Skin in the Game

What do you think is worth going to war over? What would you consider a good enough reason to send dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of American servicemen and servicewomen into battle in a faraway land, knowing for sure that a decent percentage of them will come home either with psychological trauma, lifelong physical injuries, or in a flag-draped coffin?

In the last 72 hours or so, I've been seeing a lot of discussion among foreign policy elites about the usefulness of America's airstrikes in Syria in terms of how the strikes benefit American interests.  I've seen some say the strikes have no benefit at all, while others say they they were absolutely necessary; but one thing that many elites seem to agree on is that an overseas military intervention, under the right circumstances, in the name of American interests is perfectly acceptable.

"American interests." Those two words tend to set my teeth on edge.  I'll explain why later, but for right now, I want to briefly discuss American interests as they relate to the strikes in Syria.


First, let's figure out what American interests are. I pulled this bulleted list from former President Obama's 2010 National Security Strategy, because who better to articulate the country's interests than its president? (In case you're wondering why I used Obama's NSS instead of Trump's, it's because Obama's had a neat, reader-friendly list and Trump's did not; and I wasn't going to read all sixty-eight pages for this.) According to Obama's NSS, America's interests are as follows:

• The security of the United States, its citizens, and US allies and partners;
• A strong, innovative, and growing US economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity;
• Respect for universal values at home and around the world; and
• An international order advanced by US leadership that promotes peace, security, and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global challenges.

Do the strikes in Syria seem beneficial when you weigh them against the four items on this list of interests? The strikes were a response to Assad's use of chemical weapons on his own citizens - a purely domestic action - so while the chemical attacks were undeniably horrific, there's nothing about them that threatens any other nation.  One could make an argument that the Syrian refugee crisis threatens America's interests, but this recent chemical attack does not, in my opinion.

Now that I've talked about the strikes in Syria, let's circle back to why the term "American interests" irks me.

America's interests, as defined by the Obama NSS, are so broad that they can be (and have been) used to justify US involvement just about anywhere in the world.  An ally's neighbor threatens them militarily? Access to a vital natural resource is at risk? A humanitarian crisis, whether man-made or due to natural causes, is ongoing somewhere? Send in American troops to resolve the situation. Lebanon, Somalia, Bosnia, South Korea, Iraq, and so on...the cost in terms of Americans' and locals' lives, not to mention the enormous price tag, has never seemed worth the benefit to me.

Now, I'm not naive enough to think these military interventions provide no benefits at all.  The American economy needs all sorts of goods from other nations to keep running: raw materials, electronic components, food, industrial chemicals, etc. Consumers need the goods created from these items, and companies need the steady flow of these goods to not be jeopardized, which means the United States has a stake in keeping the countries that provide these materials stable: no costly wars or civil unrest.  Sometimes ensuring that country's stability requires us to do unpleasant things such as propping up a despot or intervene in a conflict that doesn't appear to concern us.  That's the reality of the global economy, and it's not going away any time soon.  It's also a fact of human history: wars are often fought over access to resources.

I recognize the unpleasant truth, and I see the inevitability of it.  Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.  Sending our troops to fight an adversary that doesn't present a clear, immediate threat to the country seems immoral to me.

But maybe I'm just out of step.