Uncle Sam, A Most Reluctant Cop

Some cables within the WikiLeak dump of diplomatic data, most importantly those coming from the several Gulf states, urge a re-asking of the old questions regarding the role of the US as a sort of global cop.  The position attributed to several Gulf governments actually serves to expand the old stand-by questions which have surrounded the American entry into an already extant conflict (a category which includes both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.)

Assuming the cables accurately reflect the views of the local interlocutors, there is a consensus among the Gulf states that an Iran equipped with a nuclear capacity is so threatening, so much a danger to peace that the Arab leaders want the US to take military action even before the Iranians actually achieve a deliverable nuclear weapon.  The stated desire is for American preemption.  This, of course, is a course of action qualitatively different from what the US has done traditionally.

The several Arab states are using the US invasion of Iraq as the precedent.  This is unlike other, earlier wars from Korea to (at least arguably) Afghanistan, where the US has acted after the fact.  Historically, the US has entered a war already in progress as in Korea and Vietnam or, with an almost plausible local invitation, sought to restore stability and stave off a threatened war as in Lebanon.  The US has also, as in the case of the Dominican Republic and Grenada, deployed force to protect the lives of US nationals or, in Afghanistan, in retaliation for an armed attack on the US.

The Iraq precedent was another one of those recurrent slippery slope precedents.  There was no direct attack on the US.  There was not, as there had been in 1991, a breach of the international peace.  There were no US lives at risk.  There was certainly no plausible invitation from local political leaders.  In place of these assorted justifications for the use of armed force, there was a stack of UN Resolutions and a heap of less than accurate intelligence.  Judged by past American employments of force, the invasion of Iraq was even more poorly predicated than the war with Spain over a century earlier.  And, that is saying a lot.

The Arab desire for the US to do something robust against the Iranian threat is understandable.  No countries have more at risk than those of the Persian Gulf littoral.  The scale of the Iranian threat is easily measured--compared to it none of the Arab states seem to have a thing against Israel.  It is more than merely interesting that none saw the Israeli nuclear arsenal in being as a threat while all saw the Iranian nuclear arsenal in prospect to be terrifying.

Given this, it is not surprising that there was a monolithic call for the US to take out the Iranian threat regardless of other considerations such as how an attack might be justified to the world generally or the absence of a cause of war even as compelling as that provided by the pile of UN Resolutions directed at the Iraq of Saddam Hussein.  Put at its most basic level, the call by the Arab states was prompted by a genuine and highly compelling national interest.

To the diplomats and leaders of the Gulf states, their countries and the US had a coinciding national interest in nullifying the Iranian nuclear program (and, quite probably the current Iranian regime.)  And, as every person wise to the ways of international politics knows, the only reason that the Gulf states (or any state) has positive relations with the US is that doing so is vital to their national interest.

In this context it might be noted that Secretary of Defense Gates gave a short course in Diplomacy 101 the other day when he opined that other countries do not have relations with the US because they like us or because they trust us or because they believe we can keep secrets safe but only because such relations serve their national interests.  The Arab proposition was predicated upon this concept pure and simple.

The Arab request hints at what attracts some states to seek and maintain good relations with the US.  Even today as We the People drift in a depressant doldrums viewing our present to be poor and our future to be worse, there is a compelling attraction for states to seek and keep good relations with the US.

Put bluntly, other states are most impressed with our military capacities.  They are struck with the potentials resident in that hardest of hard power capabilities--the military's ability to break things and kill people.  It may be disconcerting to those Americans who value our economic power or the soft power appeals of our diplomacy, values, norms, culture, and so on, but in much of the world it is our military alone which gives appeal, which compels the seeking and maintaining of good relations, which defines coinciding national interests.

In short, there are more than a few governments--and not simply Arab autocracies in the Gulf region--which see the pistol on Sheriff Sam's hip and believe their interests (and ours) would be best served by using it against regional bad actors.  Whether we like the notion or not, there are many, important states which want to see us in the role of global cop.

(OK, bucko, the Geek acknowledges that there are also many states which see the US as the Great Global Cash Cow to be milked at will.  These states are also most likely to be most averse to Sheriff Sam ever pulling out the hog leg on his hip.)

Even the Western European countries which are quite willing, even eager, to accuse the US of being an international provocateur are quite happy to lay off the burdens both economic and political of global policing on the US.  This happiness is only going to grow as the assorted states of the European Union facing a collective as well as individual economic challenges downsize their national military capabilities.

In the good cause of deficit reduction, the Coalition government in the UK has taken measures which will shrink their military forces overall to a point that would make a replay of the Falklands Island War impossible.  Other NATO states are lessening their military expenses as well.  The net result will be the rendering of NATO to the status of military nullity at least as regards out of theater operations.  The longer term consequence of this downsizing trend is either shifting the burden to the US or surrendering the global insurgency to the purveyors of political Islam, including the adherents of armed Islamic insurgency.

The evil genii of the global Islamic insurgency will not skulk back to the bottle from which it has emerged over the past thirty or so years.  It is and will continue to be a feature on the global political scene regardless of what we or anybody might wish.  This means, quite simply, that war will not disappear soon from the experience of the human race.

The global insurgency will remain primarily a conflict of asymmetry, of wars almost too small to merit the name, of violence which is small scale but unending, of conflict which saps political will slowly but steadily over the years, the decades, perhaps generations.  It is nonetheless a war which will determine both the nature of the future and the quality of life in the present, each year's successive present.

Insurgency and its counter depend upon both violent and peaceful tactics and methods.  Within that truism the governing reality is that the violent portion is the more important.  It is violence which acts most directly and with greatest intensity upon the political will of the contestant populations.  And, as long as the violence continues, the conditions for that endgame necessity--conflict resolution--will not exist.  The ground truth is simply that the insurgents have to be cowed into submission before there is any possibility of developing a long term detente between differing world views and concomitant civilizations.

In this context it is critical to recall that diplomacy depends upon either the existence of coinciding national interests or a credible capacity for effective coercion.  With respect to coercion, when night falls, all the lesser means of coercion such as sanctions and diplomatic isolation rely upon the credible capacity and political will to employ force in support of policy.

Few governments question seriously the physical capacity of the US to employ force.  Most have a good handle on just how much destruction we can inflict even without using our nuclear weapons.  The quantum level improvements in all the many technologies involved in fighting wars made in recent years render even the observations from the Kuwait War no longer instructive.  The US way of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan has used only a small, even a very small, fraction of the lethality resident in our conventional capacities.  Still, most governments have a reasonably accurate appreciation of what the US could do should it need to.

Indeed, it has been American restraint in how it has fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan which has fed the long standing suspicions in many quarters of the world--including Iran and the purveyors of violent political Islam--that the US lacks the political will to use force in support of policy.  From the time the US withdrew from the Vietnamese War on to the present, there has been a broad sentiment to the effect that the US cannot muster the will to fight a seemingly endless war, to accept the deaths of American service personnel in a "no-win" war, to spend never ending torrents of money in pursuit of what at best constitutes a stalemate of the Korean War sort.

The much maligned unilateralism of George W. Bush went a long way to settling the doubts held by so many leaders around the world.  Unfortunately, the words of the Obama presidency have restored these doubts.  The doubts have been enhanced by some of the administrations actions, such as the apparent willingness of the president and his foreign policy "team" to toss Israel off the sleigh and to the wolves.  This lack of steadfastness disturbed the same Gulf state leaders who pressed the US to take swift and effective military action against Iran.  It might even have prompted the requests as a form of test of American realism and political will.

The sine qua non for success in foreign policy generally and war fighting in particular is consistency and persistence.  Radical shifts in either policy or action calls the reliability and predictability of the US into question in ways which do not further our national interests--or those of our more or less allies.  In a real sense, Great Powers are not allowed to change their minds without penalty.  That penalty is loss of credibility and with credibility goes the most important prize of diplomacy--influence.

For this reason the only rational choice for the Obama administration to make with respect to Afghanistan is to continue what we have been doing with one major addition.  The addition is convincing Pakistan that the governments there have been wrong for sixty years, that Pakistan needs the US more than the US needs Pakistan.

It is for the reasons of consistency and predictability, for the reason of credibility and influence maintenance, that the US must not only draw a line in concrete regarding Iran but must use all means at its disposal to bend that country's regime to our policy requirements.  The same applies to Israel and the Palestinians, choose a policy option which is in keeping with past American requirements and stick with it even if the Palestinians moan, groan, and toss a hissy fit.

While modifications in policy are a requirement of realism, these modifications must be on the margins and carefully explained to all parties.  The requirement for careful explanation also applies to assuring that We the People both understand and support policy including the use of military force should such be necessary.

In that connection this administration in common with all presidencies past and future must understand that We the People are very reluctant global cops.  The American public has never felt at home with the US being a Great Power.  Down deep inside most of us are just fine with Ron Paul's isolationist position.  Down deep inside where it counts, the majority of Americans past, present, and, probably, future see very few compelling reasons for Americans to leave their bones bleaching in the sun of some far away country the name of which most of us cannot pronounce let alone spell.  We see very few compelling reasons to spend vast sums of present and future money on weapons.  Most of us at the time agreed with Ike's "Farewell Address" and its warning against the "military-industrial complex."

We are not imperialists by nature any more.  Our period of seeking empire ended more than a hundred years ago.  Where we have been forced by reasons good or bad to send troops, we have never sought to stay.  (It might be noted that many foreign governments are quite well aware of this and thus are less uncomfortable with American troops being in the neighborhood than is the case with soldiers of other nationalities.)

The irony of the situation resident in the Gulf states request is simply that foreign governments are much more eager to see Sheriff Sam than We the People are willing to pin on the badge.  We Americans, pace many on the Left, are not seeking to be global cops on patrol.  The reality, however, is the world generally is not ready to see us be other than the Good Cop.