Be careful in choosing sides

That's essentially Andrew Bacevich's warning. He recounts our support of Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. He feels we're doing the same thing with the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia that is taking place in Yemen today. And, it does not serve our interests despite the fact that "a series of administrations have indulged the fantasy that the direct or indirect application of military power can somehow restore stability to the gulf." 

He thinks that neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia should be supported. While Iran  may well qualify as America’s “enemy,” Saudi Arabia is not a “friend.”

"Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by recognizing that Saudi Arabia’s folly need not be our problem."

George Soros and Charles Koch working together!

That's right. THE Liberal and THE Conservative have founded the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The Institute is committed to promoting "ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace." It wants a world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing.

They are aiming for a $3.5 million budget organization and a staff of policy experts in 2020. Soros and Koch have each contributed half a million dollars; other donors (including Andrew Bacevich) have put up another $800,000.

What is reality?

Andrew Bacevich thinks that many of the principles we hold dear and think they reflect the real world are, in fact, myths. Here's his list of seven:

Myth #1: The purpose of government is to advance the common good.
Myth #2: Good governance entails fiscal responsibility.
Myth #3: Justice is blind.
Myth #4: The “wise men” are truly wise.
Myth #5: The Persian Gulf is a vital U.S. national security interest.
Myth #6: Prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace depend on Washington playing the role of honest broker.
Myth #7: War is the continuation of policy by other means.

What say you?

Comments on our volunteer military

Andrew Bacevich has a few comments with regard to our military:

I submit that the relationship between the American people and their military is shot through with hypocrisy. It is, in fact, nothing short of fraudulent. Worse still, most of us know it, even if we are loath to fess up. In practice, the informal mandate to “support the troops” has produced an elaborate charade. It’s theater, as phony as Donald Trump’s professed love for DACA recipients.

If Americans were genuinely committed to supporting the troops, they would pay a great deal more attention to what President Trump and his twenty-first-century predecessors have tasked those troops to accomplish -- with what results and at what cost. Of course, that would imply doing more than cheering and waving the flag on cue. Ultimately, the existence of the all-volunteer force obviates any need for such an effort. It provides Americans with an ample excuse for ignoring our endless wars and allowing our flawed military system to escape serious scrutiny.

Having outsourced responsibility for defending the country to people few of us actually know, we’ve ended up with a military system that is unfair, undemocratic, hugely expensive, and largely ineffective, not to mention increasingly irrelevant to the threats coming our way. The perpetuation of that system finds us mired in precisely the sort of long, costly, inconclusive wars that sap the collective strength of a nation and may bring about its premature decline.

The root cause of our predicament is the all-volunteer force. Only when we ordinary citizens conclude that we have an obligation to contribute to the country’s defense will it become possible to devise a set of principles for raising, organizing, supporting, and employing U.S. forces that align with our professed values and our actual security requirements.

If Stormy Daniels can figure out when an existing contract has outlived its purpose, so can the rest of us.

Ten tasks to straighten out the country

Andrew Bacevich thinks we need massive change. Here are his suggestions as to what those changes should be:

• First, abolish the Electoral College. Doing so will preclude any further occurrence of the circumstances that twice in recent decades cast doubt on the outcome of national elections and thereby did far more than any foreign interference to undermine the legitimacy of American politics.
• Second, rollback gerrymandering. Doing so will help restore competitive elections and make incumbency more tenuous.
• Third, limit the impact of corporate money on elections at all levels, if need be by amending the Constitution.
• Fourth, mandate a balanced federal budget, thereby demolishing the pretense that Americans need not choose between guns and butter.
• Fifth, implement a program of national service, thereby eliminating the All-Volunteer military and restoring the tradition of the citizen-soldier. Doing so will help close the gap between the military and society and enrich the prevailing conception of citizenship. It might even encourage members of Congress to think twice before signing off on wars that the commander-in-chief wants to fight.
• Sixth, enact tax policies that will promote greater income equality.
• Seventh, increase public funding for public higher education, thereby ensuring that college remains an option for those who are not well-to-do.
• Eighth, beyond mere “job” creation, attend to the growing challenges of providing meaningful work -- employment that is both rewarding and reasonably remunerative -- for those without advanced STEM degrees.
• Ninth, end the thumb-twiddling on climate change and start treating it as the first-order national security priority that it is.
• Tenth, absent evident progress on the above, create a new party system, breaking the current duopoly in which Republicans and Democrats tacitly collaborate to dictate the policy agenda and restrict the range of policy options deemed permissible.

What do you think? Do you like any of them? I like all but item 4. Perhaps, item 10 is the most important.

More from Bacevich - Part 3

Here's the last it of it. Go here and here for the rest.

11. Deaths that matter and deaths that don’t: Why do terrorist attacks that kill a handful of Europeans command infinitely more American attention than do terrorist attacks that kill far larger numbers of Arabs?

12. Israeli nukes: What purpose is served by indulging the pretense that Israel does not have nuclear weapons?

13. Peace in the Holy Land: What purpose is served by indulging illusions that a “two-state solution” offers a plausible resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

14. Merchandizing death: When it comes to arms sales, there is no need to Make America Great Again.

15. Our friends the Saudis (I): Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001, were Saudis.

16. Our friends the Saudis (II): If indeed Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing to determine which nation will enjoy the upper hand in the Persian Gulf, why should the United States favor Saudi Arabia? In what sense do Saudi values align more closely with American values than do Iranian ones?

17. Our friends the Pakistanis: Pakistan behaves like a rogue state. It is a nuclear weapons proliferator. It supports the Taliban. For years, it provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden. Yet U.S. policymakers treat Pakistan as if it were an ally. Why? In what ways do U.S. and Pakistani interests or values coincide?

18. Free-loading Europeans: Why can’t Europe, “whole and free,” its population and economy considerably larger than Russia’s, defend itself?

19. The mother of all “special relationships”: Why should U.S. relations with Great Britain, a fading power, be any more “special” than its relations with a rising power like India?

20. The old nuclear disarmament razzmatazz: American presidents routinely cite their hope for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. Yet the U.S. maintains nuclear strike forces on full alert, has embarked on a costly and comprehensive trillion-dollar modernization of its nuclear arsenal, and even refuses to adopt a no-first-use posture when it comes to nuclear war.

21. Double standards (I): American policymakers take it for granted that their country’s sphere of influence is global, which, in turn, provides the rationale for the deployment of U.S. military forces to scores of countries. Yet when it comes to nations like China, Russia, or Iran, Washington takes the position that spheres of influence are obsolete and a concept that should no longer be applicable to the practice of statecraft.

22. Double standards (II): Washington claims that it supports and upholds international law. Yet when international law gets in the way of what American policymakers want to do, they disregard it.

23. Double standards (III): The United States condemns the indiscriminate killing of civilians in wartime. Yet over the last three-quarters of a century, it killed civilians regularly and often on a massive scale.

24. Moral obligations: When confronted with some egregious violation of human rights, members of the chattering classes frequently express an urge for the United States to “do something.” Holocaust analogies sprout like dandelions. Newspaper columnists recycle copy first used when Cambodians were slaughtering other Cambodians en masse or whenever Hutus and Tutsis went at it. Proponents of action -- typically advocating military intervention -- argue that the United States has a moral obligation to aid those victimized by injustice or cruelty anywhere on Earth. But what determines the pecking order of such moral obligations? Which comes first, a responsibility to redress the crimes of others or a responsibility to redress crimes committed by Americans? Who has a greater claim to U.S. assistance, Syrians suffering today under the boot of Bashar al-Assad or Iraqis, their country shattered by the U.S. invasion of 2003? Where do the Vietnamese fit into the queue? How about the Filipinos, brutally denied independence and forcibly incorporated into an American empire as the nineteenth century ended? Or African-Americans, whose ancestors were imported as slaves? Or, for that matter, dispossessed and disinherited Native Americans? Is there a statute of limitations that applies to moral obligations? And if not, shouldn’t those who have waited longest for justice or reparations receive priority attention?

More from Bacevich

Continuing Thoughts About America

6. Assassin-in-chief:  "After 9/11, however, Washington returned to the assassination business in a big way and on a global scale, using drones. But does assassination actually advance U.S. interests (or does it merely recruit replacements for the terrorists it liquidates)? How can we measure its costs, whether direct or indirect? What dangers and vulnerabilities does this practice invite?"

7. The war formerly known as the “Global War on Terrorism”: "What precisely is Washington’s present strategy for defeating violent jihadism?  What sequence of planned actions or steps is expected to yield success? If no such strategy exists, why is that the case?  How is it that the absence of strategy -- not to mention an agreed upon definition of “success” -- doesn’t even qualify for discussion here?"

8. The campaign formerly known as Operation Enduring Freedom: When is the war in Afghanistan going to end?

9. The Gulf: We now export oil. Why should the Persian Gulf still be considered essential to our security?

10. Hyping terrorism: Each year terrorist attacks kill far fewer Americans than do auto accidents, drug overdoses, or even lightning strikes. Yet in the allocation of government resources, preventing terrorist attacks takes precedence over preventing all three of the others combined. Why is that?

Thoughts about America

Andrew Bacevich believes that we are not discussing the issues that are relevant to our survival. The media is spending way too much time and effort palavering about Trump. I think he makes a lot of sense. He has 24 issues to discuss. Here are his first five:

1. Accomplishing the “mission”: He wants our allies to "assume responsibility for managing their own affairs". 

2. American military supremacy: This is something I've been wondering about for a long time - Since we have spent so much time and money on our armed services, why haven't we won a war since WWII? "Could it be that we’ve taken the wrong approach? What should we be doing differently?"

3. America’s empire of bases: We have troops stationed around the world. Has this made for a safer world?

4. Supporting the troops: We worship our "warriors".  "Why has discussion and debate about its deficiencies not found a place among the nation’s political priorities?"

5. Prerogatives of the commander-in-chief:  When was the last time Congress had a major say in our going to war?

I hope to comment on his remaining issues but I'm ready for bed and will do so over the next couple of days.

Major Danny Sjursen agrees with Bacevich

In a wonderful article in The Nation Sjursen asks us to recognize reality. Our attempt to bring democracy to the Middle East has been a failure. We have done battle in six Middle East countries and come up essentially empty handed. 

He asks "Has it worked? Is anybody, including Americans, safer? Few in power even bother to ask such questions. But the data is there. The Department of State counted just 348 terrorist attacks worldwide in 2001 compared with 11,774 attacks in 2015. That’s right: At best, America’s 15-year “war on terror” failed to significantly reduce international terrorism; at worst, its actions helped make matters 30 times worse."

He concludes: "First, false lessons and misbegotten collective assumptions contributed to and created much of today’s regional mess. As a result, it’s long past time to reassess recent history and challenge long-held suppositions. Second, policymakers badly overestimated the efficacy of American power, especially via the military, to shape foreign peoples and cultures to their desires. In all of this, the agency of locals and the inherent contingency of events were conveniently swept aside."

Do you agree?

Andrew Bacevich inveighs against the idea, according to David Brooks and others,  that "America is the grateful inheritor of other people's gifts. It has a spiritual connection to all people in all places, but also an exceptional role. America culminates history. It advances a way of life and a democratic model that will provide people everywhere with dignity. The things Americans do are not for themselves only, but for all mankind."

He spells out some of the results of this viewpoint: 

Here in any event is a brief inventory of what that euphemism conceals: thousands of Americans needlessly killed; tens of thousands grievously wounded in body or spirit; trillions of dollars wasted; millions of Iraqis dead, injured, or displaced; this nation's moral standing compromised by its resort to torture, kidnapping, assassination, and other perversions; a region thrown into chaos and threatened by radical terrorist entities like the Islamic State that US military actions helped foster. And now, if only as an oblique second-order bonus, we have Donald Trump's elevation to the presidency to boot.

Bacevich on Mattis etal

Excerpts from an article by Andrew Bacevich in the Atlantic:

The most intriguing aspect of the exchange between Mattis and members of the committee was the absolute absence of interest, from either side, in how the armed forces of the United States have performed in recent years. In Afghanistan, in the now-resumed war in Iraq, in U.S. combat operations, large and small, in Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria—none has yielded anything approximating conclusive victory. However you define U.S. aims and objectives—promoting stability? Spreading democracy? Reducing the incidence of Islamist terrorism?—they remain unfulfilled. Yet no senator thought to ask Mattis for his views on why that has been the case, what conclusions he draws from that absence of success, and how he might apply those conclusions as defense secretary.

None of the lawmakers present—several of whom made a point of promoting weapons systems produced in their state, or engaged in politically correct posturing—thought to solicit Mattis’s views on the this gap between effort and outcomes. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut elicited ironclad assurances that Mattis favored modernizing the navy’s submarine fleet, subs being made—surprise—in Connecticut. And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York was able to advertise her credentials as a champion of women serving as combat infantrypersons. So of senatorial preening, there was plenty on display. Of questions touching on core issues of national security, there were next to none.

The strategic vacuum in which America’s endless wars drag on went unremarked upon. Whether members of the Armed Services Committee are oblivious to the absence of strategy or don’t see such matters falling within their jurisdiction is unclear. Perhaps they just don’t care.

Mattis responded to senatorial questioning like the career military officer that he is: by making the case for more. More money for maintaining and refurbishing hard-used equipment, more money to buy new weapons, more money to expand the size of the army, navy, air force, and Marine Corps. New nukes? Yes. New strategic missiles? Yes. A new long-range manned bomber? Yes. New submarines? Yes. The gold-plated, years-behind-schedule F-35? Love it. Oh, yes, Mattis promised to be a careful steward of the nation’s resources, a vow that senators pretended to take seriously. The various entities comprising the military-industrial complex, from General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, to Boeing and Raytheon, have got to be licking their chops.

It’s misguided policies based on a flawed understanding of what armed force can and cannot do, and when it should or should not be employed. On that score, Mattis and members of the Senate Armed Services are certainly on the same page. They are clueless.

Stop our wars

That's a message that Andrew Bacevich has been preaching for a while. While we may have the strongest and best military in the world, we have not won a war since WWII. Yet, there is very little talk about the recurring shortcomings of our military leadership. And we've had a lot of generals; 11 in Afghanistan and 9 in Iraq. Maybe it's time to cut our losses.

Bacevich has some comments about the 21st century view of war.  "War empowers Washington. It centralizes. It provides a rationale for federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new powers. It makes government bigger and more intrusive. It lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to sustaining the swamp, nothing works better than war."

Some questions for the candidates

From Andrew Bacevich:

• What is the present-day justification for maintaining the US nuclear “triad,” a strike force consisting of manned bombers and land-based ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles?
• Why is the Pentagon embarking upon a decades-long, trillion-dollar program to modernize that triad, fielding a new generation of bombers, missiles and submarines along with an arsenal of new warheads? Is that program necessary?
• How do advances in non-nuclear weaponry — for example, in the realm of cyberwarfare — affect theories of nuclear deterrence devised by the likes of Kahn and Wohlstetter during the 1950s and 1960s? Does the logic of those theories still pertain?
• What lessons should be drawn from America’s costly and disappointing post-9/11 wars and how should those lessons apply to future policy?

Bacevich again

This time it's an article in Foreign Affairs, 'Ending Endless War'. He introduces here the role of the people in our war-making endeavors. That's something you don't see very much. He brings up something I've have been advocating - restore the draft. Bacevich modifies this so that there are fewer exemptions. He introduces the idea of increasing taxes to pay for the cost of wars we enter in the future.

The Decay of American Politics

Andrew Bacevich has a scathing article on how far our politics have descended in the past sixty years. For example:

• In 1956, each of the major political parties nominated a grown-up for the highest office in the land. In 2016, only one has. 
• In 1956, both parties nominated likeable individuals who conveyed a basic sense of trustworthiness. In 2016, neither party has done so. 
• In 1956, Americans could count on the election to render a definitive verdict, the vote count affirming the legitimacy of the system itself and allowing the business of governance to resume.

Like many of us, he doesn't like either candidate. "So while a Trump presidency holds the prospect of the United States driving off a cliff, a Clinton presidency promises to be the equivalent of banging one’s head against a brick wall without evident effect, wondering all the while why it hurts so much."

Money has played a big role in our decline. "Political life has increasingly become a pursuit reserved for those like Trump who possess vast personal wealth or for those like Clinton who display an aptitude for persuading the well to do to open their purses, with all that implies by way of compromise, accommodation, and the subsequent repayment of favors."

But we have contributed. “The American citizen lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare to face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.”

More questions from Bacevich

Does waging war across a large swath of the Islamic world make sense? When will this broader fight end? What will it cost? Short of reducing large parts of the Middle East to rubble, is that fight winnable in any meaningful sense? Above all, does the world’s most powerful nation have no other choice but to persist in pursuing a manifestly futile endeavor?

Our obligation

This weekend saw many ceremonies honoring our dead soldiers. Andrew Bacevich, whose son died in Iraq, thinks we need to do more than acknowledge their sacrifice. We need to hold our leaders accountable. Were the post-911 wars worth it? 

Bacevich says,"Those conflicts, the longest in US history, have exacted a terrible price without yielding anything even remotely approximating success. For proof, look no further than current conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then tally up the moral and material costs incurred since US forces first intervened in those countries. That the war against Iraq, innocent of any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, was also patently unnecessary only makes the results that much more mournful." 

His conclusion, "That accounting should begin with an acknowledgment of the grievous lapses in leadership that have marred recent American wars. To avert our eyes from evidence of duplicity, recklessness, and incompetence at the top is tantamount to betraying those who have borne the burden of the fight. Much the same can be said of the assumptions and ambitions underlying the policies that find the United States today more or less permanently at war. They require critical scrutiny. We must never forget those who gave their all while in service to the nation. But remembering requires more than unveiling monuments while offering words of consolation. It requires truth-telling, however painful or discomfiting. While remembering, in other words, we must also learn. Otherwise the expenditure of young American lives to no discernible purpose will continue."

Another sound observation by Bacevich

"Imagine if, within a matter of weeks, China were to launch raids into Vietnam, Thailand, and Taiwan, with punitive action against the Philippines in the offing. Or if Russia, having given a swift kick to Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, leaked its plans to teach Poland a lesson for mismanaging its internal affairs. Were Chinese President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin to order such actions, the halls of Congress would ring with fierce denunciations. Members of both houses would jostle for places in front of the TV cameras to condemn the perpetrators for recklessly violating international law and undermining the prospects for world peace. Having no jurisdiction over the actions of other sovereign states, senators and representatives would break down the doors to seize the opportunity to get in their two cents worth. No one would be able to stop them. Who does Xi think he is! How dare Putin! 

Yet when an American president undertakes analogous actions over which the legislative branch does have jurisdiction, members of Congress either yawn or avert their eyes."

From Tom Dispatch

Questions for the candidates

Andrew Bacevich asked these questions in an article about Obama's record:
What exactly does Great Britain bring to the “special relationship” that should justify its continuation?
Even if Berlin was worth fighting for a half-century ago, why does it follow that Kiev is worth fighting for today?
Does “the West” actually exist? And even if it does, why should the racially and culturally diverse United States choose to affiliate with that one particular tribe?
With the world’s economic center of gravity shifting to Asia, what is the residual significance of free-riding Europe?
How should radical changes in the global energy environment affect the status of the Persian Gulf in the U.S. strategic hierarchy?
Given the paltry results achieved through myriad recent U.S. armed interventions in the Islamic world, what exactly is the present-day utility of force?
Under what definition of the term “ally” do countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Pakistan—each routinely behaving in ways contrary to U.S. interests—qualify for that designation?

Questions for a debate?

Andrew Bacevich would ask the presidential candidates the following:

1. The War on Terror: Nearly 15 years after this “war” was launched by George W. Bush, why hasn’t “the most powerful military in the world,” “the finest fighting force in the history of the world” won it? Why isn’t victory anywhere in sight?
2. Nuclear Weapons: Today, more than 70 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what purpose do nukes serve? How many nuclear weapons and delivery systems does the United States actually need?
3. Energy Security: Given the availability of abundant oil and natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere and the potential future abundance of alternative energy systems, why should the Persian Gulf continue to qualify as a vital U.S. national security interest?
4. Assassination: Now that the United States has normalized assassination as an instrument of policy, how well is it working? What are its benefits and costs?
5. Europe: Seventy years after World War II and a quarter-century after the Cold War ended, why does European security remain an American responsibility? Given that Europeans are rich enough to defend themselves, why shouldn’t they?
6. Debt: Does the national debt constitute a threat to national security? If so, what are some politically plausible ways of reining it in?