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.

Trump's Half-Baked Strategy for Afghanistan

On Monday evening, August 21st, President Trump gave a speech laying out his plan for addressing the war in Afghanistan, a place where the US has occupied since 2001.  Given Afghanistan's track record of resisting and outlasting invading armies, I'd be pessimistic about the plan's odds of success even if an exceptionally brilliant general or statesman like Clausewitz or Metternich had drawn it up; and Trump is certainly not on the same level as them.

First, a few things to say about the speech's tone and timing.  The speech itself is far more eloquent and articulate than many of Trump's previous oratories - could this be a sign of a shift in the administration's collective culture now that Bannon has left? Possibly.  It's too early to tell, but there was a distinct change in Monday's speech.  The emphasis on the bonds within the military makes me speculate that McMaster, himself a career soldier, had a major role in writing the speech.  The speech also stresses the importance of national unity, which many pundits attribute to the recent events in Charlottesville, as well as Trump's verbal bungling in the aftermath.  The speech's timing also conveniently benefits Trump: although he couldn't have foreseen the Barcelona terrorist attack, laying out a policy that escalates the war in Afghanistan certainly helps Trump look tough in the face of terrorism.

That covers my thoughts on the speech's timing and tone.  Now for its content - and we've got quite a bit to unpack here.

First, there's the speech overall.  As I already mentioned, Trump signaled his intent to ramp up the war in Afghanistan.  This confirms that Trump plans to keep America's foreign policy on the same military-centric, interventionist foreign policy it has been on since the Truman Administration.  He might make a few changes around the edges, but the core approach remains fixed.   Trump has effectively fallen prey to what retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich disparagingly labeled the "bipartisan military consensus" in his book, The Limits of Power.  This is a significant point in Trump's administration, because it represents an important indication of the path his policy will lead, not only in Afghanistan, but in other fronts in the war on terror.  Expect to see him maintain or increase the op-tempo in Yemen, Somalia, and Iraq eventually.

The policy which he outlined in his speech is also self-contradictory and painfully naive.  Early on, he expresses a distaste for nation-building, stating "I share their [the American people's] frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy and most importantly lives trying to rebuild countries in our own image instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations." However, later in the speech, he states that the United States will "participate in economic development to help defray the cost of this war to us." I could be wrong, but economic development sounds a lot like nation-building.  In fact, the economic component is a key part of nation-building.  Additionally, leaving a nation in ruins creates the conditions which Trump himself acknowledges exploit to establish a safe haven.  There's not going to be any way around nation-building, and Trump will soon learn this; unfortunately, an understaffed State Department will pose an obstacle.  Trump's strategy also seems determined to avoid making the mistakes of the previous war: leaving a power vacuum in a broken and divided country.  This applies to Afghanistan in the 1990s, but particularly Iraq, which is fresh in many generals' minds.

A dearth of nation-building efforts implies an emphasis on military force, and Trump's strategy reflects this.  He's evidently opting for a Bidenesque emphasis on counter-terrorism over counter-insurgency.  Trump has also wised up to NATO's importance, emphasizing that this will be a multinational effort.  How well that goes over with the other NATO countries is anyone's guess, though.

Trump also indicates that he wants the Afghan military to take the lead.  There's logic in that, but also huge potential for trouble.  A nation's army must maintain a strict monopoly on force; but in Balkanized countries like Afghanistan, there's a lot of overlap among the military and a particular faction.  Trump's approach will only make insurgents target US forces more, because they'll see us as allies of their enemies.  Also, the US has been in Afghanistan for seventeen years, so our adversaries have already formed their own opinions of us, and those opinions likely won't change.  Trump stated he's open to a political settlement with the Taliban; if so, letting the Afghan army take the lead will make any settlement more difficult to achieve.

Trump also shows a serious lack of understanding for how the Afghanistan policy rebounds into other areas.  First, publicly criticizing Pakistan and lauding India probably won't incentivize Pakistan to cooperate; and since one of Pakistan's key allies is China, this could potentially make dealing with North Korea more difficult.  In fact, China has already responded.  Second, eschewing nation-building will create a void that other nations could rush to fill, and Russia has already been expanding its influence in Afghanistan through the use of "soft power."

This might all be cause for concern, but the "bipartisan consensus" hasn't really been bothered by half-baked plans in the past.  Whether that's due to indifference or because nobody wants to tell the emperor that he's naked I can't really say, but my guess is that the US wants to keep a flag planted in Afghanistan as part of some grand geopolitical scheme.  Trump's bungling won't make a difference, but it will throw a bit of sand in the gears.  This is one of Trump's major tests as president, and he failed miserably.  His speech showed how little he understands about Afghanistan, military tactics, geopolitics, and the consequences of his words.

Finally, there were a few parts of the speech that I wanted to mention briefly:

• Trump's comment that "historically I like following my instincts." As professor Michael Horowitz of U-Penn insightfully notes, this is a clever way of preemptively shifting blame to the generals if the strategy goes south.
• In keeping with his fragile ego, there were a handful of times when he seemingly went out of his way to remind people that he's the president.
• He also threw a bit of red meat to his base by reinforcing the perception of Democrat weakness on military matters and talking about terrorists in the language of force.

That was what I took away from Trump's speech.  I have a feeling the next 3 1/2 years are going to be a bumpy ride.  Trump is woefully, hilariously, out of his league.