Why War is Considered the Great Auditor of Institutions

The recent publication of thousands of classified Pentagon documents and the public debate over the release of the information is the latest example of how war infringes upon the republic principals the country was founded and why the founding members of the country warned against getting involved in foreign entanglements. The release of the formerly classified documents will add to the already extensive amount of proof political scholars who believe that the pursuit of expansionist and imperial conquest agenda favored by Alexander Hamilton, Robert Kagan, and other neoconservatives, infringe and undermine the Republic principals of American democracy and limited isolationalism advocated by James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the contemporary political scholar Paul Kennedy.

Beginning with the Iraq War, exposing the inept management of civilians back in Washington D.C such as Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials, the Af-Pak war is now auditing all the institutions that a part of the national security state apparatus.

Whether policy members who believe in the neoconservative Leo Strauss and Robert Kagan belief that projecting American power will provide the best security for America, or the notion of limited isolationalism advocated by Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, empirical evidence supports that the United States can not afford to remain on its current course for very much longer.

For the supporters of power projection and federal fiscal policy that increases military expenditures, it is important to remember that James Madison and several of the framers of the Constitution were all men who studied history and previous world powers like the Roman Empire. The framers of the Constitution were well aware of history and were determined not to repeat the tragedy of Rome, a republic that had fallen through military expansion and an army of professional soldiers following the political ambitions of their leader, rather than the government.

The framers of the Constitution were so wary of war and a powerful executive power, that they designed the Constitution to give the power to declare war and raise an Army, to the more representative and populous legislative branch, rather than the executive branch. Influenced greatly by living under a monarch, the framers of the Constitution like James Madison wrote that the history of all governments demonstrates that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it.

Although the military is the only remaining institution in American government that is looked favorably upon by the American people, the continuing pursuit of perpetual war and all the negative aspects that war brings to a society at war, is proving that even the highly respected institution of the military is now succumbing to the dangers that James Madison warned about in 1795. In the memorable quote, Madison wrote:

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes, and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many the under the domination of the few.”

Since the birth of the new nation in 1776, and the rise of a powerful executive branch that many political scholars identify as an Imperial Presidency, the United States has only formally declared war eleven times, yet she has deployed her military and used military force over a hundred times.

The political rhetoric of White House officials trying to claim that most of the documents were during the period of the Bush administration this kind of rhetoric only reinforces the power of the imperial presidency. The fact remains that the Afghanistan war, Iraq War and all the other wars the United States has embarked upon since the end of World War II have never been declared by the Congress, as required in the U.S. Constitution.

Although many Americans continue to think of their country as an exceptional country and not prone to the same demise of other world powers that have pursued an imperialistic agenda, the recent economic recession and small wars declining world empires fight for domestic gain, prove that America may not be as exceptional as many people believe.

The release of the classified documents gives evidence why war is considered the great auditor of institutions by many political scholars and historians.

The recent public debate about the release of classified documents associated to a war that six out of tem Americans do not support will soon fade from the relative few Americans who are paying attention, but the perpetual war and continual decline of the American republic will continue unabated.