ALAN BOCK
Sr. editorial writer
The Orange County Register
abock@ocregister.com
Sunday, December 2, 2007
OCregister
We've seen a reduction in violence in Iraq in the past couple of months, which is probably at least in part due to the 30,000-person "surge" in U.S. troops. This is being hailed as a triumph of U.S. military prowess, and is certainly welcome. But compared with the expansive goals expressed earlier – after the weapons of mass destruction, the initial justification for the invasion, inconveniently failed to show up – establishing a model democracy that would inspire a surge of freedom, democracy and civility in the Middle East and neutralize terrorist ambitions, this is pretty thin gruel.
The latest prognosis, based on an agreement between the largely fictional Iraqi government and the U.S. government, is that about 50,000 U.S. troops will be required for a long-term commitment – read that as indefinite. The Pottery Barn rule – you break it, you own it – has created a situation in which it has become almost impossible to leave gracefully, given the latent hostilities stirred up, so U.S. troops could be in Iraq as long as they have been in Korea and Germany.
While those troops may eventually be quartered on large-scale bases away from heavily populated areas and only brought out to deal with purported emergencies, they will serve under much greater stress than troops in Korea and Germany. The upshot of our invasion of Iraq, rather than bringing democracy and stability, has been to exacerbate Shia-Sunni tensions within Iraq and to strengthen Iran (which now borders on a country where Shia rather than Sunni are in nominal control) as a regional power and to deepen its nuclear ambitions. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are notably more nervous.
The U.S. occupation of two Muslim countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, has been a boon to extremist jihadist terrorist organizations like al-Qaida, enhancing their recruitment by making credible dire warnings about the U.S. ambition to engage in a crusade against Islam and providing handy targets on which those recruits can gain real-life experience in guerrilla warfare. We'll be dealing with those experienced "holy warriors" for years or decades to come.
One brutal dictator has been eliminated from the Earth, to be sure, but more Iraqis have died violent deaths in the past few years than did so under Saddam's last five years in power. More than a million Iraqis have been forced from their homes, and hundreds of thousands have fled to other countries. Even if the central government were to reach agreement tomorrow on sharing oil revenue, constitutional revision, power-sharing, respect for minority rights and new provincial elections, it will be years before a semblance of normality is possible in Iraq.
During those years the people will be subject to the threat of roadside bombs and suicide bombings, and the oil fields – which especially in today's market have some potential to ease the path toward stability with plentiful money – will be subject to sabotage. As long as U.S. troops remain it will be easy to recruit disaffected people for such bloody tasks. To be sure, leaving could unleash even greater violence for a while, but staying will also be a source of instability, even in the best of circumstances.
Abandon Pottery Barn Policies
Have we had enough of Pottery Barn international relations, blundering around the world, breaking things? Is there a way to avoid such unfortunate commitments in the future?
A number of analysts warned against the Iraq war – a war of choice rather than necessity, as even proponents acknowledged at the time – before the invasion. With a different administration in power their warnings might have been heeded.
But I submit that unless we drastically rethink the fundamental underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy – our grand strategy, in the parlance of national security Big Thinkers – we are likely to blunder into other conflicts and commitments without considering the full consequences of our involvement. Not all of them will cost as many U.S. lives or stir up as much anti-American hatred around the globe as the Iraq adventure. But all will cost the taxpayers money and lead to incursions on traditional American civil, economic and personal liberties. Such is the price of empire.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, beginning with the brutal squashing of democratic aspirations in the Philippines and then the decision to enter a typical European power struggle in which neither side had much to recommend it (World War I), the United States has assumed the position of a typical world power. Our definition of our interests has expanded exponentially, and our determination to intervene in conflicts, power struggles and disagreements has increased to the point that there is hardly a civil war, ethnic struggle or border dispute in the world that can't stir up an interest group to demand U.S. intervention.
One could argue that there was little choice but to be involved when Hitler threatened to dominate Europe or when the Soviet empire was in expansion mode and stirring up revolutionary violence wherever local discontents offered an opening. But Hitler is gone, and so is the Soviet empire. It's time to reconsider our true interests in the world at large.
Strategic Non-Engagement
I would argue for a policy of strategic nonengagement with the rest of the world. We would define our military-security interests narrowly, as defense of North America against any threat of invasion or domination, warning the world at large that any such threat would be met forcefully and overwhelmingly. As a nation of continental scope on an island-continent, the U.S. is favorably positioned, more so than some other countries, to adopt such a strategic posture with a fair amount of confidence that it would be successful.
Missiles and long-distance bombers have changed the security environment somewhat since the 19th century, but not enough to obviate the fact that a United States that defines its defense perimeter thus narrowly would be remarkably secure. Invading and subduing the United States would be a formidable task, well beyond the capacity of any current world power or one likely to emerge in the near future, As we have discovered to our sorrow, acts of subversion and terrorism are possible within the United States, but the likelihood of their overthrowing the existing order and replacing it with foreign domination are slight.
A strategically nonengaged United States would be open to all kinds of economic and cultural interchange with the rest of the world. I would advocate unilateral dismantling of all of our tariff and other trade barriers as the best path to leading the rest of the world toward freer trade by example, perhaps combined with occasional negotiations in strategically chosen situations where the prospects of persuading others to reduce their trade barriers seem especially fruitful. But a strategically nonengaged U.S. would eschew embargoes, retaliatory tariffs, quotas and other punitive actions. Free trade is its own reward, and the best way to promote it is by example.
One of the first implications of such a policy would be bringing home U.S. troops now stationed in far-flung corners of the world, beginning with Germany and Korea and eventually including places like Kazakhstan and Iraq. As we brought them home and advertised our renewed commitment to a live-and-let-live world, other countries might well be suspicious for a while. But eventually, insofar as we lived by our newfound – or rediscovered – principles of political and military nonintervention, they would adjust. The end result would be more friends overseas than potential enemies.
Role Of Military
Would a threat of terrorism from fanatics and jihadists still exist? Probably so. But prior to 9/11 a Pentagon study noted that there were more terrorist actions against U.S. installations in areas of the world where the U.S. was involved in active interventions in the affairs of other countries than in places where we were less active. Fanatics might hate us for our wealth and "decadence" – which would almost certainly increase in a strategically non-engaged America – but they would have a harder time recruiting motivated foot soldiers to carry out terrorism if we were not meddling in "their" countries.
But isn't it necessary to have a military presence in, for example, the Persian Gulf, to ensure our access to oil and other natural resources we find essential to maintaining a modern, diversified economy? David Henderson, who teaches economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, has thoroughly demolished that myth. The short version is that most oil-producing countries need to export oil at least as much as we need to import it; most would have little or no economy if they didn't sell us oil. There might be temporary shortages or interruptions in resource supplies in the event of conflicts or power shifts, but they could be handled and wouldn't last long.
A policy of strategic nonengagement would allow us to cut our bloated defense budget in half, for starters, freeing up that money for private investment and economic activity. There would be transition problems as thousands of military people moved into civilian life, but the economy would grow to accommodate them.
A strategically nonengaged United States would be more likely to restore the proper constitutional balance among legislative, executive and judicial powers, as there would be no need for an "imperial" presidency with "plenary" powers. Respect for civil liberties and tolerance of differences among us would increase. Smaller government might actually become a live possibility.
There is a "realist" school of internationalism whose adherents would abjure Wilsonian moral and political crusades and wouldn't have started the Iraq war. Other thinkers advocate "offshore balancing" – maintaining enough sea, air and military power that we could intervene in other countries on the rare occasions when truly dangerous chaos threatens to break out, but whose existence would serve as a deterrent against such occurrences and wouldn't have to be used often. Or we could follow presidential candidate George W. Bush's advice in 2000 and adopt a "humbler" attitude without changing our basic strategic posture much.
All of these policies would be an improvement on our apparent present policy of active crusading and intervening wherever we see problems in the rest of the world. But the least-risky policy – the policy likely to promote genuine U.S. security – would be strategic nonengagement.
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