An America Unwilling to Use Force Cannot Be a Global Force for Good
By Steven Metz, on
A diplomatic initiative triggered by Secretary of State John Kerry’s seemingly off-the-cuff remarks has temporarily stopped the clock on U.S. military strikes against Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad's regime. Nevertheless, the previous week’s tumultuous debate over the appropriate U.S. response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria shows that there is no longer a consensus on the purpose of American military power or even the meaning of "war." But there is equally little agreement over what should replace the old ideas. For most of American history, the purpose of national military power gradually expanded as the strategic environment evolved and the United States assumed a more prominent global role. Initially, the armed forces were to defend the homeland and American commerce, bring some order to the frontier and keep disorder in nearby regions to a tolerable level. In the 20th century, the military’s role expanded to preventing a hostile power from dominating vital regions of the world, specifically Europe and the Pacific Rim. During the Cold War, American military power kept the Warsaw Pact from invading Western Europe—a traditional mission—but also sought to help counter Soviet proxy states and movements. This demanded new military skills like counterinsurgency and security force assistance, and new military organizations like the special operations forces.
Once the United States was the only superpower left standing, there seemed to be no limits on what the military could be asked to do. This included preventing aggression by "rogue states" as well as helping stop humanitarian disasters. The armed forces became, as current Navy recruiting commercials phrase it, a "global force for good." Counterinsurgency fell out of fashion while multinational peacekeeping became all the rage. Since there were enough resources to fund military humanitarian action and no pressing enemies, this was generally accepted by the American public. The limits of military humanitarian action, though, were shaped by the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. After the Somalia fiasco, policymakers were unwilling to use or threaten to use force when the absence of an effective state allowed a humanitarian disaster, though force remained an option to prevent a state from abusing its own people.
After Sept. 11, the purpose of American military power expanded immensely. Force could be used not only to remove regimes that supported or seemed inclined to support transnational terrorists but also to deny operating space to extremists by stabilizing restive regions. The intent was that the U.S. military would establish stability until local government forces could take over. But two developments undercut that concept: The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated how difficult, bloody and expensive it was to establish a sustainable order in far away places, particularly when the local governments had different priorities than the United States; and once the old Cold War global order collapsed entirely there were too many failing states to prop up and internal conflicts to stop. Unable to choose where, if anywhere, to act decisively and facing mounting domestic economic problems, American strategy has most recently become paralyzed and ineffective, drifting without a consensus or conceptual foundation.
As is often true, this confusion has led to nostalgia. One example is a rejuvenation of the Powell and Weinberger "principles" for the use of military force. As Harvard political scientist Stephen Walt explains, these suggest that force should not be used in Syria unless: a vital national security objective is threatened; the American public supports military action; there is genuine and broad international support; and there is an exit strategy to avoid entanglement. This doctrine made perfect sense when there was a system of order maintained by the two superpowers and when the United States had an effective, willing partner in NATO. In a world where America's most important partners are weak, flawed regimes with different priorities than the United States—think Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia—and the other NATO states are gutting their military capabilities, this policy will only work if the United States is truly willing to accept persistent, large-scale conflict, humanitarian disasters and the emergence of extremist states in many parts of the world.
So far the Obama administration has not led an effort to redefine the purpose of American military power. Instead it has relied on an idea from the 1990s—using high-technology, stand-off strikes and occasional commando raids rather than sustained and direct applications of military power—and making clear in advance that it will not escalate far beyond that despite the enemy's response. The idea is to keep threats at bay rather than resolve them. "No more Iraqs or Afghanistans" has become the watchword of American strategy. Assad thus knows that he will not suffer the fate of Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi or even Mullah Omar. The present strategy does give the appearance of doing something rather than ignoring challenges, but, of course, it also gives America's enemies a clear indication of how much punishment they need to withstand, thus making their strategic calculations easy and rendering diplomacy ineffective. As Samuel Johnson explained, “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." So too in diplomacy. The same effect, however, cannot be achieved with the promise of an “incredibly small” punitive strike.
There is now bipartisan support for the idea that almost any use of military power for something less than a clear threat to the U.S. homeland or some other vital interest is too risky. Armed force is like whiskey to an alcoholic—better to not take the first drink than to assume that America's leaders will know when to stop once a conflict starts. This is likely to lead to a new notion of the purpose of American power based on long-range strikes to appease calls for action but no direct use of the armed forces under any but the most threatening circumstances. The U.S. military would no longer be a "global force for good."
It is not hard to imagine what this will mean. Americans must grow to accept protracted humanitarian disasters, even genocide. Because of the fear of future Iraqs or Afghanistans, there will be more Yemens or Somalias, probably more unconventional weapons in internal conflicts and potentially the emergence of extremist-ruled states. There will still be "red lines" but, in contrast to the broad ones used during the Clinton or George W. Bush administrations, they will be narrow and restrictive: "Do not attack us directly, but what you do to your own people is up to you." Over time, the U.S. public will become numb to humanitarian disasters even while modern technology makes them more transparent. This might not be isolationism in the pre-World War II meaning of the word, but it would certainly be extreme disengagement from global security at the very time of economic and cultural globalization. This new America will be able to spend much less on defense, but it will be a very different nation than the one that went before it.
Steven Metz is a defense analyst and the author of "Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy." His weekly WPR column, Strategic Horizons, appears every Wednesday.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario