of Dwight Eisenhower's “military‐industrial complex” is enhanced.

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  A career military force should besupplemented by Harry Truman's universal military‐training plan. The demands made on a permanent mercenary force have proved excessive.

Righting the constitutional balance

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  The federal government should exercise no unreviewable powers. Executive authority has tended increasingly to overlook justice and individual rights.

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  Congress needs more assertiveness regarding national security and international economic issues. Congress has evaded for too long its authority over reasoning and results.

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  Heads of federal operational units should be confirmed by the Senate, their actions subject to Senate oversight. If not, Congress cannot exercise effective oversight on diplomatic, military and economic policy.

Democratic decision processes deserve the right information

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  Without compromising security‐sensitive data, declassify all information not pertinent to deciding on foreign and international economic issues. Privacy and proprietary must be protected too.

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  The nation's annual intelligence budget must, with similar limits, be published. Congress must also have access to the budget's audits, as Defense Department programs are now available.

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  The FBI needs a statutory charter, one enforceable by Congress. The “Bureau” is more than a cemtury old; it has never had its mission, functions or evaluation written into law.

Foreign‐trade agreements must not override congress

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  Commercial agreements abroad must not contravene the right of Congress to enact and enforce environmental and labor laws.

Since 1974 the executive has operated on fast‐track authority.

Conclusion

“Doctor” Unger has finely diagnosed the malady of a chronically ill patient. The remedy is the application of weighted foresight as quickly and equitably as possible.