I hadn’t planned on writing about the official end of the war in Iraq. However, while I was performing my appointed rounds yesterday I tuned into a program on NPR on the subject that got my dander up. Since it’s a foreign policy question, I thought of posting my reactions over at OTB. But, since my reactions will consist of a brief rant, I thought better of it and if you can’t air your own grievances (’tis the season!) on your own blog, where can you?
The panelists on the program were Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff during his tenure as Secretary of State, Kori Schake, director for Defense Strategy and Requirements on the National Security Council at the outset of the invasion of Iraq, and Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic at the time of the invasion, initially an ardent supporter of the war, later an opponent.
Mr. Beinart’s response to the question “What lessons have been learned?” was what got my goat. He responded (I’m trying to quote this as precisely I can), “We shouldn’t go to war without a proper cost-benefit analysis”.
War is killing and destruction. It is an act of necessity not just of calculation. For a war to be just it must be entered into under a competent authority, the objective must be just, it must be waged by just means, and war must only be waged as a last resort. If you require a cost-benefit analysis, it isn’t a last resort (it’s a policy preference) and it’s not a just war.
You cannot know the cost of a war in anticipation. You cannot know its benefits in anticipation. I can barely write that without spitting. How can a decent or honorable person speak or write of the benefits of killing and destruction? Believing that you can do so is casuistry and IMO it’s what lead us into the Iraq War in the first place.
I sincerely hope that most of my countrymen do not believe as Mr. Beinart does. If so, contrary to what Talleyrand is purported to have said of the House of Bourbon, “They have forgotten nothing and they have learned nothing”, we will have forgotten everything and learned nothing.
I find it funny that the end of the war only occurs when we bring all the troops home. Will we EVER get out of World War II? Or even the Spanish-American War? (The Mexican-American War is another one without end.)
As for war being a last resort, or that it should be a last resort, that is just silly. We tried over a decade’s worth of sanctions with both Iraq and Afghanistan, and they had no effect. (And have decades of sanctions achieved anything with Iran other than to let grievances fester?) OTOH, if we had finished the war back in 1991 with Iraq, instead of resorting to other non-last-resort measures, we could have avoided a lot of trouble with the Saddam Hussein regime.
In Europe in the 1930s they attempted many war-is-the-last-resort/peace-in-our-time efforts to restrain Hitler. They waited to use war as last resort, and then had to do it on Hitler’s terms. If the Western allies had struck first, and years earlier, much evil might have been avoided.
War is a tool of human relations, and the important thing isn’t whether or not it should be used last, but when it could be used best. The preferable answer is never, but practically the preferable answer rarely works.
“War is killing and destruction. It is an act of necessity not just of calculation. ”
When you have nuclear weapons, no war is a necessity.
Face it, a lot of Americans, perhaps a majority, enjoy war.
Not actually fighting it, but spectating and cheering it.
To say that war must always be the last resort is to say that we must always cede the initiative to our adversaries. Ice offers some examples. I’ll propose another: the native Americans were slow to respond to the invasion by Europeans. They dithered, failed to unite, and lost their opportunity. They ended up being all but exterminated.
I agree we have an obligation to be just, but I don’t think that’s the same as ‘last resort’ which to my mind sounds as if we need to war only on those who have attacked us.
Here’s a pretty fair description of the principle of last resort. It doesn’t mean that you allow your enemies to attack you.
I might add that I find it pretty difficult to draw a bright line between a war of outright aggression and a war of choice.
My key point is a strong opposition to the view that war is subject to cost-benefit analysis. If it’s worth going to war over, it’s worth doing what it takes to win the war. Conversely, if it’s not worth doing what it takes to win the war, it’s not worth going to war over.
I’ll propose another: the native Americans were slow to respond to the invasion by Europeans. They dithered, failed to unite, and lost their opportunity. They ended up being all but exterminated.
I’d disagree to this extent: The Native Americans apparently suffered a massive population collapse (with attendant collapse of many civilizations) due to exposure to diseases from the Old World by early explorers. From a matter of population pressures I don’t think they could have ever expected to stop the tide of European migration, not in North America or the Caribbean. I don’t know enough about South American demographics after Columbus to have an opinion about what they could have done. But there are wildly divergent populations down there, in terms of genetic heritage.
My key point is a strong opposition to the view that war is subject to cost-benefit analysis. If it’s worth going to war over, it’s worth doing what it takes to win the war.
This doesn’t hold up either. One can find many examples where honor and decency would demand action, but the hard realities demanded inaction. For example, the USA encouraged an uprising in Hungary in 1956. Honor and decency would have demanded we take action to help that uprising. Instead we did nothing because the risk of all-out war with the Soviets was too great. (No, we should not have encouraged that uprising, either, for just those reasons.) Nevertheless, the uprising might have happened anyway. (I believe probably it would have, but it has been a long time since I studied this topic and I may be wrong.)
The point stands – sometimes you have to let some things slide even if morally one becomes stained by doing so. This is what that nut John McCain doesn’t realize.
Also, some moral points of view come into and go out of fashion. Ethnic cleansing was a great moral good in the first half of the twentieth century, it was a great moral evil at the end of the twentieth century, and by 2007 many of the people that had declared it evil in 1995 once again celebrated the idea as one of the greatest possible moral goods that could ever be achieved. Of course, that was all more a matter of domestic politics dictating what was considered good or evil elsewhere in the world, but that’s how things often go. Much like the idea of Arab democracy, for example. We’re all for it, except when we’re completely against it. Usually at the same time. It all depends on whether the despot in charge is one of our bastards or not.
Ice:
The Native Americans had definitely been severely reduced by pox and cholera. But the early Europeans were still a scruffy, starving bunch themselves. Of course there’s no way to know how long the indians could have held off the migration, but they could certainly have eliminated the first several rounds of arrivals had they united rather than hoping to profit from the squat, unattractive, bearded strangers.
they could certainly have eliminated the first several rounds of arrivals had they united rather than hoping to profit from the squat, unattractive, bearded strangers.
Read again: They did hold off a few rounds. But they were out-manned, out-gunned, and out-organized. They didn’t stand a chance.
Even the idea of a cost/benefit analysis is frankly sick. We look at the lives destroyed rather than the real cost, that humans are turned into destroyers. We don’t consider the mindset which takes effect even for those who never see a battlefield as we become accustomed to perpetual death.
I’m tired of the continual, pernicious excuses we make for inflicting ourselves on an entire world with our warmongering and commitment to increasing shareholder value for the defense industry. No offense Icepick, but the proper response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was to stay out of it and reduce dependence on oil. Very few of our wars have been justifiable.
Cost-benefit analysis is business term that’s probably misused in relation to war. It does imply that war is simply a business decision aimed at obtaining a favorable return.
That said, war is a test of wills and each belligerent is constantly examining the costs vs the benefit of continued belligerency. At some point, the cost will become too high for one side or the other and they will surrender or sue for peace. Costs and benefits can’t really be removed from war because war itself is about imposing costs on an enemy in order to get their compliance.
Very true, but with the caveat that “necessity” is in the eye of the beholder. That Japanese in 1941, for example, believed war was necessary even though many knew it was a dangerous course and one that ultimately led to their destruction.
Ice:
I believe you’re mistaken, but we’ll have to agree to disagree.
No offense Icepick, but the proper response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was to stay out of it and reduce dependence on oil.
Ah, the “It’s their problem” defense. It’s certainly something that can be done, but don’t pretend it doesn’t have moral costs. By that standard Britain and France should have sacrificed all of Eastern Europe to Hitler, and not just the parts that they did. Poland wasn’t THEIR problem. Which is to say there are all kinds of pernicious excuses for allowing the indefensible to continue.
Again, I don’t have a problem with staying out of other people’s shit. But I’m also not going to pretend that makes me morally superior. It just means I don’t want to bother with their shit.
I believe you’re mistaken, but we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Fair enough. I’d just point out that the Europeans over the last several hundred years came to dominate the planet. In those places where Europeans came to dominate demographically, and not just politically, it was most often because there was a demographic void to be filled. I just don’t think the American Aboriginals could hold out in those areas where their populations weren’t dense.
It’s certainly something that can be done, but don’t pretend it doesn’t have moral costs.
I mean moral costs for those deciding to not get involved. Those already involved pay in the usual fashion. Of course, moral costs are the cheapest costs to bear, and usually the burdens most easily forgotten.
I think if we’re going to assert a moral principle it has to be one that would apply equally if we were not the world’s sole superpower. Do we believe that other people have the right to carry out pre-emptive war? Or is that just for us?
Say it’s 1962 and Ho Chi Minh has a crystal ball and can see that the Americans are going to come along and end up killing something like a million of his people. Would alternate realty Ho have the right to attack the Americans in an effort to forestall the coming slaughter? If Alternate Ho knew and took no action, just stood there waiting for diaster, would that be moral?
It’s an interesting question, particularly I would think for believers, since belief in an omniscient God spawns a sort of super Alternate Ho, a being with perfect knowledge of outcomes and absolute power to alter them.
Of course being mere humans we can’t be held accountable for outcomes we can’t reasonably foresee, can we? We are always in the position of taking our best guess. It’s what we’re doing right now. We’re guessing (well, most of us) that even if Iran goes nuclear they won’t just decide to start nuking Tel Aviv and Riyadh and loaning a couple of bombs to Al Qaeda. We’re doing the math and concluding that that risk is reasonable to take. Now, if we knew — as Alternate Ho’s — that Iran would absolutely nuke Tel Aviv and Riyadh and give some bombs to Ayman Zawahiri, and we didn’t lift a finger to stop it, I’m not sure how that would be moral.
It’s 1939, there’s Hitler, and he’s got three nice, decent family men acting as bodyguards, just innocent rent-a-cops. Do we kill him? Do we kill the bodyguards to get to him? Three vs. maybe 30 million? If you say no aren’t you valuing your own moral preciousness over human life? And if you say yes, kill ’em, then is there a magic number where the calculation changes? If we’ll kill 3 to save 30 million, will we kill 29 million to save 30 million?
I think if we’re going to assert a moral principle it has to be one that would apply equally if we were not the world’s sole superpower. Do we believe that other people have the right to carry out pre-emptive war? Or is that just for us?
Really, this is why I just don’t care about morals, only interests. There’s a moral cost to that position, and I’m willing to pay my share of it. I assume others will act in their interests as well. They can even assert that there interests are moral in nature. (That’s essentially what al Qaeda did.)
Talking about rights in terms of nation-states seems pointless. Discuss interests, and capabilities, and likelihoods, and then maybe we’re getting somewhere.
I’m having to think about this. Thanks to both Dave and Ice.
Really, this is why I just don’t care about morals, only interests. There’s a moral cost to that position, and I’m willing to pay my share of it.
Let me state one moral cost quite clearly – one is acting in a sociopathic manner by not considering potential harm to others.
One is also losing the moral high ground, except that in international relations there IS no moral high ground, just talk of such, and everyone claims it no matter how heinous the regime or the action being considered. This is how the human gift of rationalization gets applied to large group interactions.