COMMENTARY Rebuild or retreat:
America's dilemma By Michael A
Weinstein
The most severe consequence of the
United States' failed adventure in Iraq is its exposure
of US military limitations and vulnerabilities.
The failures of the intervention are manifold.
Some of them can be chalked up to poor planning and
excessive optimism - both fueled by utopian
neo-conservative ideology - but others have revealed
structural weaknesses.
Just to name a few of the
latter: reliance on private contractors to perform key
missions at inflated prices, flawed intelligence,
overuse of reserve troops, redeployment of troops from
South Korea, and extensions of the duration of combat
duty. All of the foregoing point to the same root
problem: the US military is underforced for any major
project of nation-building in absolute numbers and, more
important, in the distribution of specialties.
The occupation has revealed that the United
States lacks the capacity to neutralize insurgent
movements, run prisons effectively, procure actionable
intelligence and conduct successful public relations.
Most important, it has proved unable to provide the
basic function of government: personal security in the
forms of public safety and basic services.
The
world now knows that the US will not launch another
preemptive war in the near or medium term. Not only is
it tied down in Iraq, but it showed that it is
ill-equipped and ill-prepared for nation-building in the
weakest member of the "axis of evil" - the one that had
been beaten down by economic sanctions and that harbored
an anti-regime population, except for the Ba'athists and
their tribal connections. US defense intellectuals and
security leadership are aware of the reassessment of US
power that is occurring globally, and the dilemma that
it poses for US strategic policy.
The hard
choice that now faces the US is whether to rebuild its
military power so that it can undertake not only wars,
but their aftermaths; or to retreat into a more
defensive posture, opening the way to multipolarism.
Each option has its costs and its benefits. Which one is
chosen will depend on the decisions of the security
leadership in the US and its ability to persuade or
frighten the American public to accept its policies.
It is most likely that either a John Kerry or a
George W Bush administration will try to restore a
multilateral foreign and military policy in which the US
is the dominant partner, making the move to rebuild US
military power to meet the demands of future
nation-building efforts the most probable choice of the
security leadership. If so, the military will have to be
expanded in size, and investment will have to be made in
labor-intensive skilled specialties such as
intelligence, policing and civil affairs. The problem is
getting the personnel and paying for the expansion.
The stark reality that the US and its population
will have to make sacrifices if the country is to regain
its power will probably play a very small role in the
2004 presidential campaigns, but will only be brought
forward after the next administration takes office. The
means to restoring US power are simply politically
unacceptable in an election year.
The need to
expand the number of troops brings to the forefront the
possibility of activating the draft. Current proposals
for a draft - for example, Congressman Charles Rangel's
- would not allow college deferments and would place
women in the pool. The upper middle class, including its
Republican members, would resist a draft that would
include its children, and social conservatives would
resist a draft that would include women. Yet there would
be equal resistance from the working class, economically
disadvantaged minorities and the left if those
provisions were dropped.
There is also a high
likelihood of the appearance of a broad anti-draft
movement on campuses if a conscription policy is
pursued. Other issues concern whether a draft would
install universal national service or would conscript a
relatively small portion of the entire pool. In the
first case, public resistance would be formidable; in
the second case, an element of arbitrariness and sense
of injustice would create chronic social resentment.
Attempts to expand the military without a draft
would require attracting recruits - particularly those
capable of learning needed specialties - through higher
pay scales and easier enlistment terms, increasing the
cost of expansion. In any scenario, rebuilding for
nation-building capability will be expensive. Private
contracting will be no solution; its use in Iraq was
predicated on a quick victory and a short aftermath.
Will the wealthier portion of the American public that
has benefited from lower tax rates be willing to
surrender its advantages in order to fund military
rebuilding? Will powerful interest groups and broad
sectors of the public seeking to expand medical benefits
be willing to see Medicare downsized? Will major
financial interests sit by while deficits mount? What
about competing budgetary demands for "homeland
security" and squeezed social services?
In
addition to the probable domestic resistance against any
serious rebuilding program, the US will not be able to
count on early cooperation from other powers if it makes
the effort. Traditional allies will be tentative as they
assess the level of US commitment, and they will have to
be responsive to their own publics, which are at best
distrustful of US aims. More independent powers such as
Russia, China and India will be tempted to be
obstructionist.
After the November election,
policymakers will confront the hard choice between
pushing for measures that demand sacrifices from the
public and retracting the potential projection of US
power. If the decision is made to try to rebuild, the
ensuing domestic conflict will deepen existing divisions
in US society and create new ones, further impairing US
power, at least in the short run, by weakening popular
consensus on foreign policy. If the decision is made not
to try to rebuild, the United States will not retreat
entirely to its "fortress", but will quietly concede its
influence to regional powers, intensifying the drift
toward multipolarism.
Neo-conservative strategic
doctrine has stressed threats from hostile or
potentially hostile nation states. Internationalist
strategic doctrine has stressed threats from failed
states and the transnational Islamist revolutionary
movements. In both cases, the assumption has been made
that the United States and its allies simply had to
mobilize and redirect present resources properly against
the threats.
Now the situation has changed.
Advocates of both paradigms are faced with the same
requirement to fight for rebuilding in order to fulfill
their strategic designs. Look for the crunch to come
after November.
Published with permission of
thePower and Interest News Report,
an analysis-based publication that seeks to provide
insight into various conflicts, regions and points of
interest around the globe. All comments should be
directed tocontent@pinr.com.
