Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Obama’s revolution in American strategy


President Obama concludes a news briefing on the defense strategic guidance, Jan. 5, 2012, at the Pentagon.
(Credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

So much for “World War III” and “the Long War”

By Michael Lind [ http://www.salon.com/writer/michael_lind/ ]
Tuesday, Jan 10, 2012 6:00 AM 19:43:58 CST

While the media has focused on the Republican presidential primaries, offstage the greatest revolution in American foreign policy in a generation has occurred, with little discussion or debate surrounding its announcement [ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/01/05/obama_announces_new_defense_strategy_and_spending_112676.html (below)] last week by President Obama.

The relative lack of controversy marks a contrast with the last great transformation of American foreign policy, which took place at the end of the Cold War. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was clear that the Soviet-American conflict that had structured U.S. foreign policy since the late 1940s was coming to an end. For several years there was a vigorous debate in the mainstream media as well as expert circles about what should replace the Cold War strategy of containment of communism as the basis of American grand strategy.

Isolationism was championed by some like the conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan. Another alternative, championed by scholars like Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, was “realism” — a policy of selective engagement of the world that emphasized the national interest and minimized attempts by the U.S. and other outsiders to remake foreign societies. Yet a third alternative was liberal internationalism, a strategy founded on an attempt to realize Woodrow Wilson’s dreams of collective security based on international institutions like the United Nations and NATO. The fourth alternative has been described as “hegemony” or “empire” — a policy of indefinite American global military domination. This view was backed most vigorously by the neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol’s the Weekly Standard.

The post-Cold War debate was vigorous and did not necessarily follow party lines. The right, for example, was divided among hegemonists, realists and isolationists, while progressive views on American strategy ranged from neo-isolationism to versions of American hegemony.

The great debate about American strategy came to an abrupt end with the Gulf War in early 1991. The ease with which America’s armed forces defeated the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was left in power and contained in part of his territory, convinced America’s foreign policy establishment that the benefits of America’s global hegemony as the “sole remaining superpower” were great while the costs were extremely low. The new bipartisan consensus was consolidated during the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession, when triumphant “humanitarian hawks” insisted that anyone who opposed U.S./Nato intervention in the Balkan wars was an immoral appeaser of Nazi-like evil.

On 9/11/2001 the al-Qaida attacks cemented the consensus even further. Until then, the maintenance of a U.S. military that had been only moderately downsized from its Cold War proportions had been justified by the grossly exaggerated threats alleged to have been posed by “rogue states” like Iraq and North Korea and Iran. Now there was a new enemy to justify a huge, global U.S. military: stateless terrorism. Absurdly, many American statesmen and foreign policy experts treated jihadists not as criminal gangs comparable to the mafia and drug cartels but as soldiers of a virtual superpower, comparable somehow to Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Post-9/11 panic, cynically stoked by conservatives for electoral purposes, added layer on layer to a clumsy, labyrinthine homeland security bureaucracy while justifying spending on Pentagon weapons systems whose usefulness in fighting jihadists was slight or nonexistent. The neoconservative scholar Eliot Cohen and the neoconservative editor Norman Podhoretz declared that the U.S. was engaged in “World War IV” (World War III having been the Cold War). Others called it the Long War.

Well, World War IV is now over, according to President Obama. The Long War turned out not to be all that long.

In announcing the new orientation of American security strategy last week, the president emphasized that the U.S. will maintain its position as the leading military power in the world; no president, in this generation, could do otherwise. What is striking, however, is the speed with which the Obama administration has not only wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but repudiated the post-1989 consensus.

According to the new vision of American defense, the U.S. will reorient itself from fighting wars of nation-building and counterinsurgency in the Muslim world to focusing on balancing the power of rising states in East Asia (read China). This reflects the classic logic of realpolitik, not neoconservative hegemonism or neoliberal Wilsonianism. The shift in emphasis from quasi-colonial nation-building, which requires many American boots on the ground, to strategies that rely more on local allies, special forces and the (morally and legally problematic, it should be said) use of drones represents another break with the strategy of the Bush/Cheney years.

Needless to say, this is not enough of a change for isolationists on both sides of the spectrum who would not be satisfied unless the U.S. ended its participation in power politics beyond its borders and reduced the Navy to the Coast Guard. And it may very well be that some of the proponents of the new strategy themselves think that it can achieve what the scholar David Calleo has called “hegemony on the cheap.”

But hegemony on the cheap is not hegemony. Those of us who criticized the hegemony strategy from the late 1980s argued that, while in theory the U.S. might be able to create something like a global empire, the American people would not be willing to pay the required price in blood and treasure. The relative swiftness with which the public turned against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the fatalities were far lower than those in Korea and Vietnam that ultimately undermined public support for those earlier wars, proved that the American people never bought the “World War IV’ scenario. Notwithstanding the horror of 9/11, Americans considered the stakes of the misnamed “war on terrorism” to be relatively low, and so they were willing to pay relatively little (by historical standards; for service members killed or maimed in these recent wars and their families, the costs could not have been higher).

While it marks a great improvement over the semi-imperial hegemony strategy embraced in the 1990s and 2000s by neoconservatives and neoliberals, the neo-realist strategy of the Obama administration can be criticized. For example, the idea that China can be contained by U.S. forces prepositioned in Japan and South Korea and Australia (Australia?) just seems silly, as well as needlessly provocative. There is really no parallel between U.S. troops stationed in a divided Europe to deter the Red Army and American naval and Marine bases scattered around Asia and the Pacific.

If, God forbid, there were a Sino-American Cold War II, it is extremely unlikely that it would escalate into Sino-American naval clashes in the South China Sea or the Straits of Molucca — to name only two implausible scenarios used sometimes to justify spending on old-fashioned surface fleets. More likely, conventional as well as nuclear deterrence would prevent direct conflict among the great powers, whose competition instead would take the form of low-level proxy wars in war-torn countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, with the rival great powers arming and supplying opposing sides. Fantasies of a replay of the duels in World War II of the Japanese and American navies, with a future Chinese fleet replacing Japan’s, are just fantasies.

American strategy is a work in progress, and the ultimate shape of America’s next national security policy will result from struggles in Congress and the courts as well as this and future presidential administrations. But Barack Obama deserves credit for quietly bringing to a close the misguided bid for quasi-imperial hegemony that led America astray into the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan.

As I have argued elsewhere, Obama is an Eisenhower Democrat, owing more to an older generation of moderate Eisenhower or Rockefeller Republicans than to New Deal Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In domestic policy, this is a flaw, inasmuch as Obama is drawn to the traditional moderate Republican obsessions with balanced budgets and privatized provision of public goods. But in foreign policy, the Modern Republican legacy of Dwight Eisenhower, who sought a low-cost “New Look” strategy in the Cold War, and Richard Nixon, who sought to cut America’s losses in Indochina and to base American strategy on realpolitik, is of more relevance to today’s world than the kind of overcommitment symbolized by John F. Kennedy’s grandiloquent boast in his first inaugural address that Americans would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Even before the Great Recession, Americans were unwilling to pay any price and bear any burden to ensure a global Pax Americana. That may explain why, outside of the neoconservative circles, criticism of the Obama Doctrine has been so limited. The American people are tired of foreign wars and ready for nation-building at home.

Copyright © 2012 Salon Media Group, Inc.

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/10/obamas_revolution_in_american_strategy/singleton/ [with comments]


===


Obama Announces New Defense Strategy and Spending

The Pentagon
11:00 A.M. EST
January 5, 2012

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. The United States of America is the greatest force for freedom and security that the world has ever known. And in no small measure, that’s because we’ve built the best-trained, best-led, best-equipped military in history -- and as Commander-in-Chief, I’m going to keep it that way.

Indeed, all of us on this stage -- every single one of us -- have a profound responsibility to every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and Coast Guardsman who puts their life on the line for America. We owe them a strategy with well-defined goals; to only send them into harm’s way when it’s absolutely necessary; to give them the equipment and the support that they need to get the job done; and to care for them and their families when they come home. That is our solemn obligation.

And over the past three years, that’s what we’ve done. We’ve continued to make historic investments in our military -- our troops and their capabilities, our military families and our veterans. And thanks to their extraordinary service, we’ve ended our war in Iraq. We’ve decimated al Qaeda’s leadership. We’ve delivered justice to Osama bin Laden, and we’ve put that terrorist network on the path to defeat. We’ve made important progress in Afghanistan, and we’ve begun to transition so Afghans can assume more responsibility for their own security. We joined allies and partners to protect the Libyan people as they ended the regime of Muammar Qaddafi.

Now we’re turning the page on a decade of war. Three years ago, we had some 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, we’ve cut that number in half. And as the transition in Afghanistan continues, more of our troops will continue to come home. More broadly, around the globe we’ve strengthened alliances, forged new partnerships, and served as a force for universal rights and human dignity.

In short, we’ve succeeded in defending our nation, taking the fight to our enemies, reducing the number of Americans in harm’s way, and we’ve restored America’s global leadership. That makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that’s an achievement that every American -- especially those Americans who are proud to wear the uniform of the United States Armed Forces -- should take great pride in.

This success has brought our nation, once more, to a moment of transition. Even as our troops continue to fight in Afghanistan, the tide of war is receding. Even as our forces prevail in today’s missions, we have the opportunity -- and the responsibility -- to look ahead to the force that we are going to need in the future.

At the same time, we have to renew our economic strength here at home, which is the foundation of our strength around the world. And that includes putting our fiscal house in order. To that end, the Budget Control Act passed by Congress last year -- with the support of Republicans and Democrats alike -- mandates reductions in federal spending, including defense spending. I’ve insisted that we do that responsibly. The security of our nation and the lives of our men and women in uniform depend on it.

That’s why I called for this comprehensive defense review -- to clarify our strategic interests in a fast-changing world, and to guide our defense priorities and spending over the coming decade -- because the size and the structure of our military and defense budgets have to be driven by a strategy, not the other way around. Moreover, we have to remember the lessons of history. We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the past -- after World War II, after Vietnam -- when our military was left ill prepared for the future. As Commander in Chief, I will not let that happen again. Not on my watch.

We need a start -- we need a smart, strategic set of priorities. The new guidance that the Defense Department is releasing today does just that. I want to thank Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey for their extraordinary leadership during this process. I want to thank the service secretaries and chiefs, the combatant commanders and so many defense leaders -- military and civilian, active, Guard and reserve -- for their contributions. Many of us met repeatedly -- asking tough questions, challenging our own assumptions and making hard choices. And we’ve come together today around an approach that will keep our nation safe and our military the finest that the world have ever known.

This review also benefits from the contributions of leaders from across my national security team -- from the departments of State, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, as well as the intelligence community. And this is critical, because meeting the challenges of our time cannot be the work of our military alone -- or the United States alone. It requires all elements of our national power, working together in concert with our allies and our partners.

So I’m going to let Leon and Marty go into the details. But I just want to say that this effort reflects the guidance that I personally gave throughout this process. Yes, the tide of war is receding. But the question that this strategy answers is what kind of military will we need long after the wars of the last decade are over. And today, we’re fortunate to be moving forward from a position of strength.

As I made clear in Australia, we will be strengthening our presence in the Asia Pacific, and budget reductions will not come at the expense of that critical region. We’re going to continue investing in our critical partnerships and alliances, including NATO, which has demonstrated time and again -- most recently in Libya -- that it’s a force multiplier. We will stay vigilant, especially in the Middle East.

As we look beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and the end of long-term nation-building with large military footprints -- we’ll be able to ensure our security with smaller conventional ground forces. We’ll continue to get rid of outdated Cold War-era systems so that we can invest in the capabilities that we need for the future, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, counterterrorism, countering weapons of mass destruction and the ability to operate in environments where adversaries try to deny us access.

So, yes, our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats.

We’re also going to keep faith with those who serve, by making sure our troops have the equipment and capabilities they need to succeed, and by prioritizing efforts that focus on wounded warriors, mental health and the well-being of our military families. And as our newest veterans rejoin civilian life, we’ll keep working to give our veterans the care, the benefits and job opportunities that they deserve and that they have earned.

Finally, although today is about our defense strategy, I want to close with a word about the defense budget that will flow from this strategy. The details will be announced in the coming weeks. Some will no doubt say that the spending reductions are too big; others will say that they’re too small. It will be easy to take issue with a particular change in a particular program. But I’d encourage all of us to remember what President Eisenhower once said -- that “each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs.” After a decade of war, and as we rebuild the source of our strength -- at home and abroad -- it’s time to restore that balance.

I think it’s important for all Americans to remember, over the past 10 years, since 9/11, our defense budget grew at an extraordinary pace. Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow, but the fact of the matter is this: It will still grow, because we have global responsibilities that demand our leadership. In fact, the defense budget will still be larger than it was toward the end of the Bush administration. And I firmly believe, and I think the American people understand, that we can keep our military strong and our nation secure with a defense budget that continues to be larger than roughly the next 10 countries combined.

So again, I want to thank Secretary Panetta, Chairman Dempsey, all the defense leaders who are on this stage, and some who are absent, for their leadership and their partnership throughout this process. Our men and women in uniform give their very best to America every single day, and in return they deserve the very best from America. And I thank all of you for the commitment to the goal that we all share: keeping America strong and secure in the 21st century, and keeping our Armed Forces the very best in the world.

And with that, I will turn this discussion over to Leon and to Marty, who can explain more and take your questions.

So thank you very much. I understand this is the first time a President has done this. It’s a pretty nice room. (Laughter.)

Thank you guys.

END
11:12 A.M. EST

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/01/05/obama_announces_new_defense_strategy_and_spending_112676.html