Shattering Our Strategic Illusions
By CHET RICHARDS
Published: 1 December 2008
Decisions by recent Democratic and Republican administrations have left the United States 10 trillion dollars in debt, depleted our military forces, and emboldened countries and organizations whose goals conflict with ours. It is difficult to find a time in U.S. history when the costs paid and the results experienced were so at odds with what had been promised.
Rather than face cold reality, however, some seven years after 9/11 and an occupation of Iraq that exceeds the duration of our participation in World War II, a preponderance of America's defense and foreign policy establishment still seems convinced that military force can solve problems that are inherently social, economic or political.
If such were ever true, and there is little evidence to support it, it is surely true no longer: The country, facing a collapsing economy and a war bill expected to total $3 trillion to $5 trillion, cannot afford to repeat this experience. It is time to reorient national power to face the threats of the modern world and leave the Cold War mentality behind.
As many historians and others outside Washington - but few inside - have noticed, nuclear weapons have eliminated the possibility of war among the major powers. Although occasional sparring cannot be ruled out, such as the P-3 incident near China in 2001, no nuclear-armed government will let itself be conquered so long as it has these weapons at its disposal.
Clearly, there will be no replays of World War II. For smaller conflicts, history has shown that while invasion of developing countries will often be simple, military occupations will be expensive, painful for all participants and unlikely to succeed from the U.S. perspective.
The same domestic political groups that exaggerated the threat to justify invasions now claim that a "surge" strategy will subdue insurgents, if it has not already in Iraq. The decline in U.S. casualties there, however, reflects not American success but that of Shi'ite militias in their civil war against the Sunnis, combined with our decision to pay some of the Sunni tribes not to attack us.
The most likely result of this "victory" will be a Shi'ite theocracy allied with Iran. Although this particular result might have been difficult to foresee in 2003 (or not, given the demographic makeup of Iraq), any competent student of the Middle East could have predicted that no Muslim country would long submit to rule by a largely Christian army.
As our experience in Iraq and now increasingly in Afghanistan shows, and history confirms, counterinsurgency is possible if local governments make the reforms necessary to defuse their causes, but it is a losing game for foreigners. The new administration, therefore, must not accept the claim that in modern counterinsurgency theory, we have found the antidote to the natural desire to resist occupiers.
The new U.S. administration should begin with an explicit policy that focuses military forces on those problems that only military forces can solve and renounces their use as ordinary tools of policy. In particular, interventions in the Third World must be rapid, daring, successful and rare, and be seen as necessary by our long-standing allies in Europe and Asia. Should they decline to participate, we should listen to their warnings because they are as threatened by the world situation as we are, if not more so.
Most of our problems in the developing world stem from the lack of governments that are seen by their populations as serving their needs. Remedying this situation presents a more difficult problem than sending in the Marines.
The continuing epidemics of crime and political instability in areas where force was initially successful - the former Yugoslavia, for example, and the Middle East - demonstrate that the West does not know how to rebuild destroyed states.
So, ironically, our use of military force often spawns more of the very problems it was designed to solve. Replacing weak, if odious, states with breeding grounds for international crime and terrorism does not seem like wise policy.
The new U.S. president and Congress must strip away the legacy structures built to contain the Soviet Union and replace them with organizations more suited for conflict in failed states and against shadowy criminal and ideological groups. The three areas of most pressing need are:
■ Conventional military forces. Because these are expensive to buy and operate, yet provide little security against either nuclear powers or terrorist groups, we are paying for far more of them than we need.
■ Intelligence. Within the components of national security, it must become primus inter pares. Most of our problems with the employment of military force over the last generation could have been avoided through a better appreciation of who we were engaging and what their likely responses would have been.
■ Private sector involvement. Despite problems with contractors in Iraq, the United States remains a nation based on free enterprise. We must find better ways to use the creativity and initiative of the private sector in the public service. ■
Chet Richards is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. This commentary summarizes his chapter in an anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress," being released by the Center for Defense Information, Washington.
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