A New Foreign Policy Framework?
Lance on Aug 27 2007 at 9:38 pm | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Lance's Page, Notes on the war
Taylor Owen assesses Samantha Powers attempt to construct a realistic progressive Foreign Policy. He does a credible job, and the exchange in the comments between he, David Adesnik and Patrick Porter is interesting as well. I have made this point of David’s, and only half as well, before:
The fundamental flaw you can ascribe to the neocons is perhaps their overinvested faith in the Bush administration. But in general, why do we view and judge an entire school of thought by the standard of Iraq? Is that fair? One can argue that the realists under Bush Pere got Gulf War I terribly wrong when they left a murderous and dangerous dictator back into power, and when they opposed many successful humanitarian interventions in Sierra Leone and Kosovo (just as the neocons, along with liberals, supported these efforts). And yet we don’t measure realist success or failure as an ideology because of these blunders, nor do we dismiss their opinion leaders because of these past failures. Let’s apply the same standard, then, to neocons.
He makes other points about some of the claims about what the neo-cons actually argued for that are often ignored as well. The neo-cons have been brought low, but they have certainly looked good in the past to many, and the same with people such as Holbrooke, and other liberals. Most ways of looking at foreign policy have had their moments when they have looked good and bad. The Neo-cons were filled with confidence and many ears were cocked their way for a reason, and that confidence was far less deserved than they thought. That was a key reason for some of their failures. We will do ourselves great harm if we over estimate their errors, and over generalize them, and even greater harm if we accept uncritically the overly confident claims of their competitors who have the virtue of not having the benefits of their approaches subject to any falsification at the moment.
Sphere: Related Content
The trick is, Gulf War I was a specific war with a specific objective: to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. Doing anything beyond that would have been nasty mission bloat. And, ironically, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney at the time argued against occupying Baghdad because it would lead to years of quagmire. Funny!
Sierra Leone and Kosovo are not real examples, either. Neither was really a successful humanitarian intervention — Sierra Leone is an exception in African interventions (actions in Rwanda, Sudan, Congo, Angola, and so on have been considerably less successful), and Kosovo is still on the brink of warfare thanks to obtuse Eurocrats.
Oh, and where do they get off calling the Army’s command structure “decentralized?” That is the opposite of reality.
Okay, how about interventions that were considered successful by liberal interventionists, as well as neo-cons. Success is also relative to what it would be like without the intervention. David also says “arguably” about Gulf War I. The point is to challenge peoples assumptions about the neo-cons because of Iraq, and to point out the difficulties of asserting some yawning chasm of brilliance on behalf of competing frameworks.
That is what they decided, though many people here in the US were not so sure of that until it was made clear. They certainly could have chosen another objective, such as ending the reign of the Gulfs most destabilizing ruler. That they chose to limit their objective doesn’t keep it from being a mistake, or make it one.
Many find such restraint admirable, though it is not necessarily so. WWII (heh) ended up with very different objectives than originally envisioned. I am glad it did. If those decisions had ended up badly I would possibly not be so glad. No way to know, but the idea that war is only responsible with some fixed objective ahead of time that is then never deviated from is unhistorical and pretty silly. We will inevitably end up accepting less in some ways and try and achieve more in others. WWII has examples of both. Korea is another example of a war where our objectives had to change.
Vietnam is an example of where our ultimate objective was kept the same, regardless of the changes in how we would achieve it. Unfortunately that led to the war being fought in a rather odd manner. We spent much of the war pretending to fight an indigenous insurgency while actually locked in a battle with another state. Thus, no matter what success we had against that insurgency (and from ‘68 on the insurgency was pretty much defeated) the other state was hardly dealt with though whole divisions from that state were entering the country. That myth was so steadfastly held to that well educated people still act as if South Vietnam fell to an indigenous insurgency rather than a massive armored assault form a well supplied invader.
Objectives change, and whether it was wise or not to leave Saddam in power should be judged on that particular set of facts, not some arbitrary criteria such as that was what we started out to do, which neither had to be stuck to or chosen in the first place. Also, regardless of whether it was correct or not, Cheney certainly has the right and responsibility to reevaluate what he believed at the time.
Finally, years of quagmire may have been inevitable (was it, or did we screw it up? I find people decide based on whatever tool works best at the moment) but does that mean we shouldn’t do it? I think that is a narrow vision of the reasons we should or should not use military force. Once again, had it taken several more years to defeat the axis powers (say D-Day had failed, and/or we had not been so fortunate at Midway) would that mean it shouldn’t be attempted? I am not saying WWII and Iraq are the same, I am pointing out the problems with making such things principles. The Powell doctrine writ large, avoid messy situations, overwhelming force, leave as soon as you can, ignore counterinsurgency and small war capabilities because we won’t fight them in the first place. It is really not all that different than Rumsfeld except in how they view the weaponry and size of the force. Rumsfeld likes speed and efficiency, Powell lower risk and numbers. Patton versus Montgomery.
The problem is that the most pressing matters may be messy situations, quagmires, whatever you want to call it. So the real answer may be we need to prepare ourselves for those kinds of war, including the emotional and political issues of being in them. We can call Iraq a war of choice, as misleading as that is, but we may be in quagmires whether we like it or not in the future. In fact, if we pull out of Iraq I am pretty much banking on it.