Post-Iraq US Foreign Policy – Andrew J. Bacevich Lecture Notes

Andrew J. Bacevich is a West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran, Professor of International Relations at Boston University and a Catholic conservative. His son was killed in Iraq.

He gave a lecture entitled “The Long War: US Security Policy Since WWII” in March 2008 at UC Santa Barbara which you can watch on YouTube (1h 28min). You can read my notes below.

(Note: Professor Bacevich has also published an article in this month’s Atlantic entitled: “The Petraeus Doctrine“)

Iraq – Not ‘What’ But ‘What Next’

1. The US should consider foreign policy ‘in the light of‘ Iraq and not simply ‘after Iraq is over‘;
2. The consequences of Iraq will be with the US for many years;
3. The big question for US foreign policy is not what to do with Iraq but how to deal with the implications of Iraq;
4. The US is strategically adrift with no agreed upon, principled approach to dealing with the world.

The Global War on Terror and The Freedom Agenda

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Bush did articulate a principled strategy for the Global War On Terrorism which was both logical and coherent – it was called the Freedom Agenda.

It was wildly unrealistic and totally unworkable.

The Freedom Agenda was based on 3 false assumptions:

• America as the sole superpower. Bush et al didn’t invent this. It was post Cold War conventional wisdom with bipartisan support;
• The ‘Greater Middle East‘ is ripe for transformation;
• Democray provides the necessary antidote to the pathologies that afflict the Islamic world and the US is good at exporting democracy. The Neocons didn’t invent this idea either.

Bush Administration Motivations

Bush on 9/11 was St Paul struck down on his way to Damascus. Upon rising, he was a born-again Wilsonian who genuinely believed that:

1. History intends democracy to triumph around the world;
2. Providence intends the US to be the chief instrument in making this come about.

Individuals within the Bush administration were willing to go along with the Freedom Agenda because even if freedom didn’t work, US hegemony would result and that would be good enough.

The last 5 years have clearly demolished all 3 Freedom Agenda assumptions.

Preventive war, the Bush doctrine, doesn’t work.

‘Shock and Awe‘ techniques looked good for a while but unconventional warfare demands boots on the ground.

Too Much War For Too Few Warriors

The most troubling limit to US military power is that there is no easy way to expand US forces to render them adequate for those tasks.

1. There is too much war for too few warriors;
2. There are over 300 million US citizens but an active duty military of 1.5 million: only 0.5% of the population;
3. The longer Iraq and Afghanistan continue, the harder it is to convince citizens to become soldiers.

The Middle East is Not Ripe For Democratisation

1. Hamas came to power in free elections;
2. Hezbollah increased its standing and authority in Lebanese elections.
3. the lessons in democratic reconstruction from post World War Two Germany and Japan are not necessarily applicable today in these contexts.

No Coherent US Strategy

The US in 2008 has no coherent strategy. The focus is now on preventing the Middle East from falling apart.

Three examples of this are:

1. US now talking to the two remaining members of the axis of evil;
2. efforts to transform other nations politically have been stopped in favour of stability;
3. recomittment of US to playing an active role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Implications For New President

1. a strategic vacuum with no strategy and a host of problems;
2. no quick favourable outcome in either Afghanistan or Iraq;
3. Iraq surge has not been effective. Works thanks to paying off the Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms. “We’re paying off the Crips so they won’t attack the Bloods“;
4. Iraq surge has turned a chaotic loss into a stalemate;
5. Iraq and Afghanistan are US dependencies. If US were to withdraw troops, neither government would be likely to survive;
6. no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem;
7. most dangerous problem is Pakistan combining a) substantial Islamic radical presence, b) very weak political institutions and c) nuclear weapons;

New President’s Constraints

1. ground forces are badly overstretched;
2. US military could not repeat the Iraq surge right now;
3. Iraq syndrome – similar to Vietnam syndrome – an aversion to the further use of force;
4. serious economic problems;
5. oil benchmark of 100$ / barrel;
6. value of dollar continues to weaken;
7. former ‘allies‘ are no longer willing to participate;
8. if military power is the answer, it will have to be US military power and there isn’t enough of it.

‘NATO’ should mean a militarily potent and cohesive alliance. 20 yrs ago it did, today it doesn’t.

Robert Gates tried to put pressure on European allies to send more troops to Afghanistan and basically ‘got stiffed‘. European countries:

1. don’t have the troops;
2. don’t have the backing of their people;

Choose a Guiding Assumption

1. if Islamic radicalism will define the 21st century, it should shape the way the US thinks about the world;
2. if Islamic radicalism is real but not existential, it will not be the force that shapes the 21st century. Other concerns will be more important and should take priority;

5 New Principles for Global War on Terror

1. Husband US power, don’t squander it. The Bush doctrine is immoral and doesn’t work. Adopt policies in line with a just war tradition – as a last resort, within a moral framework;
2. Align ends with means. Only promise to achieve things we can do. The US cannot transform the ‘Greater Middle East’;
3. Let Islam be Islam. 1.4 billion Muslims might have different ideas about what freedom means than the US does;
4. Reinvent containment. The US doesn’t need a new NATO to fight Tehran instead of Moscow;
5. Exemplify the ideals the US professes. The US should devote itself to repairing its own institutions, especially democratic institutions.

Audience Q & A

What about impeaching Bush and Cheney as a means of cleaning house?

It’s not going to happen. The Democrats don’t think it’s advantageous to the Democratic Party.

Vilifying Saddam didn’t work so who could argue with democratising the world?

Historians will be arguing for decades about the motivations for the Iraq war. Top Bush Administration people did want to prevent another 9/11 and ensure the Middle East was stable and that the West had access to it. Democratisation or pacification was the grand strategic vision. Vengeance was undoubtedly a factor.

How modern is the US if it is so weak at developing knowledge power as opposed to military power, especially foreign languages?

The US needs to do better on this. It should be an imperative for US students to spend at least a semester abroad, preferably somewhere outside their comfort zone.

The US is big. We are our own world. It becomes easy to accept that this is the world.

It’s hardwired into the American psyche and I don’t know how to overcome that.

What about the US and Islam during the Cold War: the Shah of Iran, the Mujahadeen?

Not trying to whitewash the errors of our past. Let’s let them figure out how they’re going to make this transition.

Israelis and Palestinians: the only way we’re going to have peace for our children and grandchildren is to educate ourselves. We need to understand Islam, it’s not that different to Christianity.

Among Israel’s core beliefs is that they must count on themselves to defend themselves because the history of Judaism is that, in the end, ‘they will betray us’.

If US tried to cut off aid, the Jews would fight for their land and defend it to the end.

The US must keep in mind that they have 200 nuclear weapons.

The US must be cautious about threats or coercion. It is in their interests to find an end to this problem but it’s not easy.

How might the US react to another 911 type incident without violating the principles you have laid down?

Containment does not imply a passive response. Effective defence chiefly means intensifying intelligence efforts, police, border controls, denying financial resources, effective energy policy.

The US should use selective airstrikes.

It is completely unacceptable that Bin Laden is still at large so long after 911.

Containment doesn’t mean sitting on your hands.

The consequences of Chamberlain’s appeasement were horrific. Your principles would lead to genocides.

Containment is not disengagement. It determines the terms of engagement.

There are some types of behaviour that morally are unacceptable and to accept them causes us to live in a world of abomination.

I’m not sure that I see as many of these episodes as you do.

Whether or not Darfur qualifies is arguable.

We ought to understand the limits of what we’re able to do.

In Rwanda, we could have stopped the killing but apart from that it’s not clear what we can achieve. We ought to have stopped the killing.

Somalia could be instructive.

How do you avoid falied states to prevent starvation ocurring again? How do you act so as to avoid retaliation and violent reaction, especiallly later?

If Islamic fundamentalism weren’t the main threat, which strategies should the new President consider?

The art of statesmanship is to identify points of concurrence between the self-interest and the larger interest.

Nations act in the pursuit of self-interest. They cannot be self-sacrificing or altruistic.

The essence of international politics is a race for power.

The President shouldn’t ask what good he can do in the world today but what good he can do for the US today that coincides with what someone else wants to do. Therein lies opportunity.

The second approach to strategy leads to things like:

2. nuclear weapons: politically purposeful during the Cold War but they have no practical utility and are unnecessary even to deter nuclear attacks. Nuclear weapons are not going to deter terrorist nuclear attacks. The US should choose unilateral disarmament.
3. climate change: to save our way of life we’re going to have to change our way of life.

Which of the 3 candidates would most likely follow your realist agenda?

I don’t think any of them will. I’m not only a realist but a conservative. I think that there is a strong conservative case for voting for Obama.

He’s not a closet conservative, he’s a liberal democrat. Obama is the anti-war candidate.

If they elect him, they will be rejecting the Iraq war and its misguided notions, which will perhaps open a little bit of space to talk about US foreign policy.

With an Obama presidency, there might be a chance for a genunine foreign policy debate.

McCain and Clinton would continue with more of the same.