Challenges in an ‘Imperiled World’

Review by Bill Doughty––

Robert Kagan makes a case for a stronger military –– ready and able to engage if necessary –– in “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018).

And he calls for cooperation, diplomacy, and (what seems impossible today) uniting instead of dividing ourselves and our Allies.

While the United States Navy has kept the seas open and safe for global trade since the end of World War II, other nations have grown richer and more powerful and now threaten a world order of peace and prosperity, according to Kagan.

“With its security essentially safeguarded by the United States, with Chinese trade flowing freely on waterways kept open by the U.S. Navy, in a world of great-power peace preserved by American power and the liberal order, China could spend only a small percentage of its growing GDP on defense while pursuing Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy of ‘keeping a low profile and biding time.’ … As China has grown richer, more powerful, and more secure, Chinese leaders and the Chinese people have returned to old visions of hegemony.”

Then there’s Russia. Kagan writes, "In the American-led liberal order, Russia has fallen from superpower status, but China has risen toward it.”

He says China has an emperor again; Russia has a Stalin-lite dictator; and Hungary, Turkey, and Brazil have all grown tall autocratic weeds in their gardens.

HMCS Regina (FFH 334), JS Ashigara (DDG 178) and HMAS Arunta (FFH 151) during RIMPAC 2020.

There is “No risk of the United States or Japan attacking China, but resentment that democratic countries that believe in the liberal order –– and rule of law –– will prevent China from achieving its goals of unification (Taiwan), control of the South China Sea, and status as a global leader, as an alternative to the liberal democratic model.”

Kagan says it may be the natural ebb and flow of history that does not necessarily move away from conflict.

The ebb and flow can include good uses of power such as World War II and the liberation of Kuwait and tragedies such as the second Iraq War and, of course, Vietnam. “The Iraq War resembled the Vietnam War in many ways.”

The Second World War was a righteous cause for democracy, but that doesn’t mean it was perceived that way at first.

America did not act immediately in the face of naked revanchism in Europe and Asia. American anti-interventionists argued against going to war with Germany or Japan…

“What if the United States did go to war, they asked, sent its armies across the ocean, landed its forces on a fortified continent against Hitler’s battle-tested armies, and at some unimaginable cost managed to win? What then? Wouldn’t the U.S. Navy have to ‘establish ‘freedom of the seas’…on all the oceans?’ Would not policing the world after the war entail the endless expense of American ‘blood and treasure,’ not to mention a kind of ‘unadulterated imperialism’ and ‘world domination’? Faced with these objections –– which, it turned out, were not far off the mark in predicting America’s postwar role –– Roosevelt never fully succeeded in convincing Americans.”

…until the attack on Pearl Harbor and Oahu. “After Pearl Harbor, Americans looked at the world differently,” Kagan writes.

But, he contends, “The past seven-plus decades of relatively free trade, growing respect for individual rights, and relatively peaceful cooperation among nations –– the core elements of the liberal order –– have been a great historical aberration.”

Americans are tired of overseas interventions and may be willing to appease other nations’ aggressions. After all, Kagan notes, the only reaction by the Obama administration to Putin’s invasion of Crimea was sanctions.

Kagan makes the case that appeasement is not an effective strategy, whether with Imperial Japan in Manchuria or Hitler in Poland…

“The peace established after World War II and which endures almost seventy-five years later was not based on accommodating Japanese and German anxieties, even though those nations suffered infinitely greater horrors at the hands of the Allies than anything Russians suffered at the end of the Cold War.”

… or, in modern history, Putin and Georgia and Ukraine/Crimea.

Ships and submarines from the Republic of Singapore Navy and U.S. Navy gather in formation in the South China Sea during the underway phase of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Singapore 2015 with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the armed forces of nine partner nations. (MC2 Joe Bishop)

Kagan predicts continued “challenges on the Korean Peninsula, in the South China Sea, in the Middle East, and along the fault lines between Russia and NATO.” War is not inevitable, but fear of war is rational. Armageddon is possible, he says, in a world where nuclear weapons do not guarantee world peace, and where autocracy, tyranny, and nationalism are on the rise.”

“We wanted to believe that history was taking us away from wars, tyranny, and destruction in the first half of the twentieth century,” he writes, “but history and human nature may be taking us back toward them, absent any monumental effort on our part to prevent such regression.” Aggression could be built in to the way we evolved as a species, but so is altruism and cooperation.

Kagan’s prescription: support democracies, not dictators; return to a deep engagement with Europe/NATO; reengage in international trade agreements, and fund the military. “Americans need to remember that deterring a war is much less expensive than fighting one.” Great diplomacy must be backed up by hard power when necessary, he says.

Noxious weeds and vines always threaten to overwhelm the garden, even the garden at home, according to Kagan. Invasive kudzu is fertilized by an underground sludge of fear, hate, and ignorance –– a “subterranean stream.”

“These attacks on the Enlightenment universalism on which the country was founded should not be dismissed as cranky aberrations. The United States also has its ‘subterranean stream’ running through its history from the slaveholding South to the Know-Nothings to the white supremacists of the Jim Crow era and the revival of the Klan of the 1920s to the alt-right of today. Although we prefer to forget or downplay the whole boiling cauldron of angers and hatreds and resentments which have been such a big part of our history, the jungle grows in America, too.”

Amazingly, this was written two years before the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Trump supporters attack police at the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021 (NPR).

A window of the Capitol after Jan. 6, 2021

A modern America First identity movement –– based on white Christian nationalism and against multiculturalism –– mirrors rising autocratic sentiments against immigrants elsewhere in the world. According to Kagan, “Such views are widespread among the nationalist populist movements in Europe, and both Trump and his one-time top advisor, Steve Bannon, have consistently supported and made common cause with those abroad who share this anxiety for the preservation of white Christian culture against dark-skinned, non-Christian immigrants.”

Kagan concludes, “To sustain a foreign policy of enlightened self-interest requires enlightenment, a degree of generosity, a belief in the universalism of rights, and, yes, a measure of cosmopolitanism.”

Sustaining constitutional democracies, rule of order, and national/global cooperation requires vigilance and commitment.

“World order is one of those things people don’t think about until it is gone. The experience of the 1930s and World War II taught Americans that. They learned, and we have now forgotten, that when things go wrong, they can go very wrong very quickly, that once a world order breaks down, the worst qualities of humanity emerge from under the rocks and run wild.”

After World War II, the world changed. With the United States leading, Japan and West Germany became democracies. Other nations gravitated away from autocracy and toward democracy. “None of his would have been possible, however, if Europeans had not fundamentally trusted the Americans,” Kagan says. “They did not fear American aggression.” 

It’s up to all Americans to unite, not divide, build trust –– and pull the damn weeds.

(I tracked down and read this book after reading Kagan’s recent OpEd in the Washington Post, "Our Constitutional Crisis Is Already Here," which starts: “The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three or four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves.”)

Top photo: U.S. Marines with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division (MARDIV), Marine Forces Reserve and Republic of Korea (ROK) Marines with 5th Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st ROK MARDIV exchange tactics and standard operating procedures for room clearing and patrolling during the Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) portion of Korean Marine Exchange Program 15-8 in Pohang, South Korea as a part of Peninsula Express 15, July 3rd, 2015. Peninsula Express is one in a series of regularly-scheduled combined, small-unit, tactical training exercises that demonstrates continued dedication to the ROK-U.S. relationship, contributing to the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula and Asia-Pacific region. (Sgt. Justin A. Bopp)

The Will of an ‘Unruly Torrent’

Review by Bill Doughty––

Venerable thinker George Will unleashes a storm of opinions in “American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020" (Hachette Books, 2021), proving he is still sharp in his observations while cemented in his positions of right and wrong.

This is a book of nearly two hundred essays about everything from military history and life-and-death issues to Will’s thoughts about the Beach Boys, Baptists, baseball, and blue jeans. (Regarding the latter, he claims to have only one pair, worn only once. He believes men should dress like Fred Astaire, women like Grace Kelly.)

While Will shares some acerbic humor, mostly he offers a ribbon of melancholy that ties these essays together. So many in this collection are devoted to past wars and their aftermath. Others lament culture wars still happening. And a final section, “Farewells, Mostly Fond,” features obituaries, including to fellow conservatives William F. Buckley, Charles Krauthammer, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush, as well as, surprisingly, liberal-of-liberals George McGovern.

The most poignant remembrance is the final essay in the book, written July 6, 2008. Will honors the memory of Army Lieutenant Colonel Jim Walton, killed in Afghanistan. The essay is also a tribute to casualty assistance calls officers, CACOs, including LtCol Walton’s spouse, Sarah, herself a CACO who had to receive the terrible news of her husband’s death.

An epigraph by CACO Maj. Steve Beck, United States Marine Corps, at the beginning of the Walton essay contains a “found haiku”:

...curtains pull away.

They come to the door. And they

know. They always know

George Will concludes his Walton essay –– and his book –– with this:

“When the Army CACOs came to the Arlington door or Sara Walton, my assistant, she was not there. She rarely forgot the rule that a spouse of a soldier in a combat zone is supposed to inform the Army when he or she will be away from home. This time Sarah forgot, so it took the Army awhile to locate her at her parents’ home in Richmond.

“Her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Walton, West Point Class of 1989, was killed in Afghanistan on June 21. This week he will be back in Arlington, among the remains of the more than 300,000 men and women who rest in the more than 600 acres where it is always Memorial Day. This is written in homage to him, and to Sarah, full sharer of his sacrifices.”*

George Will

Sacrifice on behalf of the nation is tied to the ribbon of sadness in the nearly 500 pages of this collection.

Will writes in “A Nation Not Made by Flimsy People” of the grit required to win the Revolutionary War. Readers will be reminded of the great historian David McCullough’s “1776,” one of the first books we featured on Navy Reads.

In “The Somme: The Hinge of World War I, and Hence of Modern History” he contextualizes the “reverberations” of that war. The First World War influences Will’s thinking and inspiration for topics, including in the penultimate essay, “The Last Doughboy.”

In “Haunted by Hue” and “Vietnam: Squandered Valor” he properly acknowledges the sacrifices of brave young Americans, while castigating the mendacity of the power structure that sent them to a war that was ultimately a “tragedy,” including for the people of Vietnam.

Color guard of 442nd in 1944

In “The 442nd,” written in 2010, he pays tribute to the most decorated unit for its size in American history, the Japanese-American soldiers who fought against Fascism and Nazism in Europe in WWII while many of their families were imprisoned in internment camps back in the States. George Will met some of these patriotic veterans.

“Such cheerful men, who helped to lop 988 years off the Thousand Year Reich, are serene reproaches to a nation now simmering with grievance groups that nurse their cherished resentments. The culture of complaint gets no nourishment from men like these who served their country so well while it was treating their families so ignobly. Yet it is a high tribute to this country that it is so loved by men such as these.”

Will has no time for political correctness and what’s now called “cancel culture.” He takes on some of the debates about political and social topics dominating college campuses. On the other hand, he also has no tolerance for racism, terrorism in the name of religion, and attacks on democracy.

He shows how the values of Frederick Douglass won out over Woodrow Wilson's bigotry. But he has little compassion or understanding for renaming professional sports teams such as the former Washington Redskins or for “coercing” bakers who refuse, for religious reasons, to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding. 

He celebrates books and “binge reading” while condemning new technologies and platforms that rewire the brains of young people, shorten attention spans and erode the ability to think critically and independently.

To say George Will is sometimes like the grouchy old man yelling at youngsters to get off his lawn is to state the obvious. But he cares about what he believes in, and he communicates with passion and conviction. His ribbon leads through a pursuit of happiness that ends ultimately to a reward for readers.

*(Lost at first reading is George Will’s epigraph to the entire book: “For Sarah Walton –– To whom I am indebted for her many years of indispensable assistance. And to whom the nation is indebted.”)

Grieving and Honoring

Colin Powell

I finished this book as I heard the news of an icon of conservative leadership passed away: former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell. Flags fly at half staff for the great principled patriot and warrior-diplomat. But General Powell would want us to pay tribute to the person he most looked up to and respected in his life, his wife Alma. Powell told author Bob Woodward that Alma was his moral compass and inspiration.

Alma Powell is sponsor of USS Kearsarge (LHD-3). She is also the namesake of Kearsarge's airfield. 

According to the Navy, "Throughout her life of civic leadership [Alma] Powell has helped young people in need of educational resources for more than four decades. While serving as Chair of the Board of Directors for America’s Promise Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the education opportunities of disadvantaged children, Ms. Powell helped to lead more than 450 partner network’s efforts to help tens of thousands of young people by connecting them with resources essential for academic success."

Capt. Neil Koprowski, commanding officer of the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), delivers remarks during an airfield dedication ceremony in honor of Alma J. Powell, May 28, 2021. Alma Powell, Kearsarge’s ship sponsor, is a military spouse, a civic leader and civil rights activist who has advocated for women, children, and minorities for more than four decades, and has helped tens of thousands of disadvantaged people around the world. (MCSN Gwyneth Vandevender)

TOP PHOTO:Gen. Colin L. Powell speaks at the 26th National Memorial Day Concert on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., May 24, 2015.to help unite the country in remembrance and appreciation of the fallen and to serve those who are grieving. (MC1 Daniel Hinton)

Filling in Gaps in ‘How the Word Is Passed’

Review by Bill Doughty––

At the beginning of “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America” (Hachette Book Group, 2021) author Clint Smith introduces us to Navy veteran David Thorson.

Thorson serves as a tour guide and teacher at Thomas Jefferson’s plantation home outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Smith learns that “prior to becoming a tour guide at Monticello, David served for more than thirty years in the U.S. Navy.”

Monticello

David Thorson’s “peach face, reddened from all the hours spent standing in the sun, was clean-shaven … He spoke with a calm evenhandedness that invited people into discussion, like a professor.”

According to Smith, Thorson became a docent and tour guide at Monticello after retiring from the Navy because of his love of history and interest in Thomas Jefferson.

While giving a tour focusing on Jefferson’s relationship to slavery, Thorson addresses the visitors:

“Slavery’s an institution. In Jefferson’s lifetime it becomes a system. So what is this slave system? It is a system of exploitation, a system of inequality and exclusion, a system where people are owned as property and held down by physical and psychological force, a system being justified even by people who know slavery is morally wrong. By doing what? Denying the very humanity of those who are enslaved solely on the basis of the color of their skin.”

Smith recounts, “In just a few sentences, David had captured the essence of chattel slavery in a way that few of my own teachers ever had.”

During the tour Smith notices how Thorson chooses to refer to the enslaved black people as “human beings” rather than “slaves.” Smith writes, “What reverberated throughout was the humanity of the enslaved people –– their unceasing desire to live a full life, one that would not be defined simply by their forced labor.”

Frederick Douglass

For his part in “How the Word Is Passed,” Smith brings in luminaries from history such as Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois, as well as respected historians Eric Foner, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Kenneth M. Stampp, to fill in some of the gaps of enslaved people’s lives. Smith presents information to settle debates about the impact of slavery on African Americans, from the founding of the nation through the Civil War and Emancipation and even through the era of Jim Crow, when many whites in southern states still longed for the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

When it comes to debates about critical race theory or Big Lie / Lost Cause –– and even anti-vaccination stances –– it’s important to not only present facts and tell the truth but also be understanding and empathetic in how you talk to people. According to Smith:

“David sees it as essential that a guide be able to find the balance of telling the truth and not pushing people so much that they shut down. He told me that when you challenge people, specifically white people’s conception of Jefferson, you’re in fact challenging their conception of themselves. ‘I’ve come to realize that there’s a difference between history and nostalgia, and somewhere between those two is memory,’ he said. ‘I think that history is the story of the past, using all the available facts, and that nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts, and somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion … I mean, history is kind of about what you need to know … but nostalgia is what you want to hear.'”

“What would it take –– what does it take –– to confront a false history even if it means shattering the stories you have been told throughout your life?” Smith asks. “Even if it means having to fundamentally reexamine who you are and who your family has been?”

Smith says the search for truth is worth the pain. “Just because something is difficult to accept doesn’t mean you should refuse to accept it. Just because someone tells you a story doesn’t make that story true.”

In the 1930s and 40s, black men dressed as slaves conducted tours of Monticello, so hearing about David Thorson is evidence of progress, but Smith is careful about too much celebrating about that progress.

“When I think about the history of slavery and racism in this country, I think about how quick we are to expose notions of progress without accounting for its uncertain and serpentine path,” Smith says, reflecting on a visit with his grandparents to the National African American History and Culture Museum. 

In this thought-provoking book Clint Smith travels from Monticello to the Smithsonian’s NAAHCM in Washington, D.C. And he also visits the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana; Angola Prison in Louisiana; Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia; Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia; Galveston Island, Texas; Wall Street and Ellis Island, New York City; and Gorée Island, Dakar, Senegal, Africa.

His journey backtracks the route black Africans took as chattel slaves brought to the colonies in the Americas to create and maintain an economy based largely on cotton, tobacco, and sugar.

Smith’s goal on his trip is to fill in the blanks of history and gaps that separate people. He fills in those blanks and gaps with information, truth, and understanding.

With a journalist’s ear and poet’s eye, he takes readers to uncomfortable places and truths.

• We confront the fact that Thomas Jefferson kept hundreds of humans enslaved; he also separated families, removing children even under the age of ten from their mothers and fathers.
• We go to the Whitney Plantation, site of a slave revolt in 1811 on the heels of the Haitian Revolution of 1803; at Whitney, whites decapitated 55 slaves and displayed their heads on posts.
• We ride to Galveston, Texas, considered by some as the site of the end of slavery and beginning of celebrations now known as Juneteenth.
• We take a behind-the-scenes tour of Angola, where Smith reveals how mass incarcerations have roots in slavery.
• We get a comparison of the now-removed Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond with the Statue of Liberty, designed by a French abolitionist –– and we’re reminded that Lady Liberty stands on broken chains as she stands for truth, justice, and democracy.
• Finally, Clint invites readers with him for an emotional return to Africa as he examines remnants of colonialism and the role of history in accurately reflecting what was once a “system of plunder,” slavery and colonial rule, where “white sugar [and white cotton] means black misery.”

The Statue of Liberty stands for freedom from slavery and the promises of July 4, 1776. (NPS)

Clint Smith

Along Smith’s remarkable journey, he introduces us to individuals who earned their right to provide perspective and context, people like Angola’s Norris Henderson, NYC’s Damara Obi, Dakar’s Hasan Kane, Smith’s grandparents, and Monticello’s David Thorson.

Near the end of his visit to Jefferson’s plantation, Smith seeks out Thorson to get more insight and fill in more gaps.

Smith is intrigued by Thorson’s wisdom about the reality of human imperfection and Thorson’s view on “an idea worth fighting for.”

Smith writes:

“Before I left, I wanted to understand how much David’s role as a former military officer –– responsible for protecting and promoting this country’s foreign policy agenda at home and abroad –– was something that felt, if at all, in tension with his role now. ’I was born in the United States of America. I served the country for thirty years, so I actually believe in the idea of America,’ he said, straightening up in his chair. ‘Are we exceptional? No. Have we had unique advantages based on geography, based on a whole host of factors? Yes. Did a group of people come together in 1776 and conceive of an idea that was pretty radical in its time and then create a system of government, through the Constitution and its amendments, that was pretty radical and pretty novel? Yeah. Have other countries found their own way? Sure. So I believe in the idea of America. I don’t believe that this country was perfect. I don’t believe it is perfect. I don’t believe it’s going to be perfect. I believe that the journey to make this a better place is worth the effort and that the United States, if you conceive it not so much as a place to be in but an idea to believe in, it is worth fighting for.'”

Democracy is safe when it’s protected. Truth, honest reflection, and the pursuit of justice must be at the heart of “how the word is passed.”

President Barack Obama and President François Hollande of France tour Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville, Va., with Leslie Bowman, President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Feb. 10, 2014 (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

WHY Constitution Gets Your Vote

Review by Bill Doughty

There’s a key reason Sailors, Marines and other uniformed guardians of democracy pledge they “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic … [and] will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”

The Constitution provides a blueprint for balance of power, but it must be respected, supported, and defended. And, according to law professor Kim Wehle, author of “How to Read the Constitution and WHY” (HarperCollins, 2019), we must have accountability when the Constitution is violated in order for government to be effective and to prevent the rise of autocracy.

“Let’s be clear about one thing, for starters: The Constitution is not a bulwark,” Wehle writes. “By this I mean it does not erect an impenetrable wall around the citizens of the United States to defend them against tyranny and abuses. It is porous. It needs shoring up from time to time.” The ultimate accountability: people’s votes.

Wehle

Professor Wehle is a former associate independent counsel under Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater investigation of Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the early 1990s, leading to the Monica Lewinsky investigation and impeachment of President Bill Clinton.  

Wehle writes, “This is a book about the Constitution. If you’re looking for something to confirm your side of things politically, you might be wasting your time.” Instead of a political rant, Wehle teaches about the history, philosophy, and structure of the document and how it has been amended and interpreted over time.

Think about how the Constitution has evolved. When first written in 1789, the Constitution, for the most part, was for wealthy white men. Most African Americans were owned by other Americans, including some of the framers. And women would not be allowed to vote till 1920.

The United States Constitution was put on public display for the first time Sept. 17, 1970. (National Archives)

It took amendments to the Constitution and action as permitted by the Constitution to bring about progress for people: laws and acts passed by Congress and the states; orders and actions initiated by the Executive, including the president; and judgments and rulings passed by courts, including the Supreme Court.

Wehle not only outlines how the Constitution is constructed, but she also explains how it can be interpreted. Words can have more than one meaning, and she argues that’s part of the built in flexibility in the nation’s founding document.

“Strange as it sounds, reading the Constitution is a lot like reading poetry. Why? Because poetry requires careful focus on individual words as well as analyses of competing meanings.” Wehle says, “There is no such thing as a plain reading of the Constitution.

What is “necessary,” “essential,” “useful,” or “general welfare”? What about the meaning of these verbs: “prohibit,” “abridge,” or “respecting,” which Wehle says is “the broadest verb of all.” Even how commas are used can punctuate controversy over meaning; just read the Second Amendment and consider the commas and their relation to “a well regulated Militia.”

Sailors assigned to USS Constitution march(SN Michael Achterling)

Military readers will find interesting discussions about the right to wage war, lines of enforcement and chain of command, rights of women, and rights for battlefield chaplains. 

For example:

Tension between Article I granting Congress the power to declare war and Article II naming the president the commander in chief of the armed forces. Wehle compares the example of “the bombing of Pearl Harbor to authorize America’s entry into World War II” with Congress’s “ongoing funding for the armed forces, thereby leaving the president free to ‘execute’ that declaration…”

Discussion about the War Powers Resolution passed in 1973 after the Vietnam War. “The president may introduce armed forces only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) a specific statute, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States.”

How departments and federal agencies within the executive branch (including the Department of Defense) interact with each other and other branches –– legislative and judicial. Wehle discusses interrelated but distant lines of enforcement responsibility meant to create a balance-of-power safety net but which sometimes acts as a sticky web that bogs down action.

“The so-called war on terror under President George W. Bush,” when his administration drafted a set of “torture memos” and “authority to torture or to spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.”

The unconstitutionality of excluding women from military academies. In 1996 the Supreme Court “reasoned that the male-only policy at the Virginia Military Institute was based on gender stereotypes.”

Underlying tensions within the First Amendment, providing that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Wehle writes, “If the government makes a law to facilitate the free exercise of religion –– by providing religious ministers to soldiers during battle, for example –– it could be criticized for ‘establishing’ religion. If it refuses to do so on First Amendment Establishment Clause grounds, it could face ‘free exercise’ challenges from soldiers stuck on foreign soil without access to ministers due to government’s decision to deploy them.”

No monarchs, dictators, or military rule –– not only federally but within any of the states. Such a system is unconstitutional; “Elections are the only way of doing business” both at the federal and state level.

Wehle explores controversial topics, including abortion and privacy, race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, voter suppression, “dark money” influencing Congress, originalist vs. activist views of courts, and a continuing amassing of power by the Executive, with ineffective checks by the Congress and the courts.

Published more than a year before the insurrection by Trump supporters, who attacked police and guards at the nation’s Capitol on January 6, Wehle seems to warn about the threat of such an event as she raises concerns about a rising threat of authoritarianism and autocracy –– and need for accountability.

“It is no exaggeration to say that in the twenty-first century, the structure of the Constitution is being tested like never before. There are several reasons for this … But mostly, the Constitution’s structure is being tested by the absence of accountability. The Constitution sets up three branches of government –– the legislative, the executive, and the judicial –– and makes no one person or group of persons in charge of everyone. If one branch breaks rules, the other two stand ready to hold the rule breaker accountable. That way, nobody amasses too much power, which would be a recipe for tyranny.”

Wehle warns passionately of challenges in the era of smart phones and social media –– very relevant in light of current revelations by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen on CBS 60 Minutes and in testimony to Congress. Haugen, like Wehle, sees some use of algorithms of hate, anger, and fear as a threat to democracy. 

Wehle also warns of a “next frontier” of artificial intelligence with sophisticated face recognition technologies.

Without an effective legislature, fair judiciary, and responsible executive, Wehle warns, “There is a real chance of democracy failing in our lifetimes, with tyranny taking its place.”

Yet, Wehle writes with hope: “If you take nothing else away from this book I hope you take away an appreciation of how we cannot take the Constitution for granted.”

The oath to support and defend the Constitution includes, at least intrinsically, a promise also to be accountable and to cast a vote for greater accountability.

“Rights and freedoms provided by the Constitution are like winning the lottery,” Wehle says, “But as with a lottery ticket, we need to cash in that windfall for the piece of paper to retain its value, and that means voting.”

U.S. Marine 1st Lt. Jorge Luis B. Diaz with 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, participates in the Federal Voting Assistance Program at Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, CA, Jan. 11, 2018. VFAP provides training for installation and unit voting officers to ensure service members, their eligible family members and overseas citizens are aware of their right to vote and have the tools and resources to successfully do so –– from anywhere in the world. (Cpl. Andre Heath)

TOP PHOTO: Capital Guardians provided crowd management and traffic control in support of local and federal agencies during the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington Aug. 28, 2020. The mission highlighted the D.C. National Guard’s commitment to ensure District citizens and visitors had the right to practice their First Amendment rights. Soldiers and Airmen worked alongside the Metropolitan Police Department, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Metropolitan Police Department, D.C. Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department, D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. (TSgt Arthur Mondale Wright)