The End of (Military) History?
The US, Israel, and the Failure of the Western Way of War
By Andrew Bacevich
July 24, 2010 "TomDispatch" -- "In watching
the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid the
feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history."
This sentiment, introducing the essay that made Francis Fukuyama a
household name, commands renewed attention today, albeit from a
different perspective.
Developments
during the 1980s, above all the winding down of the Cold War, had
convinced Fukuyama that the "end of history" was at hand. "The triumph
of the West, of the Western idea," he wrote in 1989, "is evident... in
the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western
liberalism."
Today the West no longer looks quite so triumphant. Yet events during
the first decade of the present century have delivered history to
another endpoint of sorts. Although Western liberalism may retain
considerable appeal, the Western way of war has run its course.
For Fukuyama, history implied ideological competition, a contest
pitting democratic capitalism against fascism and communism. When he
wrote his famous essay, that contest was reaching an apparently
definitive conclusion.
Yet from start to finish, military might had determined that
competition's course as much as ideology. Throughout much of the
twentieth century, great powers had vied with one another to create
new, or more effective, instruments of coercion. Military innovation
assumed many forms. Most obviously, there were the weapons:
dreadnoughts and aircraft carriers, rockets and missiles, poison gas,
and atomic bombs -- the list is a long one. In their effort to gain an
edge, however, nations devoted equal attention to other factors:
doctrine and organization, training systems and mobilization schemes,
intelligence collection and war plans.
All of this furious activity, whether undertaken by France or Great
Britain, Russia or Germany, Japan or the United States, derived from a
common belief in the plausibility of victory. Expressed in simplest
terms, the Western military tradition could be reduced to this
proposition: war remains a viable instrument of statecraft, the
accoutrements of modernity serving, if anything, to enhance its
utility.
Grand Illusions
That was theory. Reality, above all the two world wars of the last
century, told a decidedly different story. Armed conflict in the
industrial age reached new heights of lethality and destructiveness.
Once begun, wars devoured everything, inflicting staggering material,
psychological, and moral damage. Pain vastly exceeded gain. In that
regard, the war of 1914-1918 became emblematic: even the winners ended
up losers. When fighting eventually stopped, the victors were left not
to celebrate but to mourn. As a consequence, well before Fukuyama
penned his essay, faith in war's problem-solving capacity had begun to
erode. As early as 1945, among several great powers -- thanks to war,
now great in name only -- that faith disappeared altogether.
Among nations classified as liberal democracies, only two resisted this
trend. One was the United States, the sole major belligerent to emerge
from the Second World War stronger, richer, and more confident. The
second was Israel, created as a direct consequence of the horrors
unleashed by that cataclysm. By the 1950s, both countries subscribed to
this common conviction: national security (and, arguably, national
survival) demanded unambiguous military superiority. In the lexicon of
American and Israeli politics, "peace" was a codeword. The essential
prerequisite for peace was for any and all adversaries, real or
potential, to accept a condition of permanent inferiority. In this
regard, the two nations -- not yet intimate allies -- stood apart from
the rest of the Western world.
So even as they professed their devotion to peace, civilian and
military elites in the United States and Israel prepared obsessively
for war. They saw no contradiction between rhetoric and reality.
Yet belief in the efficacy of military power almost inevitably breeds
the temptation to put that power to work. "Peace through strength"
easily enough becomes "peace through war." Israel succumbed to this
temptation in 1967. For Israelis, the Six Day War proved a turning
point. Plucky David defeated, and then became, Goliath. Even as the
United States was flailing about in Vietnam, Israel had evidently
succeeded in definitively mastering war.
A quarter-century later, U.S. forces seemingly caught up. In 1991,
Operation Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush's war against Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein, showed that American troops like Israeli soldiers knew
how to win quickly, cheaply, and humanely. Generals like H. Norman
Schwarzkopf persuaded themselves that their brief desert campaign
against Iraq had replicated -- even eclipsed -- the battlefield
exploits of such famous Israeli warriors as Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak
Rabin. Vietnam faded into irrelevance.
For both Israel and the United States, however, appearances proved
deceptive. Apart from fostering grand illusions, the splendid wars of
1967 and 1991 decided little. In both cases, victory turned out to be
more apparent than real. Worse, triumphalism fostered massive future
miscalculation.
On the Golan Heights, in Gaza, and throughout the West Bank, proponents
of a Greater Israel -- disregarding Washington's objections -- set out
to assert permanent control over territory that Israel had seized. Yet
"facts on the ground" created by successive waves of Jewish settlers
did little to enhance Israeli security. They succeeded chiefly in
shackling Israel to a rapidly growing and resentful Palestinian
population that it could neither pacify nor assimilate.
In the Persian Gulf, the benefits reaped by the United States after
1991 likewise turned out to be ephemeral. Saddam Hussein survived and
became in the eyes of successive American administrations an imminent
threat to regional stability. This perception prompted (or provided a
pretext for) a radical reorientation of strategy in Washington. No
longer content to prevent an unfriendly outside power from controlling
the oil-rich Persian Gulf, Washington now sought to dominate the entire
Greater Middle East. Hegemony became the aim. Yet the United States
proved no more successful than Israel in imposing its writ.
During the 1990s, the Pentagon embarked willy-nilly upon what became
its own variant of a settlement policy. Yet U.S. bases dotting the
Islamic world and U.S. forces operating in the region proved hardly
more welcome than the Israeli settlements dotting the occupied
territories and the soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
assigned to protect them. In both cases, presence provoked (or provided
a pretext for) resistance. Just as Palestinians vented their anger at
the Zionists in their midst, radical Islamists targeted Americans whom
they regarded as neo-colonial infidels.
Stuck
No one doubted that Israelis (regionally) and Americans (globally)
enjoyed unquestioned military dominance. Throughout Israel's near
abroad, its tanks, fighter-bombers, and warships operated at will. So,
too, did American tanks, fighter-bombers, and warships wherever they
were sent.
So what? Events made it increasingly evident that military dominance
did not translate into concrete political advantage. Rather than
enhancing the prospects for peace, coercion produced ever more
complications. No matter how badly battered and beaten, the
"terrorists" (a catch-all term applied to anyone resisting Israeli or
American authority) weren't intimidated, remained unrepentant, and kept
coming back for more.
Israel ran smack into this problem during Operation Peace for Galilee,
its 1982 intervention in Lebanon. U.S. forces encountered it a decade
later during Operation Restore Hope, the West's gloriously titled foray
into Somalia. Lebanon possessed a puny army; Somalia had none at all.
Rather than producing peace or restoring hope, however, both operations
ended in frustration, embarrassment, and failure.
And those operations proved but harbingers of worse to come. By the
1980s, the IDF's glory days were past. Rather than lightning strikes
deep into the enemy rear, the narrative of Israeli military history
became a cheerless recital of dirty wars -- unconventional conflicts
against irregular forces yielding problematic results. The First
Intifada (1987-1993), the Second Intifada (2000-2005), a second Lebanon
War (2006), and Operation Cast Lead, the notorious 2008-2009 incursion
into Gaza, all conformed to this pattern.
Meanwhile, the differential between Palestinian and Jewish Israeli
birth rates emerged as a looming threat -- a "demographic bomb,"
Benjamin Netanyahu called it. Here were new facts on the ground that
military forces, unless employed pursuant to a policy of ethnic
cleansing, could do little to redress. Even as the IDF tried repeatedly
and futilely to bludgeon Hamas and Hezbollah into submission,
demographic trends continued to suggest that within a generation a
majority of the population within Israel and the occupied territories
would be Arab.
Trailing a decade or so behind Israel, the United States military
nonetheless succeeded in duplicating the IDF's experience. Moments of
glory remained, but they would prove fleeting indeed. After 9/11,
Washington's efforts to transform (or "liberate") the Greater Middle
East kicked into high gear. In Afghanistan and Iraq, George W. Bush's
Global War on Terror began impressively enough, as U.S. forces operated
with a speed and élan that had once been an Israeli trademark. Thanks
to "shock and awe," Kabul fell, followed less than a year and a half
later by Baghdad. As one senior Army general explained to Congress in
2004, the Pentagon had war all figured out:
"We are now able to create decision superiority that is enabled by
networked systems, new sensors and command and control capabilities
that are producing unprecedented near real time situational awareness,
increased information availability, and an ability to deliver precision
munitions throughout the breadth and depth of the battlespace...
Combined, these capabilities of the future networked force will
leverage information dominance, speed and precision, and result in
decision superiority."
The key phrase in this mass of techno-blather was the one that occurred
twice: "decision superiority." At that moment, the officer corps, like
the Bush administration, was still convinced that it knew how to win.
Such claims of success, however, proved obscenely premature. Campaigns
advertised as being wrapped up in weeks dragged on for years, while
American troops struggled with their own intifadas. When it came to
achieving decisions that actually stuck, the Pentagon (like the IDF)
remained clueless.
Winless
If any overarching conclusion emerges from the Afghan and Iraq Wars
(and from their Israeli equivalents), it's this: victory is a chimera.
Counting on today's enemy to yield in the face of superior force makes
about as much sense as buying lottery tickets to pay the mortgage: you
better be really lucky.
Meanwhile, as the U.S. economy went into a tailspin, Americans
contemplated their equivalent of Israel's "demographic bomb" -- a
"fiscal bomb." Ingrained habits of profligacy, both individual and
collective, held out the prospect of long-term stagnation: no growth,
no jobs, no fun. Out-of-control spending on endless wars exacerbated
that threat.
By 2007, the American officer corps itself gave up on victory, although
without giving up on war. First in Iraq, then in Afghanistan,
priorities shifted. High-ranking generals shelved their expectations of
winning -- at least as a Rabin or Schwarzkopf would have understood
that term. They sought instead to not lose. In Washington as in U.S.
military command posts, the avoidance of outright defeat emerged as the
new gold standard of success.
As a consequence, U.S. troops today sally forth from their base camps
not to defeat the enemy, but to "protect the people," consistent with
the latest doctrinal fashion. Meanwhile, tea-sipping U.S. commanders
cut deals with warlords and tribal chieftains in hopes of persuading
guerrillas to lay down their arms.
A new conventional wisdom has taken hold, endorsed by everyone from new
Afghan War commander General David Petraeus, the most celebrated
soldier of this American age, to Barack Obama, commander-in-chief and
Nobel Peace Prize laureate. For the conflicts in which the United
States finds itself enmeshed, "military solutions" do not exist. As
Petraeus himself has emphasized, "we can't kill our way out of" the fix
we're in. In this way, he also pronounced a eulogy on the Western
conception of warfare of the last two centuries.
The Unasked Question
What then are the implications of arriving at the end of
Western military history?
In his famous essay, Fukuyama cautioned against thinking that the end
of ideological history heralded the arrival of global peace and
harmony. Peoples and nations, he predicted, would still find plenty to
squabble about.
With the end of military history, a similar expectation applies.
Politically motivated violence will persist and may in specific
instances even retain marginal utility. Yet the prospect of Big Wars
solving Big Problems is probably gone for good. Certainly, no one in
their right mind, Israeli or American, can believe that a continued
resort to force will remedy whatever it is that fuels anti-Israeli or
anti-American antagonism throughout much of the Islamic world. To
expect persistence to produce something different or better is
moonshine.
It remains to be seen whether Israel and the United States can come to
terms with the end of military history. Other nations have long since
done so, accommodating themselves to the changing rhythms of
international politics. That they do so is evidence not of virtue, but
of shrewdness. China, for example, shows little eagerness to disarm.
Yet as Beijing expands its reach and influence, it emphasizes trade,
investment, and development assistance. Meanwhile, the People's
Liberation Army stays home. China has stolen a page from an old
American playbook, having become today the preeminent practitioner of
"dollar diplomacy."
The collapse of the Western military tradition confronts Israel with
limited choices, none of them attractive. Given the history of Judaism
and the history of Israel itself, a reluctance of Israeli Jews to
entrust their safety and security to the good will of their neighbors
or the warm regards of the international community is understandable.
In a mere six decades, the Zionist project has produced a vibrant,
flourishing state. Why put all that at risk? Although the demographic
bomb may be ticking, no one really knows how much time remains on the
clock. If Israelis are inclined to continue putting their trust in
(American-supplied) Israeli arms while hoping for the best, who can
blame them?
In theory, the United States, sharing none of Israel's demographic or
geographic constraints and, far more richly endowed, should enjoy far
greater freedom of action. Unfortunately, Washington has a vested
interest in preserving the status quo, no matter how much it costs or
where it leads. For the military-industrial complex, there are
contracts to win and buckets of money to be made. For those who dwell
in the bowels of the national security state, there are prerogatives to
protect. For elected officials, there are campaign contributors to
satisfy. For appointed officials, civilian and military, there are
ambitions to be pursued.
And always there is a chattering claque of militarists, calling for
jihad and insisting on ever greater exertions, while remaining alert to
any hint of backsliding. In Washington, members of this militarist
camp, by no means coincidentally including many of the voices that most
insistently defend Israeli bellicosity, tacitly collaborate in
excluding or marginalizing views that they deem heretical. As a
consequence, what passes for debate on matters relating to national
security is a sham. Thus are we invited to believe, for example, that
General Petraeus's appointment as the umpteenth U.S. commander in
Afghanistan constitutes a milestone on the way to ultimate success.
Nearly 20 years ago, a querulous Madeleine Albright demanded to know:
"What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking
about if we can't use it?" Today, an altogether different question
deserves our attention: What's the point of constantly using our superb
military if doing so doesn't actually work?
Washington's refusal to pose that question provides a measure of the
corruption and dishonesty permeating our politics.
Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international
relations at Boston University. His new book, Washington Rules: America’s Path
to Permanent War, has just been published. Listen to the latest TomCast audio
interview to hear him discuss the book by clicking here or, to download to an
iPod, here.
Copyright 2010 Andrew Bacevich
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