October 12, 2004

Disparate Populations

As binky noted below, a large number of professors of international relations (fairly prominent ones, at that) have come together with a open letter opposed to Bush. This is not the first group of policy experts who have chosen to do this: diplomats & military officers, former generals and admirals, nobel laureates, pediatricians, and business school professors have all come out against Bush (list found via Obsidian Wings).

Then, I find an interesting op-ed in the WaPo that reports on a recent poll of active duty, reserve and guard members. Overwhelmingly they are voting for Bush over Kerry (almost 4 to 1). This seems very disconnected, especially in the face of the fairly massive protest against Bush that comes from the policy community (the open letters I cited above).

What divides these groups? Why this disconnect? I don't think anyone is surprised to see the military go pro-Bush, but the margins are staggering. What makes it so disconnected is the presence of strong protest against Bush coming from the policy community that mostly thinks about using the military (international relations academics, diplomats, and generals/admirals). The presence of fairly large numbers of people from those camps keeps this from being a simple "the military recognizes that Kerry's flip-flops and record will get them killed, and they support a resolute Bush" story. If that were true, we wouldn't be seeing the policy community fire off all these open letters. These policy people (I guess excepting the pediatricians), of all civilian groups, should be the ones most closely associated with the military, and should be most in tune and supportive of them, and they aren't.

One group or the other needs to change opinion, for this to be logical for me.

(P.S. - Yeah, I know open letters aren't a survey, and don't carry the same validity as the polls mentioned in the op-ed. Still, I think that if we did have a poll of those groups, the anti-Bush/pro-Kerry would beat the Pro-Bush sides in those groups. In other words, the open letters do represent a somewhat accurate take on the opinions of those populations.)

Posted by baltar at October 12, 2004 01:39 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


Comments

The first explanation that occurs to me is that the policy experts are truly conservative, and have no desire to risk the troops and resources without a very good reason. I'm surprised that you are surprised, given that a good deal has been made of the fact that those in the Bush administration with military experience were much less pro-war and those who had none. Perhaps what we are seeing is more of the fruition of the Republican party fissure that puts more "libertarian" republicans (fiscal conservatives, strong defense yet limited use of military resources, social moderates) against the social republicans. I'll bet dollars to donuts that the pro-Bush military you mention are not "libertarian" republicans. I also think we can dismiss out of hand the perspective as one of unthinking or ignorant sheep who refuse to talk bad about the CiC. That's way too simplistic a view of the boots on the ground people.

Mearsheimer is puzzling, because I don't know about his "libertarianess," but I would imagine that he is the kind of "accrue and use military power at all possible points" kind of guy, hardly conducive to a fiscally conservative state. This is why that list of experts is so striking; a guy like Mearsheimer seems like he ought to be with Bush, especially since he is very pro-power, pro-Realist conception of the world, and definitely not afraid of the costs of security. So to me, his objection has to be foreign policy specific, not just a general objection to unilateralism or big spending.

Posted by: binky at October 12, 2004 02:03 PM | PERMALINK
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