The United States, a country born out of conflict, with a people whose founders displaced and destroyed the indigenous population. A country which for more than half its existence embraced slavery, the legacy of which still runs deep in its national politics and psyche; a country which regards the bearing of arms as a right so precious and fundamental to the meaning of itself that it has witnessed nearly half a dozen of its leaders either killed or seriously wounded by gunfire. A country so powerful that it can, if it so wishes, fight two wars on the scale of the Second World War simultaneously, and yet was brought to its knees by its inability to win the Vietnam War. A country whose politics is still in many ways defined by its own civil war, a country whose politics is awash with money and special interests. Little surprise, therefore, that the distinguished author and journalist Nick Bryant can publish a book called The Forever War – America’s Unending Conflict with Itself. This comes hard on the heels of Bryant’s previous work, When America Stopped Being Great, itself a book worth reading.
Nick Bryant made his name as a formidable BBC foreign correspondent. With a History degree from Cambridge and a doctorate in American History from Oxford, he could equally as well have built a career as a very successful academic. And it is this fusion of journalistic elan and academic rigour in his writing that makes his books so very readable. The Forever War is a splendid addition to the Bryant canon. For a long time based in the United States, both in New York and in Washington DC, Bryant brings a close understanding and familiarity with the United States and its way of being. He has now retreated to Australia, but he still ranges, knowledgeably and compellingly, across the breadth of American life.
It is tempting to compare the British parliamentary system with the United States democratic setup. Cicero once wrote that the best form of government is one where power is split three ways, that is essentially between some form of monarchy and two balancing but contrasting and partnering political powerbases, like the House of Commons and the House of Lords or the House of Representatives and the Senate. In Britain, this system has developed over a great deal of time, and is deeply embedded in the DNA of the country, so that although our processes have been tested in recent times, our system has in the end proven itself to be more robust than the political tumult that has passed through it. In the United States, where the system was established more sharply than in Britain, the system has relied on a degree of cooperation to work between the elected head of state and the two houses of Congress than its British counterpart. In recent times, that has proven more problematic for the United States’ system of democracy than it has for the British one. And although it has so far staggered on, it will be interesting to see if it is able to survive, intact, a second Trump presidency if that is what is to come to pass.
Who seriously, looking at today’s United States Supreme Court and its rulings, would want to see politically appointed judges sitting in our courts or politically aligned judges elected to their office. Political neutrality clearly serves the system in Britain better than politically orientated judges do in the US.
When leaving the office after two successful terms as President, President Eisenhower famously warned of the power and influence of the military industrial complex. He said that the power of this complex was previously unknown in the American experience. As an extraordinarily distinguished general, Eisenhower knew what he was talking about. Today that military industrial complex has grown significantly since Eisenhower’s day, and could reasonably be argued to be the fourth pillar of American institutional life. And it is notable that, unlike their British counterparts, senior military officers swear allegiance to the Constitution of the country, not to the person who is the Head of State.
In many ways, the United States has never been a country at ease with itself. It has always been one of questing and thrusting, of adventure, of buccaneering enterprise, of win or fail. That is the essence of the United States, right from its very earliest days. But the question must be that if a nation cannot settle down and find ways of living together, of finding common purpose, of sharing a national endeavour that is more than just cheering a flag, then surely a country has no actual soul at all. What Nick Bryant essentially chronicles here again is the quest for the answer to a simple question: can the United States ever find peace in its national identity, or is it forever condemned to being fundamentally unhappy and ill at ease?
The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself – the history behind Trump and JD Vance By Nick Bryant, Bloomsbury Continuum, £25.00.
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