ANGELO CODEVILLA: Can the U.S Military Hold the Line in the Gathering Political Storm?

Defense Secretary James Mattis’s words last month to U.S troops in the Middle East came from his patriotic heart: “And you just hold the line, my fine young soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines. You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it, of being friendly toward one another . . . We are so doggone lucky to be Americans.”

Had he tried to tell them that their sacrifices on behalf of current U.S policy in the region are of transcendent importance, he would have used words that neither he nor they believed. Instead, in front of a few, he let slip what must weigh on this thoughtful Marine’s mind: what role can the armed forces play in the socio-political revolution which is gathering force among Americans? What role should they play?

“Hold the line,” he said, meaning: be a rock of stability in the midst of partisan strife, a beacon from which all may gratefully recall America’s true meaning. But what, in practice, can “holding the line” mean? Is it even possible?

One reason it may not be is that Mattis’s noble sentiments seem to be based on the factually incorrect premise that two sets of Americans are aggressing against one another. If it were so, the mutual infliction of damage might exhaust both sides’ ardor, eventually. But in fact, our troubles are consequent to a ruling class that defines itself by the contempt that it pours on the rest of the country—and to the rest of the country’s resistance thereto.

What could possibly induce a class that defines itself as superior to redefine itself as equal to those it deplores and despises? Moreover, these troubles are happening in conjunction with a collapse of standards—professional, educational, and moral, and of respect for the rule of law—at all levels of society. In short, what is happening in America is not the sort of thing that abates with time.

We need a better ruling class.