The misuse of American might and the price it pays

The US military is like the highly skilled, gadget-toting contractor who promises to give your kitchen a nifty makeover in no time whatsoever. Here is the guy you can count on to get the job done. Just look at those references! Yet, by the time he drives off months later, the kitchen is in a shambles and you are stuck with a bill several times higher than the initial estimate. Turns out the job was more complicated than it seemed, but what say we take a crack at remodelling the master bath?

That pretty much summarises the American experience with war since the end of the Cold War. By common consent, when it comes to skills and gadgets, US forces are in a league of their own. Yet, when it comes to finishing the job on schedule and on budget, their performance has been woeful. Indeed, these days, the US absolves itself of any responsibility to finish wars that it starts. When America has had enough, it simply leaves, pretending that when US forces exit the scene, the conflict is officially over. In 2011, when the last American troops crossed from Iraq into Kuwait, President Barack Obama proudly declared that he had made good on his campaign promise to end the Iraq war. Sometime late this year, when the US terminates its combat role in Afghanistan, he will waste no time consigning that war to the past as well. Yet, the Iraq war did not end when the US withdrew. Even with Washington striving mightily to ignore the fact, the violent ethno-sectarian struggle for Iraq triggered by the 2003 US-led invasion continues. In recent days, events such as Al Qaida’s ferocious ‘welcome-to-the-New Year’ assault on the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi — roughly the equivalent of a Confederate army laying siege to Gettysburg sometime during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant — have made it impossible to pretend otherwise.

Events in Afghanistan are likely to follow a similar trajectory. No serious person thinks that the war there — launched even earlier, back in 2001 — will end just because US troops are finally packing up to go home. No doubt the American public will forget Afghanistan as quickly as it forgot Iraq. Yet, as with the Iraq war, the struggle to determine Afghanistan’s fate will continue, its duration and outcome no less uncertain.

The truth is something few people in the national security establishment are willing to confront: Confusing capability with utility, the US knows how to start wars, but has seemingly forgotten how to conclude them. Yet, concluding a war on favourable terms — a concept formerly known as victory — is the object of the exercise. For the US, victory has become a lost art. This unhappy verdict applies whether US forces operate conventionally (employing high-tech “shock and awe” tactics) or unconventionally (“winning hearts and minds”).

As a consequence, instead of promoting stability — perhaps the paramount US interest not only in the Islamic world, but also globally — Washington’s penchant for armed intervention since the end of the Cold War, and especially since 9/11, has tended to encourage just the opposite. In effect, despite spilling much blood and expending vast amounts of treasure, US military exertions have played into the hands of America’s adversaries, misleadingly lumped together under the rubric of “terrorists”.

How can America explain this yawning gap between intention and outcome? Fundamentally, a pronounced infatuation with armed might has led senior civilian officials, regardless of party, and senior military leaders, regardless of service, to misunderstand and misapply the military instrument. Force is good for some things, pre-eminently for defending what is already yours. Not content to defend, however, the US in recent decades has sought to use force to extend its influence, control and values.

In a world divided between haves and have-nots, between postmodern and pre-modern, expecting coercion to produce reconciliation, acceptance or submission represents the height of folly. So, force employed by the US in faraway places serves mostly to inflame further resistance — a statement that is true whether America is talking about putting “boots on the ground” or raining down Hellfire missiles.

What then is to be done? That which Washington is least capable of undertaking: Those charged with formulating policy must think anew. For starters, that means lowering expectations regarding the political effectiveness of war, which is demonstrably limited. Take force off the metaphorical table to which policymakers regularly refer. Rather than categorising violence as a preferred option, revive the tradition of treating it as a last resort. Then get serious about evaluating the potential for employing alternative forms of power, chiefly economic and cultural, to advance American interests. The result will not be a panacea, but it will not cost as much as open-ended war. And rather than creating new problems, this alternative approach may just solve some old ones.

— Los Angeles Times

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of History and International Relations at Boston University.