Since the Vietnam War, the "casualty law" has dominated discussions of the use of U.S. military forces in regional contingencies from Central America in the 1980s to Kosovo. The law states that as soon as U.S. casualties begin to mount, the public will pressure the government to withdraw from any military intervention. In some cases, such as Nicaragua in the 1980s, the law appears to play so strongly that military intervention is ruled out as a foreign policy option.
The belief that the U.S. public has no stomach for casualties is not new. For example, during the American Revolution, the British believed that if they inflicted enough casualties on the rebels, then the 13 colonies would meekly accept their rule. On the eve of World War II, the Japanese believed that if they could inflict a devastating defeat on the United States, Washington would sue for peace. More recently, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said to U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie: "Yours is a society that cannot accept 10,000 dead in one battle." Evidently Hussein had not heard of Valley Forge, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Kasserine Pass, Anzio, Normandy, Tarawa, Okinawa, and the Chosin Reservoir.
Casualties alone do not inevitably produce widespread demand for withdrawal from interventions and war. In almost all cases, the American public initially supports the use of force when the United States intervenes militarily, even if there are casualties. One of the first U.S. ground engagements in World War II, at Kasserine Pass in North Africa, was a bloody defeat, but there was no call for capitulation. There is also a common belief that U.S. troops should be supported, regardless of the political reasons for their operations. Therefore, when U.S. troops go in harm's way, most citizens—if not all members of Congress—give the administration the benefit of the doubt.
It is obvious that the U.S. public opposes losing lives when they are unrelated to any foreign policy goal. The public will not accept casualties when military force fails to achieve foreign policy goals or when administration presents those goals as not being worthy of U.S. lives. Some administrations, however, undermine the very support they attempt to build. President Ronald Reagan argued that U.S. troops were needed to calm a war in Lebanon. In Somalia, President George Bush justified military intervention by focusing on human rights, domestic turmoil, and starvation. The public initially supported these laudable goals. But by arguing that the crises would be brief and low cost, Reagan and Bush committed crucial errors in their attempts to maintain public support. If a foreign policy crisis is important enough to commit U.S. troops, it should be important enough to risk the possibility of a long-term, costly engagement. If it is not, why intervene? Administrations should acknowledge that if a crisis is crucial enough to use military force, the foreign policy goals involved must be important enough to risk, and in some cases lose, lives.
The Clinton administration committed the same error by stating that U.S. troops will not fight the Yugoslav Army on the ground. It is true that U.S. pilots were put at risk, but the emphasis was on keeping the risk of casualties low. The public was assured that air power alone would be able to resolve the issue. This sends the signal that Kosovo was not worth U.S. lives. If the administration will not risk troops, how important can Kosovo be to the national interests?
The focus of a military intervention should be on foreign policy goals. Yet that focus shifts when the emphasis of politicians, the military, and the media is on limiting casualties to zero. When Captain Scott O'Grady's Air Force F-16 went down over Bosnia in 1995, the government and military made it appear that rescuing O'Grady had become the primary goal of the intervention. Pilots must be rescued if at all possible. The focus on a single pilot, however, reinforced the belief that the intervention is not worth risking casualties. The same thing happened in Kosovo when the Serbs captured three American soldiers and the U.S. focus shifted almost entirely to the captured men. By shifting the focus of an operation to a single pilot or three soldiers, the administration minimizes the importance of foreign policy goals involved in the operation.
The public is not stupid. When costs rise, as they did in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia, and the stated goals seem distant, public support wanes. In one sense, causalities bear directly on measures of success. If heavy casualties are taken, then the intervention should be much closer to achieving its goals or the casualties appear to be pointless. For example, when the public concluded that additional force would not succeed in Vietnam, support quickly ebbed.
With a history of many bloody battles behind them, the American people will, as John F. Kennedy said, "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship" as long as the foreign policy goal is clear and important, and if the public believes that the military can attain that goal. The U.S. public will not support the costly use of military force in a foreign crisis that politicians portray as not worth risking the lives of the men and women of our armed forces.
And why should they?
Dr. Macdonald has a masters degree in journalism focusing on military-press relations. He also holds a doctorate in international relations from the University of Southern California, with an emphasis on security studies.