A Fog that Descends from Above

THOUGH the fog of war usually rises from the field of battle, sometimes it descends from the top. Like many in his generation, President Clinton refused to study war and held all things military in contempt. He arrived in the Oval Office purposely ignorant of the most important challenge of any presidency, a tremendously difficult subject that can baffle the greatest statesmen. Even among generals only a small minority have war in their bones; the rest are bureaucrats.

Seldom has a president been so preternaturally unprepared, and seldom has his unpreparedness shone so brightly. In his promiscuity he has extended, to the Ukraine, guarantees of which it is hard to judge which is greater, their dangerousness or their meaninglessness. And in his confusion he has established the principle of directing our shrinking military capacity always to where it is needed least, as in nation-building in Mogadishu, the counting of endangered animals, or the destruction of African pharmaceutical factories.

About the Author

Mark Helprin

Mark Helprin is the author of The Oceans and the Stars, Paris in the Present Tense, Winter’s Tale, In Sunlight and in Shadow, Freddy and Fredericka, A Soldier of the Great War, and numerous other novels.

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THOUGH the fog of war usually rises from the field of battle, sometimes it descends from the top. Like many in his generation, President Clinton refused to study war and held all things military in contempt. He arrived in the Oval Office purposely ignorant of the most important challenge of any presidency, a tremendously difficult subject that can baffle the greatest statesmen. Even among generals only a small minority have war in their bones; the rest are bureaucrats.

Seldom has a president been so preternaturally unprepared, and seldom has his unpreparedness shone so brightly. In his promiscuity he has extended, to the Ukraine, guarantees of which it is hard to judge which is greater, their dangerousness or their meaninglessness. And in his confusion he has established the principle of directing our shrinking military capacity always to where it is needed least, as in nation-building in Mogadishu, the counting of endangered animals, or the destruction of African pharmaceutical factories.

About the Author

Mark Helprin

Mark Helprin is the author of The Oceans and the Stars, Paris in the Present Tense, Winter’s Tale, In Sunlight and in Shadow, Freddy and Fredericka, A Soldier of the Great War, and numerous other novels.