Even before the economic crisis hit, the United States was overextended abroad.
Somebody is going to have to whisper in President Obama's ear that the unipolar moment has passed and that the United States can no longer afford its informal worldwide empire. Even though the looming economic meltdown will likely be serious-and maybe even cataclysmic, the foreign policy chattering classes of both parties are on autopilot and have not yet abandoned their interventionist consensus. A rude awakening awaits.
Even before the economic crisis hit, the United States was overextended abroad. One measure of that imperial overstretch was that the U.S. accounted for roughly 43 percent of the world's military spending but only 20 percent of the world's GDP. Another indication of that overextension was that even by thinning out troops in Europe and East Asia — where the threat has long gone but the U.S. continues to provide security for very wealthy nations that should be providing it entirely for themselves — the United States military strained to prosecute the two small wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq, but the U.S. national security establishment will make that difficult. Despite the reduction of violence to the levels of 2004 (which we thought were horrendous back then), Iraq still teeters on the brink of a full-blown, multi-sided civil war. Apprehension about such conflict will likely compel the U.S. national security elite, in a reprise of the early pre-escalation years of Vietnam, to recommend redefining combat troops as "advisors" so that more can remain in Iraq.
Obama will likely withdraw some forces from Iraq but will send them to the second nation-building quagmire in Afghanistan. During the election campaign, Obama said that he saw Afghanistan as the central front in the war on terror and pledged to augment U.S. forces there. Doubling down in Afghanistan by sending as many as 30,000 additional forces will make the war Obama's. A liberal, Obama had to show during the election campaign that he was no wimp; and to be patriotic nowadays requires pledging allegiance to some military adventure — even if it is making the situation in Southwest Asia more dangerous.
Not only has the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign destabilized Pakistan by pushing the Taliban into that country from Afghanistan, any non-Muslim U.S. occupation of a Muslim land spins up Islamists and has actually fueled the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, the rise of militant Islamism is more dangerous than anywhere else.
The "mission creep" in Afghanistan — common to virtually all nation-building escapades — from catching or killing Osama bin Laden to rebuilding Afghan society and undertaking anti-drug operations, has diverted attention from the original purpose of trying to neutralize the perpetrators of 9/11.
And the insurgency in Afghanistan — because of its lower level of development, rougher terrain, rural insurgency, more zealous insurgency, corrupt government, and a sanctuary for Afghan guerrillas in Pakistan — will be a much harder nut to crack than taming down the violence in Iraq.
In all likelihood, Obama, hemmed in by his own campaign rhetoric (in Afghanistan) and the interventionist U.S. national security establishment's perpetual fear of "instability" (in Iraq and the Persian Gulf), will remain mired in two quagmires at a time when the U.S. economy is running up trillions of dollars in deficits and debt.
The bad news is that most waning empires — for example, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union — don't realize that they are declining until it is too late. For example, the French futilely tried to reassert control in Indochina after World War II and failed in bitterly opposing Algeria's independence using armed force; the British, along with the French and Israelis, conducted an ill-fated invasion of Egypt in 1956; and the Soviets became mired in a losing counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The U.S. may very well now be in similar circumstances.
But the good news is that all we have to do is change the way we look at things. If we drop the abnormal, post-World War II military-centric U.S. Empire and go back to the traditional U.S. foreign policy, we can still have much influence in the world, while dramatically cutting costs in money and lives. The founders realized that the United States had the geographic advantage of being on the other side of the world from major conflicts, thus rendering most such dust-ups unimportant to U.S. security. Therefore, dismantling the overseas empire by totally pulling out of Iraq and withdrawing most U.S. forces from Afghanistan, along with bringing home all other U.S. foreign-based troops, would save lives and many dollars, which could help spur economic recovery at home. Some intelligence assets, unpiloted vehicles, Special Forces and CIA personnel could remain behind in Afghanistan to try to capture or kill bin Laden and his followers; but blowback terrorism would likely drop if a more humble foreign policy were followed.
A soft landing for a declining empire is better than a hard one. Unfortunately, Obama seems captive to the liberal wing of the interventionist foreign policy establishment, just as George W. Bush was ensnared by the right wing of that same militaristic consensus.
First published by the Independent Institute. Republished with permission.
Oh, goody, yet another anti-war whine by Eland for us to deflate. Eland has been hyping this stuff with the same sophomoric campus-radical arguments he never bothers enhancing, supporting, defending or retooling to changed circumstance for so long I begin to think it is he that is asleep on autopilot. Answering the elusive Eland is ticklish as he never responds to the many and valid criticisms made of his ideas; despite which, he persists in posting them to everyone’s annoyance and frustration. Much of what he wrote here is lifted verbatim from articles he wrote many years ago (no doubt while smoking pot in a commune wearing nothing but his cheap brass peace symbol), rearranged to make it seem a fresh pile, but leaving gaps that make the whole disjointed. Be that as it may, let’s see if we can lend some perspective to his gibberish.
First, as to “…the United States can no longer afford its informal worldwide empire …” The United States has no empire to speak of. Empire consists in having a political unit encompassing a great expanse of territory and/or variety of disparate peoples under a single sovereign authority, and having as its head an emperor; generally (but not always) acquired as a result of conquest and exploited to the advantage of a ruling class. Empires can also be beneficial and may be preferred by its subject territories and peoples; as sometimes occurred in the Hungarian Empire and Han Dynasty. Rome had an empire because it had direct dominion over other nations and peoples who were not themselves Romans. The same is true of the British, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian empires; which were true empires in the full sense of domination. We, briefly, had a budding empire when we governed the Philippines and Haiti, each the product of liberal-progressive policies we long since abandoned. Iraq can be said to have briefly been a ‘proto-empiricism’, but only for as long as it took to re-establish self-governance as measured in months. So far, the economic advantages seem to be accruing to the Iraqis and our ‘dominance’ limited to threats of leaving too soon. If this is empiricism, it is a strange way to go at it. Accuse neo-cons of nation-building then, if you must, but not empiricism.
Empire has another meaning which Merriam-Webster renders as: “something resembling a political empire; especially an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control”, but this is more political contrivance than substance. Yes, our system does have some attributes of an empire, but this can be said of every government on earth, however feeble so long as it wields some influence over any other. That is a criterion too diffuse to be really meaningful. The accusation of empiricism, then, is a hackneyed contrivance all anti-establishmentarians indulge in, but few actually believe.
Eland next opines “Even before the economic crisis hit, the United States was overextended abroad. One measure of that imperial overstretch was that the U.S. accounted for roughly 43 percent of the world’s military spending but only 20 percent of the world’s GDP. Another indication of that overextension was that even by thinning out troops in Europe and East Asia — where the threat has long gone but the U.S. continues to provide security for very wealthy nations that should be providing it entirely for themselves — the United States military strained to prosecute the two small wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” These are apples and oranges comparisons.
When making comparisons, it is generally a good idea to compare like things, which is not what Eland does. That we account for 43% of world defense spending only confirms what we already know – that we are the ‘big dog’. That we reap 20% of world GDP while only 5% of world population confirms we are hugely productive. The fact we account for 43% of the world’s defense spending may indicate an excess or it may indicate the world is generally peaceful, or it may mean we invest wisely in keeping what we have built. In this instance, Eland has given us two datums, neither of which alone or in combination says what he says it says. What he neglects to provide is historical defense spending rates as would provide us a measure of how much we spend in ‘adventuring’ versus how much we stand to save by cutting.
Historically, U.S. military spending as a percent of GDP must be broken into pre-WWII, WWII, and post-WWII. Prior to WWII, the U.S. was a power but not a world-class ‘super-power’ with all that implies. Post-WWII, we were suddenly the world’s pre-eminent superpower, and have so remained. So, WWII represents the transition from ordinary-power to superpower status and military obligations. It was, however, a unique transition in the annals of superpower emergence. Usually, the transition is accompanied by (at most) a trebling or quadrupling of spending followed by a return to spending closer to but still higher than pre-superpower levels. This cost is the empire maintenance factor. Past empires shifted this cost onto conquered subjects (plus anything else they could shift), but modern ‘liberal’ states absorb it on the ‘American’ model. What made the WWII transition unique was military spending increased to over 40% of GPD; ten times greater than pre-WWII, pre-superpower spending. Pre-WWII defense spending was a steady 2% of GDP going back to the American Civil War which even the new tax on income did not affect, and 2% before that also. 2%, then, represents our ‘isolationist’ rate of defense spending. Since WWII and after a period of re-adjustment, peacetime military spending has averaged 4% of GDP. Even in the period of heaviest defense cuts (1990s), defense spending never dropped below 3.6%. In the 7 years since 9/11, defense spending has gone no higher than 5% and was generally close to the 40 year average of 4% throughout; indicating our war on terror has been conducted ‘on the cheap’.
Whether or not we can “still afford” this level of spending depends on more than just fiscal cost. Admittedly, we are in a recession and that does call for some trimming, but why make defense the first or only thing cut. If our first priority as a nation is defense, then surely that is the thing to cut last. Certainly, there is far more fat to be cut from welfare, bloated and redundant government agencies, and pork than we can ever squeeze from defense. If I live in a really bad neighborhood and forced to choose between dropping an income-enhancing class in glass-blowing versus selling off my home-security system (Smith & Wesson), I can readily see the glass class can wait (what good will it do me if I am dead). Selling the gun, I’ll save maybe $200, whereas cutting the class saves $800. If, in the other hand, the neighborhood is relatively safe (occasional muggings) and the Smith & Wesson something of a status symbol for impressing my gun-loving friends, maybe I’d opt to trade the fancy S&W for a cheap Beretta plus some cash (net $50). To me, there’s no contest; I drop the class first and if necessary trade the S&W in for the Beretta, but never cut so deep I neglect deterring the bad-guys. If cutting means wholesale abandonment of defenses resulting in yet another 9/11, then what is Eland’s calculus of savings; how many dollars do we assign each human life? What if one of those lives happens to be Eland’s; will he be so cavalier?
However, Eland assures us this is not a matter of defending lives; that Iraq is purely an exercise in empire building, having nothing to do with protecting lives or home. Fair enough, but how does he show this. Nor can I find anywhere else he has done this arithmetic or referenced anyone else doing it. I have read quite a few of his articles, and he is yet to produce a shred of evidence lives are or are not saved by our actions in Iraq, despite him being one of the founders of his ‘think’ tank. Does he only think about this stuff, or does he ever verify his sweeping assumptions? I do know we have had no further 9/11 type attacks on our soil since Bush took the fight to al Qaeda on its own turf. No doubt, some of that is due to tighter security at home, but a close look at that reveals gapping holes that don’t even begin to account for the improvement. Part is also due to better intelligence and the will to act on it, but much of that intelligence is coming straight from battlefield operations sweeping up al Qaeda operatives. Say what you will about Iraq being the wrong place, it has drawn terrorists to ground of our choosing (away from us).
Several domestic attacks have been stopped in their tracks, but this too is part and parcel of an aggressive prosecution of war. Suppose for a moment we do draw down our middle-east presence to economize. How long can we suppose al Qaeda will miss an opportunity to crow to the world it was they who defeated and chased us out? How long before they begin reversing the work we have so far accomplished before can become deeply rooted? And, how long before they discover the will to fight them only exists until the next president. Right now, some of what Eland is saying about Iraq is true, but some also false as the Surge demonstrated a few short months ago. Even now, Eland is trying to mischaracterize the Surge as a failure, insinuating the results were temporary. Whether or not they were temporary depends solely on what we do next. Stand and let it sink roots – or run away as Eland prefers.
To the pacifist, dangers are always ‘in our head’. Eland is convinced of this and no amount of 9/11 repeats will suffice to convince him otherwise. He is willing to trade down our level of security until and unless it touches him personally. But, that doesn’t leave much margin for error if he’s wrong. Me, I like my bad-guys kept at arms length and happier still seeing them dead and buried.
Bob: Have you noticed that Ivan Eland, who is a “Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes, and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy,” never responds to any criticisms of his articles?
I’m always suspicicious of people who put their thoughts out there for public debate, and then punt when the debate comes.
Still, responding as you have serves a valuable purpose, because it doesn’t allow this foolishness disguised as intelligent thought to get away without having the glaring defects in Eland’s core arguments pointed out (which, by the way, are always a variation of the same theme).
You’d think these great minds would have more than one thought to share with us.
Phil,
Yes, I’ve come to the same conclusion and made the same comment about this guy. Eland is another hit-&-run pundit. At first, I thought it was just here and just us, but a search for other venues in which he responds to criticisms came up equally empty. He doesn’t even respond publicly on his own I.I. site or Anti-War.com where he’s a regular and guaranteed loyal support. You can send him email in hopes of a one-on-one chat (assuming he’ll answer with more than a ‘thank you for your insightful input’ reply), but that is hardly the same as risking a public debate. No doubt he is ‘too busy’ writing his next masterpiece (cutting & pasting is soooo… hard!).
He does have one or two other themes he likes to hammer, but they are part and parcel of the same leftist swill. How he gets away with calling himself an independent libertarian is the wonder because he’s got all the earmarks of a campus anti-war, anti-government, ‘can’t-we-all-just-get-along’ harpy. Very hard taking seriously anyone who still thinks Carter was one of our better presidents ( http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2408 ).
Ever notice how easy it to say the most outrageous things so long as they are sufficiently PC, but stating an obvious truth gets howled down or snubbed?
Peace, bro’