.New from the Project on Defense Alternatives
Preface: A Litmus for New Leadership
Barack Obama's picks for his national security team signal an effort to establish a new bipartisan consensus on US security policy. The putative political advantages for the new administration and the Democratic Party are obvious: by situating themselves within a redefined "center", they might deny Republicans their most effective wedge issue. Of course, achieving a stable domestic consensus on security policy is not the same as devising a policy that actually works. And nothing would be worse than forming consensus around an unsustainable or ineffective posture.
What matters most are the lessons that the new administration gleans from the failed efforts of its predecessors. The first among these is perhaps the most difficult to fully grasp and take to heart: The United States has been using its armed forces and military power well beyond the limit of their utility. We are now experiencing not just diminishing returns, but negative ones. Thus, the nation finds itself paying more and more for less and less security.
The military effort expended these past eight years has been, by any measure, prodigious. But, in no area of concern has it produced much in the way of reliable progress. Indeed, the world seems less stable and more polarized today than it did in 2001. And anti-Americanism is at a level not seen since the Vietnam war years.
The Iraq and Afghanistan operations have demonstrated that the world's "sole superpower" cannot -- by its current methods -- reliably stabilize two destitute and dejected nations comprising only one percent of the world's population, despite the investment of nearly 5,000 American lives and more than $850 billion. What General David Petraeus once asked of the Iraq war -- "Tell me how this ends" -- still pertains, despite the reduction in violence there. The same question might be asked of the Afghanistan war and, indeed, of the "war on terror" as a whole, which seems to be on a road to nowhere.
Project on Defense Alternatives
Barack Obama's picks for his national security team signal an effort to establish a new bipartisan consensus on US security policy. The putative political advantages for the new administration and the Democratic Party are obvious: by situating themselves within a redefined "center", they might deny Republicans their most effective wedge issue. Of course, achieving a stable domestic consensus on security policy is not the same as devising a policy that actually works. And nothing would be worse than forming consensus around an unsustainable or ineffective posture.
What matters most are the lessons that the new administration gleans from the failed efforts of its predecessors. The first among these is perhaps the most difficult to fully grasp and take to heart: The United States has been using its armed forces and military power well beyond the limit of their utility. We are now experiencing not just diminishing returns, but negative ones. Thus, the nation finds itself paying more and more for less and less security.
The military effort expended these past eight years has been, by any measure, prodigious. But, in no area of concern has it produced much in the way of reliable progress. Indeed, the world seems less stable and more polarized today than it did in 2001. And anti-Americanism is at a level not seen since the Vietnam war years.
The Iraq and Afghanistan operations have demonstrated that the world's "sole superpower" cannot -- by its current methods -- reliably stabilize two destitute and dejected nations comprising only one percent of the world's population, despite the investment of nearly 5,000 American lives and more than $850 billion. What General David Petraeus once asked of the Iraq war -- "Tell me how this ends" -- still pertains, despite the reduction in violence there. The same question might be asked of the Afghanistan war and, indeed, of the "war on terror" as a whole, which seems to be on a road to nowhere.
Project on Defense Alternatives
posted by madtom at 9:30 PM
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