The rise and rise of the chicken hawk
The miles gloriosus ("vainglorious soldier") was a stock character in Roman comedy, especially that of Plautus. (He was very much a contrast to the viri militares, the military men like Caesar, Pompey, Marcus Agrippa and Vespasian who were ultimately responsible for the expansion of the Roman Empire.) In writing the book of his Roman musical comedy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Stephen Sondheim named his braggart military character Miles Gloriosus. He comes into the play briefly to seek his bride, whom Pseudolus, the conman slave and central character in the play, has allegedly arranged for him, and to boast (with the assistance of a chorus of legionaries) of his accomplishments, in a baritone song that usually stops the show, before heading back to conquer further territory (he's already raped Thrace thrice). Nowadays the miles gloriosus is but a distant memory. Any vainglory now seems to be reserved to politicians - and we've seen the emergence of the polli gloriosi, a.k.a. the chicken hawks. They are the sort of politicians who were unwilling to bloody their own hands in combat, but are quite happy for others to bloody theirs; particularly if the commitment of troops pleases our great and powerful friends - or the nation's oil interests. No military leader is, these days, allowed sufficient room to develop a big head: only the apparently self-effacing soldiers like Peter Cosgrove in Australia and Colin Powell and John Shalikashvili in the US appear to get any coverage in the press. Two caveats: Michael Jeffery, our first native-born military GG, may turn out to be a genuine Australian miles gloriosus if given sufficient room to manoeuvre (Thomas Blamey, the some time corrupt commissioner of the Victorian police, seems to have been the most recent of this rare breed in Australia); and Oliver North demonstrated that, while more difficult to achieve these days, the appellation is not beyond an ambitious officer.
On the other hand, polli gloriosi like John W Howard and Donald H Rumsfeld are more and more apparent. Howard, you'll recall, has followed in the footsteps of his hero, Robert G Menzies. During the 1914-18 War Menzies preferred to complete his degree and commence his law career, rather than join the AIF. In the 1960s, Howard advanced his career as a suburban solicitor and started his climb towards the top in Liberal Party politics, reaching the post of President of the NSW branch (and eventual pre-selection for Bennelong), rather than join the volunteers - and the conscripted soldiers - being sent by the very same Liberal Party to fight for the US in Vietnam. The best-known Australian polli gloriosi have emerged from the Ministry of Defence in recent times: 'Bomber' Beazley, Peter Reith, Robert Hill and Brendon Nelson come to mind as prime home-grown examples.
If you look at the upper ranks of the current Republican chicken hawks, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al, none of them managed to find the time to serve in any of their country's wars, except through pseudo-service at home in the Reserves, but they have subsequently found it much easier to send others to war in their own attempts at self-aggrandisement. Rummy seems a particularly fine example of the breed, to the extent that even recently retired generals, generally the group least likely to kick up a stink, have been forced to go public on the ways in which this particular example of the polli gloriosi has managed to undermine the ability of his nation's army successfully to fight a war of aggression in Iraq. On the other hand, genuine US viri militares, like John McCain and John Kerry, have their military service more a handicap than a boon.
Given the likelihood of an increased politicisation of the defence establishment in all countries, and the continual decline in the number of viri militares able successfully to leverage their martial success into some kind of political clout (as Eisenhower and Marshall were able to do a generation or so ago), the continued eclipse of the miles gloriosus seems to be something that will continue and the era of the polli gloriosi appears unlikely to end soon.
First written: June 2006
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