By Steve Hynd
In an op-ed for the Boston Globe, Andrew J. Bacevich sets out the wider stakes as Obama considers General McChrystal's "my way or the highway" options in Afghanistan.
If the president approves the McChrystal plan he will implicitly:
� Anoint counterinsurgency - protracted campaigns of armed nation-building - as the new American way of war.
� Embrace George W. Bush�s concept of open-ended war as the essential response to violent jihadism (even if the Obama White House has jettisoned the label �global war on terror��).
� Affirm that military might will remain the principal instrument for exercising American global leadership, as has been the case for decades.
Implementing the McChrystal plan will perpetuate the longstanding fundamentals of US national security policy: maintaining a global military presence, configuring US forces for global power projection, and employing those forces to intervene on a global basis. The McChrystal plan modestly updates these fundamentals to account for the lessons of 9/11 and Iraq, cultural awareness and sensitivity nudging aside advanced technology as the signature of American military power, for example. Yet at its core, the McChrystal plan aims to avert change. Its purpose - despite 9/11 and despite the failures of Iraq - is to preserve the status quo.
Hawks understand this. That�s why they are intent on framing the debate so narrowly - it�s either give McChrystal what he wants or accept abject defeat. It�s also why they insist that Obama needs to decide immediately.
Bingo. As Bacevich concludes: The real question is whether �change�� remains possible. At the other end of the scale, the hawks are writing about why America should use military force all across the globe to preserve American hegemonic superiority because "we're the good guys." How does that work again?
Here is a link that pulls together several themes covered in our last few posts: global and domestic politics, climate change/conservation, and the enigmatic Nobel Peace Prize, framing the Oslo gesture as a response to Copenhagen.
ReplyDeleteIf you were to get all your news from mainstream US media, it would be hard to comprehend the extent to which Europeans, Scandinavians in particular, consider climate change to be the issue of our times.
I would venture to say that when Americans hear the words "Nobel Peace Prize" they think about their country's wars. But my hunch is that this year in particular, the Norwegians would have been thinking about their Peace Prize in terms of stopping climate change. Copenhagen is a big deal. To understand why Obama got the prize, it makes sense to consider Norway's position on the climate change question.
I particularly like Jotman's comment taking specific aim at the unfolding of US military moves in Afghanistan:
Perhaps the hope is that awarding Obama the prize now will encourage Obama to take a step back from the precipice; that it might alert this young president not to continue his steady drift toward the Dark Side.
If so, the prize does not come a moment too soon. The Obama presidency may be only a few weeks away from being inexorably squandered. A decision on General Stanley McChrystal's proposal to escalate the war in Afghanistan looms. The US seems to be standing in the way of progress at the Bangkok Climate Change Talks.