Had President Bush been more studious during his college years, he might have learned a valuable lesson from his political science professors during discussions of Machiavelli that could have helped him do a better job of justifying the war in Iraq and the war that has also been fought in Afghanistan.

Since initiating the war in 2003, contending that the purpose of the U.S.-led attacks was to spread democracy to vulnerable people who were subject to the whims and human rights abuses of a dictator, President Bush has insisted that the violence perpetrated by U.S. soldiers through war and the sacrifices they make of their health or their lives are necessary to overcome violence and sacrifice of a different type, one that the President has insisted is equally devastating.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, President Bush’s argument was one that many Americans were willing to accept early on in the fight against terrorism, overcome by emotion about the scale and horror of the terrorist attacks that occurred on U.S. soil in September of 2001. However, as the war has escalated, as troop numbers have surged, and as General Petraeus avoids any verbal commitment to bringing the war to a conclusion, an increasing number of Americans have found President Bush’s strategy difficult to accept. Yet both they, as well as the President himself, could reach much farther back in history to find the philosophical antecedent to such a strategy in the fifteenth century work of Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s theory on the economizing of violence is precisely the strategy that the President has been pursuing all along. Since September 11, 2001, President Bush has been economizing violence, using violence as a means of tempering aggressive and hostile situations abroad.

Machiavelli, an Italian philosopher, was more interested in developing ideas about power and its uses rather than the types of ideological abstractions that often preoccupied his fellow thinkers. Machiavelli’s theories were pragmatic, hands-on ideas that originated in his observations of the political and social landscape of his time, an epoch that was characterized by profound change and upsets in traditional power hierarchies. The core of Machiavelli’s philosophy was summarized in The Prince, a volume that contained ideas which not only reflected the socio-political landscape, but which offered profound insight into it as well. Curiously, more than five centuries later, many of the fundamental observations and ideas promoted by Machiavelli in The Prince remain relevant and instructive today. Indeed, Machiavelli’s ideas about economizing violence are reincarnated in the foreign policy strategies that President Bush has advocated and pursued since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Regarding violence, which at its root is a dangerous form of social disorder, Machiavelli argued that the government or its representatives have a responsibility to apply violence in order to stem it. Machiavelli might have been criticized for being cold and even ruthless, as has the President himself, but his perspective was one that was purely utilitarian. Machiavelli reasoned that violence can—and should—be used when it is expedient to do so, as it is the only means to prevent social chaos from expanding and creating more problems for society and for the government. At least that was his belief. By using violence strategically, Machiavelli argued, as has President Bush, the people using violence indiscriminately and for nefarious ends would be contained. By applying controlled violence consistently and within clearly defined boundaries and limits, social disorder should, over time, begin to decrease.

Of course, Machiavelli’s theory, repurposed by President Bush even if he does not realize he himself was not the originator of the fight violence with violence idea, is paradoxical. It proposes that the only way to eliminate violence is to use the same violent means to achieve a peaceful end. The logical question that such a paradox raises is whether the strategy is successful in fulfilling its objectives. Considering the evidence of history, I would argue that the strategy is not at all successful, and taking the current political circumstances into consideration, I would further argue that President Bush has not achieved the reduction of violence—physical or otherwise—in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, including Afghanistan, by using this contradictory strategy of economizing violence. All of the evidence suggests that this is a political tactic that simply does not work. In Iraq, for example, the media present us daily with news of more car bombs, more kidnappings, more sectarian attacks, and all manner of physically violent acts that people commit against one another as the war goes on. In addition to all of the news that is reported about increasing violence, one must wonder as well about the incidents that are not reported, including those acts of violence that are psychological and which no witness may ever see and for which they will never give testimony.

Since September 11, 2001, President Bush has been insistent that a Machiavellian strategy of economizing violence is the necessary and morally right course of action to take in the Middle East, not only as a means of protecting our own country from terrorist attacks, but also for securing democracy for the ordinary citizens of countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The President may not be aware that Machiavelli originated the idea of fighting violence with strategically controlled aggression, and he may use different terms than economizing violence to describe his foreign policy tactics; however, the fact of the matter is that President Bush’s response to the 2001 terrorist attacks has been based entirely on fighting fire with fire. Unfortunately, he has been unable to admit to the American people that this Machiavellian strategy is not effective, largely, I think, because he has no other ideas about a strategy that might be more meaningful and efficacious. If President Bush would return to the history books, he would see that the strategy that he and Machiavelli advocated has rarely—if ever—achieved social stability, the management of chaos, or true peace and democracy.

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