Secunda and Moran’s historical analysis of how wars are sold by U.S. administrations and bought by the American people reveals that a majority of Americans are more than willing to buy a war, if it is properly packaged and skillfully marketed, and whenever they can be persuaded that their national honor or security is being challenged. The authors note that Americans were eager to go to war with Spain in 1898 to fulfill Manifest Destiny—an American Empire in North and South America and across the Pacific Ocean. They also contend that the U.S. invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989 were largely endorsed by the American public when the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush spoke of a national security threat.
“As long as Americans continue to like war, any president selling a war has a customer base that is already half-sold,” the authors conclude. “The question is whether Americans can act like the informed, enlightened, and thoughtful citizens necessary for any democracy to flourish or will they continue to be willing buyers of whatever war an administration is selling.”
Secunda, an adjunct professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, is an Army veteran and was a senior executive at J. Walter Thompson and other advertising and public relations agencies. Terence P. Moran, a retired U.S. marine who still recruits for the Marine Corps., is a professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School. -NYU
