Mr. Schuler, I believe the existential threat was to the nation, or perhaps just the government if you like. Throughout history, few conquerors believed it was best to put everyone to the sword, except as an small examplar from time to time. Through medieval times, slaves or serfs tended to continue to have some value, and as the Enlightenment took hold, it became to be deemed anathema for more humanitarian reasons.

My point was that Mr. Zakaria seems to be defining “existential threat” sufficiently narrowly that as long as somebody survives, it's not an existential threat. I think our way of life is under existential threat and the arguments over the last eight years over how far government surveillance should be able to go fully supports that view.

Note BTW that radical Islamists are under an existential threat from the modernity that contact with us brings. They see, correctly, that their way of life won't survive as things are going now. I have no sympathy for them.

Steve

Mr. Schuler, I believe the existential threat was to the nation, or perhaps just the government if you like. Throughout history, few conquerors believed it was best to put everyone to the sword, except as an small examplar from time to time. Through medieval times, slaves or serfs tended to continue to have some value, and as the Enlightenment took hold, it became to be deemed anathema for more humanitarian reasons.

The existential threat to our way of life is an existential threat to many of our citizens. How long will the citizens of Southern California survive without an infrastructure to deliver water to them? How long will the denizens of our largest cities be able to survive without an infrastructure to deliver them food? Any guesses as to what sort of civil unrest we might expect these days with 20% unemployment? How about 30%?

Generally speaking, war is no longer limited to the formal and now outdated definitions of the Geneva Conventions and Westphalian sovereignty. My guess is we will be at war for a long, long time. Hopefully, it will never be as bad as most of the 20th century disasters, but let's not make the "No True Scotsman" mistake of defining war away unless it reaches WWII levels of slaughter and destruction.

Spain presented no existential threat to us in the Spanish-American War;the Central Powers weren't an existential threat to us in the Great War;the Axis didn't present an existential threat to us during WWII (although I suspect they'd have liked to). That's simply not the standard by which we decide when we'll go to war.

Violent radical Islamists don't present an existential threat to us, either, but our way of life will be hard put to survive attacks that destroy a trillion dollars worth of wealth in a day, which happened on 9/11, with any frequency.

As you know, James, I think that both of our military ventures post-9/11 were ill-advised. That doesn't mean that I think that all military ventures are ill-advised nor that they won't be required from time to time. I also think that some sort of military response was mandatory after 9/11.

Is the notion of a “war-time president” a useful trope right now? I think that the facts decree that it will be the fact for some time to come. I'm not so sure that it's particularly useful to think of the president that way whatever the facts decree.

Fareed Zakaria contends that, President Bush’s attempts to brand himself as a “war president,” the United States isn’t really at war

Isn't it amazing, how often this kind of play is attempted? Are you going to trust yor lying eyes, or Fareed Zakaria?