Posted by Shyam Moondra
This week, America marks the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan war, the longest running war in the nation's history. The Afghanistan campaign began soon after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. mainland on September 11, 2001. And then we started yet another war in Iraq to topple the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein and seize Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. has become a habitual warrior with perpetual military campaigns undertaken by its armed forces around the world. After the World War II, the U.S. has been militarily involved in the Korean peninsula (1950-1953), Vietnam (1964-1973), Iranian hostage crisis (1979-1980), Lebanon civil war (1982-1984), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Gulf war (1991), Somalia (1992-1993), Bosnia (1995), and Kosovo (1999). Not to forget an assorted collection of skirmishes around the world involving Cuba, Guatemala, Angola, Cambodia, Laos, Dominican Republic, Philippines, Iran, Iraq no-fly zone, Haiti, Kenya, Somalia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia, Liberia, Chile, Albania, Zaire (Congo), China (to protect Taiwan isles), Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, etc. It seems like the U.S. is addicted to wars. When discussing the Pentagon’s budgetary needs, even politicians often talk in terms of how many wars the Pentagon can fight simultaneously. Our defense planning presumes that we will always be involved in wars. On the other hand, other major military powers such as Russia and China, have had less frequent armed conflicts and they spend a lot less on defense than we do. After the World War II, during the Cold War, the former Soviet Union invaded East European countries and imposed the communist rule there and in the 1980's they invaded Afghanistan. More recently, Russian military has fought against insurgents in Chechnya and invaded Georgia. China invaded India during the 1960's but more recently it has had some minor skirmishes with the neighboring countries (such as Vietnam) over the territorial disputes involving some tiny islands in the South China Sea.
In modern history, the Democratic Presidents, in general, have been reluctant to engage in wars while the Republican Presidents have been more eager to flex military muscle to achieve their foreign policy goals. President John Kennedy (D) tried very hard to not let the Cuban missile crisis turn into a major conflict between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. President Kennedy also resisted the temptation to get involved in Vietnam. While President Lyndon Johnson (D) escalated the military campaign in Vietnam, it was President Richard Nixon (R) who expanded the bombing campaign to include neighboring countries such as Laos and Cambodia. President Jimmy Carter (D) was extremely reluctant to use military force; he was perceived as a weak president which led the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan. Even when Carter tried to use military, for example to free the American hostages in Iran, he failed. President Ronald Reagan (R) was more open to the use of military (Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.). President H. W. Bush (R) ordered a major military campaign against Iraq to expel the Iraqi invaders from Kuwait. President Bill Clinton (D) was a reluctant Commander-in-Chief; he was primarily focused on economic issues (his election campaign strategy was based on “it’s economy, stupid”). Clinton entered the Kosovo campaign only after the Europeans kept urging him to do so and Clinton sent the American troops to Somalia in the midst of a civil war only after a drumbeat from the Congressional Republicans. Some argue that Clinton's response to Al Qaeda’s terrorist acts in Kenya and Yemen was too timid which only emboldened Al Qaeda. After the Al Qaeda attack in September 2001, President George W. Bush (R) held nothing back and unleashed the U.S. military might in Afghanistan and Iraq at a cost of over $1 trillion. President Barack Obama (D) has been very eager to end our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and he has been very guarded against getting sucked too deep into the civil war of Libya. Like Clinton, Obama's main focus is on economy and jobs and he is not interested in creating distractions by engaging in wars.
Most presidents are aware that it’s easy to get in but it’s very hard to get out of a conflict, given the uncertain outcomes of the wars. Bush invaded Iraq to seize weapons of mass destruction but when those weapons were not found, he changed the mission to fight Al Qaeda, and then to establish democracy, and then to nation building at a cost of almost a trillion dollars. The same thing happened in Afghanistan – the initial mission was to remove the Taliban from power because they gave sanctuary to Al Qaeda, but then the mission changed to establishing democracy, and then to nation building.
In a recent Pew opinion poll, 45% of the general population said neither of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been worth the costs. And half of the public say the wars have not made them feel more secured. Even among the post-9/11 veterans, only one-third say the wars have been worth the costs. In Afghanistan, as soon as we leave, it’s almost certain that the Taliban will takeover the government. So the question is should we be spending enormous amount of money to keep the Taliban in check just for a short duration? It seems like we are fighting a battle in vain and wasting our valuable resources at a time when we are experiencing severe financial crisis at home. During the 1980’s, the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan but the Soviet army was forced to leave in defeat. Given the tenacity of the mobile Taliban fighters, it’s almost certain that as soon as the NATO forces leave by 2015, the Taliban would prevail over the Afghan forces. In retrospect, the best strategy would have been for Bush to negotiate a settlement with the weakened Taliban right after we installed the Karzai government there.
The Pentagon is a wasteland of tax-dollars. We spend in excess of 4.7% of our GDP on defense (up from 3.1% in 2001). The more military power we have, the more eager we seem to become to use it. Republicans are haggling over a few billions of dollars for children's programs at home while they have no qualm against spending billions of dollars in far flung places, even though they are not a direct security threat to the United States. Having enormous military assets means we are the de facto world police. The history has clearly demonstrated that our military involvement in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have cost us the lives of thousands of our soldiers and trillions of dollars, but they have really not brought out the results worthy of those sacrifices. Knowing that we have the most powerful military in the world has sometimes led us to erroneously believe that we have the right to intervene militarily anywhere and everywhere at whim. In many cases, even though other countries can deal with their regional crises themselves but they just find it more convenient and less costly to let the well-armed (and always eager to oblige) Yankees do it. There is so much money lying around at the Pentagon that they don't care if they paid $500 for toilet seats or $100 for hammers. During the Iraq war, billions of dollars of cash simply vanished in thin air (even today, it's unaccounted for) or paid to the contractors without any proper paperwork (so nobody can tell what services were provided by those contractors). Per the government audits, the suppliers of defense equipment routinely overbill the government.
Recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have not made us more secured. Our presence in Muslim countries has fueled anti-Americanism among the local populations and strengthened the hands of Islamic extremists. Our involvement in the World War I and II had moral underpinnings and we were treated by the local populations as heroes or saviors, but that is not the case in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama was wise to not jump into the civil war in Libya and wait until the Arab League formally asked to intervene. Also, Obama was correct in limiting the campaign to air support and not putting soldiers on the ground that would have been more inflammatory to some of the Islamic fundamentalists in the Muslim world.
The “Arab Spring” revolution sweeping through Northern Africa and Middle-East is being driven by the youth who are angry because of high unemployment and lack of opportunities to realize their dreams. They used Facebook and Twitter to galvanize the revolution. Thanks to Internet, the youngsters in these Muslim countries were knowledgeable about how the kids lived and what they did in developed countries, and they very much wanted to emulate those life styles. The older generation was also unhappy but they were too afraid to speak up in police states. However, when they saw the brave young people protesting in masses, they overcame their fear and felt like they had nothing to lose. The protests were not fueled by any Islamic fundamentalist groups. This revolution is in its truest sense a revolution of the masses across all ethnic groups and not driven by any particular anti-western group. The younger generation doesn't subscribe to the old rigid Islamic rules. Besides, they will be busy rebuilding their countries, so they wouldn't have time for radical indoctrination. Islamic radicalism will thus decline. This is the best opportunity for the U.S. to scale down its military operations in the Muslim world and eventually cease these operations completely. The U.S. should focus more on interacting with the younger generation to help them rebuild their countries and work collaboratively on technologies, education, and trade so that they can improve their own living standards.
Strong military helps protect our security and economic interests around the world and it serves as a deterrent to potential adversaries. Wars afford an opportunity of hands-on field experience to our armed forces that keeps them on their toes and sharp. Our huge investments in new technologies and military strategies make our military the best in the world. For example, the use of drones, the unmanned vehicles, such as the one used in last week's killing of Al Qaeda's Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, is proving to be very effective. Our defense funding also keeps our military industrial complex financially healthy that enables them to keep churning out new breakthrough technologies. On the negative side, our constant engagement in multiple wars is proving to be a huge financial burden on taxpayers that is becoming increasingly untenable given our high debt and budget deficit. Obama seems to have understood that the best strategy is to combine first-rate intelligence, special operations, and the use of remote capabilities (e.g., unmanned drones and other high-tech systems) to achieve the desired results at minimum cost. His focus seems to be not on big military but on smart military.
Presently, a Congressional Super Committee is trying to come up with a deficit reduction plan. If this special congressional panel fails to agree on the mandated deficit savings of $1.5 trillion by this November, there will be across-the-board cuts in all discretionary spending, including the defense budget. The potential for sharp cuts in the Pentagon budget has got Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, quite worried because that would force us to fight wars more selectively. Now, would that be such a bad thing?
