ABSTRACT
In a recent book, I argued that the arguments and images most potent, historically, in convincing ordinary Americans to support proposed military interventions abroad are those based on appeals to values enshrined in the nation’s civil religion rather than to principles of realpolitik. 1 American elites have long been unwilling to admit publicly that the wars they advocate are motivated, wholly or in part, by economic interests or geopolitical ambitions. Instead, each proposed war is presented to an initially skeptical public as a holy cause justified by moral imperatives. Thus, President James K. Polk declared the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848 a war of self-defense rather than a campaign to acquire the American West. President William McKinley insisted that the seizure of the Philippines during the Spanish–American War was dictated by America’s moral responsibility to the natives, not by US interests in the China trade. According to Woodrow Wilson, America’s intervention in World War I was necessary to “make the world safe for democracy,” not to protect billions of dollars of Wall Street loans to the Allies. And, according to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of liberation having nothing to do with American interests in oil and political hegemony in the Middle East.
