Notes, Quotes, and Synopsis of Andrew Bacevich’s
The Limits of Power
by J. Wells Hamilton
One sentence summary:
Background information:Bacevich is a retired army Colonel and a current instructor at Boston University. This book is a part of “The American Empire Project”, an effort by authors such as Noam Chomsky to expose the de-facto empire instated around the world by the United States. Bacevich has published books and articles for at least the last ten years on foreign policy and diplomacy.
Notes & Framework:
Economic & Cultural Crisis
The “pursuit of happiness” has become for Americans a personal quest to acquire, consume, to indulge, and to shed whatever constraints might interfere with those endeavors. Efforts to satisfy this consumer demand on a national level have driven the U.S. to a condition of profound dependency. Ultimately, this self-gratification threatens the wellbeing of the United States. (16)
o American success has depended on expansion and abundance since its inception.
o From expansion came abundance. From abundance comes substantive freedom. (22)
§ “Not the Constitution, but free land and an abundance of natural resources open to a fit people” makes American democracy possible. (23)
o The “tradition of freedom” is a farce. Once the US faced a limit on its resources (land, natural resources) did it begin to exert itself in order to “liberate” others. (19)
o The additional freedom created in the 1960s is a result of our emergence from WW2 as the most powerful and rich nation on Earth. More power abroad meant greater abundance at home, which paved the way for greater freedom—gay rights, racial equality, etc.
o Economic success once enhanced and supported military success. Now, it is our military that is being used to keep our economy on life support.
o The shift occurred after the Vietnam War. The costs of the war destabilized the economy. (29)
§ We can see evidence of this in resulting devaluation of the dollar and suspension of its convertibility to gold. (29)
§ This is also evident in increased reliance on imports – goods and resources. Also, the ’73 Oil Shock. (30)
o Americans were faced with a fateful choice: live within their means or start using military force to perpetuate expansion and in turn, abundance. They chose the latter. Addressing the nation, Carter proposed Americans to conserve, and to get off foreign oil. (35) Carter’s message failed, and Reagan took his place.
o Reagan gave moral sanction to the empire of consumption.
§ Drove for more power, more prosperity. “Don’t cut back, fight back”. “We must decide that ‘less’ is not enough.”(37) The Middle East suddenly starts becoming an important region for U.S. economic wellbeing.
§ Government grew under Reagan by 5 percent. Reagan demanded an invulnerable US, and established the mind-set that military power can assure the essential American lifestyle of gaudy excess.
§ The US ceased to be a creditor nation. Federal and individual citizen’s budgets slid into debt.
o The Persian Gulf- The spend-without-limit peacefully ended the cold war, but was also the reason the US got embroiled in the Persian Gulf. Reagan put in efforts to secure US domination over the gulf in order to prevent recurrence of the oil shocks of ’73 and ’79. (49)
§ Military presence is in the Persian Gulf to maintain the flow of oil, mitigating the implications of American energy dependence.
§ Operation Desert Storm was a derivative of Reagan’s policy, and really only led to new complications. One is a permanent, problematic US military presence.
· Few Americans stood up against the military presence, the bombing, and the sanctions.
· Rumsfeld echoes Reagan: “We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter.”
· Bush added a twisted moral base to it our presence there. We were now “fighting evil.”
§ American lifestyle didn’t change during the wars.
· Personal savings rate continued to plummet.
· “Americans subscribed to a limited-liability version of patriotism, one that emphasized the display of bumper stickers in preference to shouldering a rucksack.” (63)
o Conclusion: Iraq came apart at the seams due to a generation of profligacy that had produced strategic insolvency.
o U.S. was running out of soldiers and funds.
o Americans have been complicit so long about the use of their country that they’ve lost command of its destiny. (65)
o The reciprocal relationship between expansionism, abundance, and freedom—each reinforcing the other—no longer exists.
o Rather than confront this reality, Americans since the early 80s have attempted to wish reality away.
Political Crisis:
False ideas on security and freedom lead to a swelling bureaucracy, and confidence misplaced with untrustworthy “wise men”. These problems have led to the Iraq and Afghan wars.
o Successive “emergencies” have swelled federal power and responsibility beyond the scope ever intended by the framers, and beyond usefulness to the nation.
o The Tradition of Freedom is a Myth -“Spreading Freedom” is an ideology that mainly serves to legitimize the exercise of executive power.
§ It in inconsistent- US does nothing in many enslaved countries. “Nothing in this ideology mandates action in support of the ideals it celebrates.” (77)
§ Conviction follows self-interest. This ideology has become hard-wired into the American psyche. It persists not because of its truth, but because it serves the interests of those who created the national security state. (81)
§ This has been used to excuse large military build-ups, government action, and foreign policy.
o The U.S. is plagued with a secret, bloated, and ineffective national security apparatus.
o “Secret” not because its really a matter of national security, but more to hide institutional incompetence and poor performance. The cloak of secrecy helps top brass evade all responsibility. The private on the ground who loses a rifle is punished more than a general who loses a war.
o Institutions are ineffective because of ineptitude and/or disagreement with the president. Example: CIA in the Bay of Pigs – hapless schemes were promoted by the CIA. Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t offer much help, convincing Kennedy that they were either stupid or untrustworthy. (91)
o Higher-ups are not rewarded for candid thought but for political pandering. Second-guessing superiors is not allowed.
o Tommy Franks to Bush: “Sir, I think exactly what my secretary thinks, what he’s ever thought, whatever he will ever think, or whatever he thought he might think.” (99)
o Tommy Franks acted as the Bush Administration’s compliant enabler, allowing to country to proceed with impaling itself on Iraq.
o George Tenet of the CIA told the president exactly what he wanted to hear.
o Conclusion: we ought to consider dismantling an apparatus that demonstrably serves no useful purpose.
o Wise Men– The president has come to rely upon a small circle of advisors rather than on a leaky, obstreperous bureaucracy. These men have been seduced by the idea that military and economic power will bring security.
o Why wise men at all?– Presidents believe wise men are more likely to make good decisions. Shielded from the public, wise men can be relied upon for their candor instead of political, masses-influenced advice.
o Why wise men aren’t a good thing
§ Example: Forrestal - constantly urged prompt action to forestall disaster. He succumbed to the “garrison” mentality, that military power is the optimum method of resolving international issues.
§ Paul Nitze – Facing Soviet atom bomb and Chinese communists, he faced three options: isolationism, preventative war, or “a more rapid build-up”. The third was chosen, and thus a permanent militarizationof US policy and economy was in effect.
§ Paul Wolfowitz – His phrase: “The risks of inaction outweigh the risks of action.” This man’s action led to the gulf war, and the “anticipatory self-defense” IE preventative war.
o Conclusion– The security of power tempted Forrestal, Nitze, and Wolfowitz. In turn, it enshrined preventative war as core US policy after 9/11. The Iraq war is the result of all their work, along with the ideology of national security. Iraq teaches us the following lessons:
o The ideology of national security poses an insurmountable obstacle to sound policy.
o Americans can’t afford a government that doesn’t work.
o Wise men have repeatedly misconstrued and exaggerated threats, with perverse effects. (123)
The Military Crisis:
America’s military has come up short in both Afghanistan and Iraq. They failed to eliminate the leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban movement, and did not provide the quick war expected in Iraq. Why didn’t things go as expected? We believed three false illusions about the US military. We’ve derived the wrong lessons from Iraq.
· False Illusions. Estimates of U.S. military capabilities have been wildly overstated. The global war on terror illustrates this point.
1) The illusion that the U.S. had succeeded in reinventing armed conflict through technology that allows precise, surgical application of extreme force. This illusion led the U.S. to believe it could take the easy way out of targeting a regime, instead of a nation, with full spectrum dominance. Reality: The last twenty years shows that US forces only win decisively if the enemy fights on American terms.
2) The illusion that civilian and military leaders had a common set of principles for application of said dominant force. Namely, we’d fight only when vital interests are at stake and there are clear, attainable objectives. Reality: The restraint learned in Vietnam did not survive the 90s.
3) The illusion that Americans could be counted on to “support our troops.” Reality: 9/11 reaffirmed the popular preference for hiring someone else’s kid to chase terrorists.
4) Conclusion: The gap between what Bush called America’s soldiers to do and what they actually could do defines the military crisis experienced today.
· The lessons currently drawn from America’s post-9/11 experience are the wrong ones. They seek to reconfigure the armed forces to fight “small wars”, to give more power to the generals, and to reconnect soldiering to citizenship:
o Small Wars
§ First wrong “lesson”: Sustained presence will now be the norm. Frequent, protracted, and perpetual presence is reality now. Hard Power and soft power will merge. The officer corps now sees more Iraqs and Afghanistan in the future. Pursuit of global dominance needs both advanced weaponry AND boots on the ground.The facts are:
§ Small Wars always have an imperial context.
§ It is a fallacy that the present foretells the future. This is true from Vietnam, Desert Storm, and probably for GWOT.
§ Solution: Why not pursue more realistic and affordable objectives, abandoning plans to “liberate” the Islamic world, and then configure US forces accordingly? We need to devise a non-imperial foreign policy.
o Giving Power back to the Generals. Second wrong “lesson” is: that civilian meddling back in Washington is the problem, not military performance. We need to tilt balance back to the generals and untie the hands of senior commanders. The facts are:
§ Franks’ American Soldier makes it quite clear that General Franks was in complete control of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, from start to finish.
§ Civilian meddling wasn’t a problem because Franks wouldn’t allow civilians to meddle. Unless American Soldier is a lie, the Wise Men like Rumsfeld aren’t to blame.
§ The quality of American generalship since the end of the cold war has seldom risen above mediocre. It has been consistently disappointing. Civilian meddling, however objectionable, cannot fully explain the disappointing results achieved by U.S. forces since the cold war ended.
· Desert Storm – Schwarzkopf left the Repulican Guard standing and the cease-fire he made assured Saddam’s continued power. (148)
· Somalia – Commanders ignored basic principles of security, and the requirement for unity of command. (148)
· Operation Allied Force – Wesley Clark made idle threats, and Milosevik called his bluffs. His concept of “using fores, not force” didn’t work. (149)
o Why The Draft is a bad, unrealistic Idea. Third wrong “lesson” is: There is a poor relationship between army and society in America. People are removed from the conduct of war. People have little say in its use. Reliance on professional soldiers eviscerates the concept of civic duty. We ought to reinstate the draft, to get people out of the mall and into the streets. It would restore the governmental system of checks and balances. The facts are:
§ A large draftee army is unaffordable. To train, equip, and sustain a military twice as large would cost much more money. (153)
§ The military doesn’t want draftees. Generals and admirals view citizen-soldiers as more trouble than they’re worth. (153)
§ Being against the draft is the easiest stance to take politically. (154)
§ Parents, realistically, will not support this. They are not going to put their kids in danger to support some political ideal. (154)
§ The law would be unenforceable.
§ To anyone with a conscience, sending soldiers back to Iraq or Afghanistan for multiple tours while the rest of the country chills out can hardly seem an acceptable arrangement. It is unfair, unjust, and morally corrosive.(155)
· The Right Lessons from the wars. What is the point of using this superb army of ours if the result is Iraq and Afghanistan? Why has post-cold-war military supremacy not enhanced security, but produced the prospect of open-ended conflict?
1) The Nature of War is fixed: Any notion that innovative techniques and new technologies will subject war to definitive human direction is simply whimsical.
§ The IED and homemade bombs proves that no matter what your amount of technology, war’s nature is fixed as ugly and grindingly tough.
§ The pentagon had believed that technologically enhanced speed yielding both operational and political certainty was a formula for ultimate success. The IED ruined this view.
§ The IED had strategic as well as tactical implications. The US could not attend to other looming threats while tied down to IED-equipped insurgents.
2) The Utility of Force Remains finite:
§ Whether the US has been attempting to liberate or dominate, events in Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that the effort is not working. (161)
§ After four years, Iraqi electrical generation still met barely half of the nation’s requirements. Oil production still has not returned to pre-invasion levels. Fraud, waste, etc are rapant.
§ Afghan drug trade is appalling. (162)
§ Conclusion: As a problem solver, war leaves much to be desired. (162)
3) The Folly of Preventative War
§ Bush thought that 9/11 discredited the cold war concepts of containment and deterrence. The result, preventative war, failed both normatively and pragmatically.
§ So long as war has not broken out, we still have the possibility of avoiding it.
§ A military operation expected to demonstrate the efficacy of preventative war accomplished just the reverse. WMDs proved to be non-existent.
§ Conclusion: Preemptive war is irrational. The country should conform to the Just War tradition.
4) Military officers confuse Strategy with Operations
§ Tommy Franks’ template for victory did not even remotely approximate a strategy. It paid no attention to the aftermath. It had no moral dimension.
§ This naivete leads generals and civilians to assume that quick battlefied victories will make everything else fall into place.
· Conclusion on the Military Crisis: Events have exposed as illusory American pretensions to having mastered war.
o Even more money, technology, or smart leadership will not change the fact that war is out of our control.
o US military performance has been unimpressive.
o America doesn’t need a bigger army. It needs a smaller and more modest foreign policy, that assigns soldiers missions that are consistent with their capabilities.
Conclusion: We must acknowledge the limits of American power. We must accept our limits and work within them.
- United States will cease to lead the west if it abuses the privileges of leadership.
- An open-ended global war is not a strategy. We should instead pursue a strategy of containment. The goal of containment could be to prevent the sponsors of radical Islam from extending their influence.
- We must allow the inadequacies of Islamic extremism to manifest itself.
- Reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
- Abolishing nuclear weapons should be an urgent national security policy.
- They are unusable.
- They do not play a legitimate role in international politics.
- People for whom freedom has become synonymous with consumption and self-actualization will have to sacrifice.
End Synopsis
Key Terms & Concepts
· Ideology of national security
· Niebuhr
· National Security & state, and the apparatus thereof
o The "system"
o Unweildy
o build-up of institutions
- President choice of who to rely upon
- Civil-military mistrust
- Members of the national security elite
o Presidential reliance upon them
- Soviet union
o Containment
o Nuclear weapons
- Nitze doctrine
- NSC 68
- Wise Men
- Paul Wolfowitz
- Forrestal
- The Bush doctrine
- Weinberger-Powell doctrine
- “Doctrine of the Big Enchillada”
- Volunteer military and draft
- Small wars
- Douglas Feith
- Office of Special Planning
- Degrading quality of generalship after the cold war.
- Great illusions
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Tommy Franks
- Nature of War
- IEDs
- Afghanistan
- Preemptive war
- Tommy Franks’ American Soldier
- Performance & size of the military
- Freedom, abundance, and dependence.
No comments:
Post a Comment