Bacevich On Weaning America From The Folly Of Constant War

By Steve Hynd

This weekend's "must read" essay is by Andrew Bacevich. In it he looks at the dynamic that has led America to begin one war after another since 1945 but with only three cleacut victories, against three pint-sized opponents, in the Dominican Republic, Granada and Panama. He writes:

A seesawing contest for the Korean peninsula ended in a painfully expensive draw. Kennedy�s Bay of Pigs managed only to pave the way for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam produced stupendous catastrophe. Jimmy Carter�s expedition to free American hostages held in Iran not only failed but also torpedoed his hopes of winning a second term. Ronald Reagan�s 1983 intervention in Beirut wasted the lives of 241 soldiers, sailors, and Marines for reasons that still defy explanation. Reagan also went after Muammar Qaddafi, sending bombers to pound Tripoli; the Libyan dictator responded by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland�and survived to tell the tale. In 1991, George H.W. Bush portrayed Operation Desert Storm as a great victory sure to provide the basis for a New World Order; in fact the first Gulf War succeeded chiefly in drawing the United States more deeply into the vortex of the Middle East�it settled nothing. With his pronounced propensity for flinging about cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs, Bill Clinton gave us Mogadishu, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo �frenetic activity with little to show in return. As for Bush and his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the less said the better.

What are we to make of this record? For Krauthammer, Boot, and Barnes, the lessons are clear: dial up the rhetoric, increase military spending, send in more troops, and give the generals a free hand. The important thing, writes William Kristol in his own assessment of Obama�s Afghanistan decision, is to have a commander in chief who embraces �the use of military force as a key instrument of national power.� If we just keep trying, one of these times things will surely turn out all right.

An alternative reading of our recent military past might suggest the following: first, that the political utility of force�the range of political problems where force possesses real relevance�is actually quite narrow; second, that definitive victory of the sort that yields a formal surrender ceremony at Appomattox or on the deck of an American warship tends to be a rarity; third, that ambiguous outcomes are much more probable, with those achieved at a cost far greater than even the most conscientious war planner is likely to anticipate; and fourth, that the prudent statesman therefore turns to force only as a last resort and only when the most vital national interests are at stake. Contra Kristol, force is an �instrument� in the same sense that a slot machine or a roulette wheel qualifies as an instrument.

This should be blindingly obvious to anyone with a brain, and Bacevich believes it is obvious to the upcoming core of officers who have fought in Bush's two adventures. He hopes they will act as a counterweight to the belligerent Village idiots who have held bipartisan sway over American foreign policy since 1945, but worries that the COINdinistas will seduce with their self-serving and illusionary message that perpetual war can be useful 'if it is only done right'.

The impetus for weaning Americans away from their infatuation with war, if it comes at all, will come from within the officer corps. It certainly won�t come from within the political establishment, the Republican Party gripped by militaristic fantasies and Democrats too fearful of being tagged as weak on national security to exercise independent judgment. Were there any lingering doubt on that score, Barack Obama, the self-described agent of change, removed it once and for all: by upping the ante in Afghanistan he has put his personal imprimatur on the Long War.

Yet this generation of soldiers has learned what force can and cannot accomplish. Its members understand the folly of imagining that war provides a neat and tidy solution to vexing problems. They are unlikely to confuse Churchillian calls to arms with competence or common sense.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

Update: Another essay well worth the time to read it: Giles Dorronsoro explains why US strategy in Afghanistan has become almost bewilderingly self-destructive. "Washington may leave nothing behind in Afghanistan but warring factions -- a mess not unlike the one that precipitated the Taliban's rise to power in the first place."