In my last post I suggested that a forecast of "endless war" in our future may be based on built-in biases (i.e. the source of the forecast, and self-deception about our interests) that distort our vision of the future.
To see how our outlook has been blurred, I'd like to examine the main ongoing military efforts that have conjured up for us the concept of endless conflict:
Iraq: It's not our business to bring democracy to other countries; democracy will mean little to them, and stands a good chance of not lasting, if it doesn't develop organically from within; and it may be tainted if it has to be imported by foreign intervention. For me it was clear from George W. Bush's campaign rhetoric before he was elected that he wanted us back in Iraq. Chemical and biological weapons? There are a lot of legitimate questions about the evidence on that, but it was a great pretext. If we are frank with ourselves, we will admit that Iraq was little more than a puerile attempt to exact revenge on Saddam Hussein for surviving the Gulf War, led by Bush and (perhaps more influentially) by holdover advisors from 1990 (Cheney and others), who had been among those left with egg on their faces ten years earlier. A war of choice, through and through.
Afghanistan: Bush was right to conduct an immediate smack-down after September 11; given the evidence of the Taliban's playing host to Bin Laden, the American people would have expected nothing less. It was quick and effective, and here we could actually have said "Mission Accomplished," except that we chose to stay. Democracy? We may hope, but after a decade, the realistic assessment is more in line with the CIA's current prognosis: stalemate. We turned a war of necessity into a war of choice.
Libya: The smoke hasn't quite cleared yet, but it appears that we accomplished something at a relatively low cost and without a perpetual U.S. presence. Here we supported an indigenous and self-generated movement toward change (will it be democracy? No one can tell at this point). By letting local leaders take the lead, we avoided branding whatever political change occurs in Libya with the bad smell of foreign intervention. So, I credit the Obama administration with having learned some important lessons from the past decade. A war of choice, but one that was kept limited.
Of course, many politicians - and not just Republicans - have been critical of the Libya effort, bewailing our failure to lead, or our failure to commit to spend billions over many years, in an environment of budget austerity, on an effort that has almost nothing to do with core U.S. interests. But keep in mind that these are the politicians who have got into the habit of thinking that war is (politically) easy. They just don't get it.
It seems to me that much of our defense effort has far more to do with projecting U.S. power and maintaining supremacy in the world than with specific national interests. I don't suggest we need to retreat within our borders and close the shutters; what happens elsewhere in the world often affects us profoundly. But the military response isn't always called for. Rather than endless war, we should expect endless watchfulness, and a sober assessment of our real needs. (This is where the "war on terrorism" comes in; a matter of security, sometimes using military power, but not truly a war.)
After September 11, 2001, we quickly created the "Department of Homeland Security." What does it do? It defends our country from foreign threats. But wait ... "defense" ... we already have a Department for that! That one used to be called the War Department, and that's what it still is, really. This confusion of defense and warmaking underlies our current dilemma of "endless war," costs us a bundle, and fuzzes our thinking about security policy.
Comments