Legacy Lecture, Frank Wayman, 2023

Abstract

The title says “War, Congress, and the Public”, but what's that mean? War of course means something specific I published books and articles about, such as World War II or the Vietnam War, but the root meaning comes from an old proto-Indo-European word for confusion, and, hence, strife (breeding even our word “the worst”). Congress means something specific I wrote about, namely, the US Congress, but more broadly refers to other assemblies in republics or on the international stage among nations, and, even more broadly, meetings and coming together. I finished the title with “the public” because I wrote about public opinion, and the public elects Congress and the President, and shapes war policy; and also, finally, our students are that portion of the public whom we are trying to edify. These title words, thus, convey a sense of what I wrote about and taught and worried about for the past five decades. One might say it’s a study of conflict, on the one hand, and attempts at cooperation, on the other.

The specifics are that I'm going to speak about causes and extent of war; coups, military regimes, the use of force in domestic politics; elections and political identities; the US Congress and the powerful interest groups that influence it; NATO and more broadly the international community in the North Atlantic area, going back to Churchill and FDR and before – even, I believe, evolving for centuries.