Posted by Anna Simons and LTC Joe McGraw in Hard Power, Soft Power
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For the moment, the U.S. military can still apply overwhelmingly decisive force – whether we’re talking lethal Special Operations teams or waves of bombers. At the same time, no one has our logistical reach for responding globally to natural disasters and other unforeseen catastrophes like Ebola.
We should build on these dual strengths. Indeed, the real shift that is needed in the defense budget and in national security debates isn’t about who or what we have, but about what we deploy our forces to do. Forget trying to re-make the military to fight violent extremists the way violent extremists want us to fight them. Instead, we should re-build foreign policy to fit our military capabilities and re-tilt the playing field to advantage us.
How about “don’t tread on me” married to “to each his own.” Just consider: if the U.S. got out of the business of telling other people how to live their lives – which is what respecting others’ sovereignty should mean – then the U.S. could demand of other governments the other quid pro quo sovereignty promises: namely, no one hailing from any other country should seek to cause us harm.
If foreign leaders were held accountable for the actions of their citizens, if they were made to understand that in exchange for the deference they receive as heads of state their duty is to guarantee security to their citizens and to us, they’d have to deliver better services. Otherwise, they risk an insurgency or worse. Meanwhile, let just one non-state actor harbored in another country attack the U.S. again, and here’s what violating our sovereignty would mean: that government would have to root out our attackers or we would be obliged to consider it complicit, too.
In other words, if people elsewhere prefer to live under a Caliphate or under a leader like Vladimir Putin, so be it. If they don’t want to, however, let them do the lion’s share of the fighting. Let them organize. Let them demonstrate that they are capable of uniting under a more viable alternative – one that can govern effectively, deliver services equitably, and will be a steward of regional peace. Then, ‘we the people’ can decide: is this an entity we want to support, in which case the U.S. Senate can ratify a treaty that makes clear to everyone what our support consists of.
No doubt this will strike some readers as too unrealistic and far-fetched. Clearly, we wouldn’t declare war on Russia over irredentism in its backyard. But, if not, why are we lending desultory support to Ukraine? Ditto for our positively schizophrenic treatment of Bashar al-Assad; we wanted him gone, encouraged the rebels, but refused to help them remove him, and now we need his help.
Imagine if we instead had a far clearer “don’t tread on me, or else” foreign policy. And say we had applied such a policy in the wake of 9/11. Mullah Omar either would have turned over Usama bin Laden or Mullah Omar would no longer be alive. Afghans would have chosen their own next leader in their own way. We wouldn’t still be in Afghanistan, still trying to cajole Afghans into a form of government and democracy that suits us.
One reason the U.S. should get out of the business of propping up regimes is that by doing so we prolong chaos and uncertainty. Cutting off the aid spigot is critical for two additional reasons. First, what too few Americans appreciate is the extent to which foreign aid projects don’t just corrupt, but corrupt absolutely. After all, why should a foreign government have to provide for its own citizens if we are willing to do so for them?
Second, our serial experimentation hasn’t really worked. The ‘developing world’ has been the developing world for decades. Have any of our taxpayer-funded aid projects really made a sufficiently significant dent?
Pilferable projects and cash feed the dysfunction we say we want to stop. Which isn’t to say that we should halt efforts to offer education or training. Those are unstealable. Nor should we stop delivering assistance in the immediate aftermath of unforeseeable natural disasters.
Indeed, there are numerous reasons why the United States should strive to remain the globe’s most robust First Responder. Not only is this what all good neighbors should do and what American citizens always seek to do anyway, but there is no surer way to show people elsewhere how well democracy and a free market economy can work, since without them we wouldn’t be able to deliver the mountains of assistance we do.
Assisting during the triage phase of an earthquake, tsunami, or pandemic is one thing. But prolonged assistance or a lengthy intervention is something altogether different. We Americans are unbelievably generous as a people. And we are great logisticians. But we don’t have what it takes to undo others’ chronic problems. Also, despite what many might think, we are too egalitarian and too impatient to successfully make people over in our image since that takes an imperial ruthlessness we don’t possess.
Our greatest strength? Directness – ideal for getting to the scene quickly to do immediate good, but also ideal for getting to the scene quickly to do immense damage. Reflect on our dual capabilities of relieving people from, or introducing people to, devastation, and we would save untold blood and treasure by re-calibrating our foreign policy to make the most prudent possible use of the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps we have.
At the same time, reinvigorating sovereignty would liberate others to make much more of themselves, too. It would force those heads of state in the path of ISIL, Boko Haram, al Shabaab, or you-name-the-armed-group to live up to their obligations to their citizens. They (too) would have to make far better use of the resources they already have – or succumb.
Consider what else Washington would gain if it took the military’s core strengths and made more (rather than less) of them. Members of the military would be able to concentrate on their comparative advantages, which come from being impatient, generous, capable, and direct. These are among the attributes that non-Americans used to admire in us – exactly the attributes that prolonged un-declared, fitful counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency campaigns squander.
Posted by Anna Simons and LTC Joe McGraw in Hard Power, Soft Power
