Another Take on America's Endless Wars
A more direct advocate for ending America's military interventions around the world is Stephen Wertheim, an historian who writes about foreign policy and also serves as Deputy Director of Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. In a September 2019 article in The New York Times, entitled "The Only Way To End "Endless War," Wertheim wrote: "American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace."
The basic cause of America's endless wars, Wertheim writes, is its infatuation with military force. "Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be." But, Wertheim observes, "continued gains by the Taliban [in Afghanistan], 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones." Those statements take on new force in light of the recent disclosure by The Washington Post that three U.S. presidents and multiple generals had routinely lied to the public about progress in the war in Afghanistan, and that military commanders in the field reported they had no idea about who the enemy was or what it was they were expected to accomplish.
Wertheim makes the seminal point that endless wars began in the Middle East when the U.S. first stationed troops there after winning the Persian Gulf War in 1991. "A circular logic took hold," he writes, by which the U.S. "created its own dependence on allies that hosted and assisted American forces." That provoked "states, terrorists and militias that opposed its presence. Among the results: The United States has bombed Iraq almost every year since 1991 and spent an estimated $6 trillion on post-9/11 wars."
Rather than pursue an illusory dominance, Wertheim urges, "the United States should pursue the safety and welfare of its [own] people while respecting the rights and dignity of all. In the 21st century, finally rid of colonial empires and Cold War antagonism, America has the opportunity to practice responsible statecraft, directed toward the promotion of peace....
"On its own initiative," Wertheim says, "the United States can proudly bring home many of its soldiers currently serving in 800 bases ringing the globe, leaving small forces to protect commercial sea lanes. It can reorient its military, prioritizing deterrence and defense over power projection. It can stop the obscenity that America sends more weapons into the world than does any other country. It can reserve armed intervention, and warlike sanctions, for purposes that are essential, legal and rare."
Factors That Support Ending War
In his challenge to American war-making, Stephen Wertheim suggests that the elimination of colonial empires and Cold War antagonism in the 21st century give the U.S. an opportunity to replace its reliance on military force with "responsible statecraft directed toward the promotion of peace." But there are other factors, too, that make the times right for the U.S. to put an end to endless wars. Here are just some of many compelling reasons why thought leaders in the U.S. and other developed nations may be beginning to question whether a foreign policy based primarily on toughness remains the best way to safeguard national interests:
-- The now notorious December 2019 disclosures by The Washington Post about America's nearly 19-year-old war in Afghanistan offer strong evidence of an instructive truth. It is that regime-change wars to overthrow rulers of undeveloped or developing countries whom the U.S. government doesn't like, or whose policies are invidious to U.S. strategic interests, are not only immoral, but chaotic, unpredictable and cost-ineffective. Field commanders interviewed by the Post reported that they often had no idea about who the enemy was or what it was they were expected to accomplish. The war proved so indefensible that three U.S. presidents and multiple generals were forced to lie to the public about it, pretending that progress was being made when they knew the war was based on contradictory objectives and pursued by unworkable strategies.
-- Most countries in the world no longer wage war as a means to solve disputes with other nations. A major reason is the high cost of war, which requires the nations involved in it to have sufficient economic power to sustain hostilities for an unforeseeable length of time. Even for countries with viable economies, fighting a prolonged war will ultimately drain the coffers of government and create internal problems. Moreover, nations in conflict that are averse to war can look for help to international organizations whose mission is to help antagonists avert war. Such institutions establish procedures for resolving disputes through dialog and gaining support from the international community for any agreements reached.
-- Even for the U.S., the costs of waging war and maintaining continuous preparation for war are proving to outweigh any benefits those efforts may yield. The U.S. spends more money on "defense" than the next seven biggest spenders combined, and is unique, or next to unique, in its capacity and willingness to threaten or wage economic or military war to protect or extend strategic interests beyond its shores. By now, however, the U.S. government is surely also aware that the result of such bullying is to create more enemies around the world and drain U.S. taxpayer dollars that are needed to meet critical economic, social, and human needs at home.
-- Today's advanced nuclear weapons are capable not only of destroying any nation they strike, but of creating a nuclear winter that can kill all life on the planet. It is therefore likely that no nuclear nation would intentionally make use of such weapons in a first strike. This is especially so with respect to the three major nuclear powers, the U.S., Russia, and China. Despite conflicting global interests, not only is none of them likely to use nuclear weapons in a first strike; none is likely to start a war against either of the other two even with conventional weapons. The reason is, of course, that an impetuous resort to nuclear weapons in the heat of battle cannot be ruled out, and could well lead to mutual suicide. At the same time, however, the mere possession of nuclear weapons is itself a grave danger. Aggressive strategic policies that keep the world on trigger alert can, as shown by past incidents, easily lead to mistaken findings of an impending nuclear attack and a possible catastrophic response. Such an eventuality can only be eliminated by systematic nuclear disarmament based on the adoption of a peaceful foreign policy.
-- Given the huge costs of war and the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons, developed nations have begun to employ non-lethal cyber-warfare to check the power of their rivals. Cyber-warfare side-steps international laws against the use of force, and provides a much more efficient and cost-effective means by which to counter the ambitions of adversaries. Technologically-advanced nations can now hack into state websites and gain access to confidential documents revealing the assets and capabilities of their rivals without resorting to direct confrontation. They can also destroy their rivals' confidential projects by injecting viruses into their computer systems. Of course, when applied in that way, cyber-warfare parallels the most destructive forms of conventional kinetic warfare. Such aggression, like war itself, can only be prevented by vigorous diplomacy based on a willingness to compromise.
-- Worldwide climate change is considered by many to be the greatest of all dangers to U.S. national security and the planet's survival. A more peaceful U.S. foreign policy would permit a substantial reduction in the testing and use of modern weapons of war, which account for a significant portion of the world's carbon emissions. It would also help make possible the high level of international cooperation needed to effectively abate and control the effects of climate change.
-- The dire consequences of U.S. interventions in Middle Eastern countries go beyond the injury, suffering, and death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. They also include destruction of the physical and economic infrastructure, massive displacements of the population, problems with mass migration, torture of enemy combatants, and psychological damage to returning U.S. war veterans. These consequences seem intolerable when it is considered that, given a modest level of human empathy for the needs or plight of fellow humans called "the enemy," conflicts between sectarian groups within a state can be effectively addressed by dialog, as long as each group is granted a necessary level of autonomy.
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