On Needing a Shooting War:
9-3-2021
You can’t march a Drone down the street in formation. Hard to wax patriotic over pasty-faced diplomats. There’s not much drama in withholding billions of another nation’s assets. To get good ole American blood boiling, we need a shooting war. No Private Ryan, no national pride.
That’s the problem with Afghanistan. The President took away our shooting war. What’s a General to do? What’s an armchair warrior to do? What’s an arms dealer to do? How do we satisfy that adrenaline rush we get from enemy body counts and our flag planted on hilltops? We are a nation that has measured its power in terms of bullets and blood. We’re now being asked to measure our power with diplomacy, remote target strikes and financial leverage. We’re facing the limits of raw military power in an age of threats from an enemy with different strategies and tactics. It isn’t very exciting stuff.
It’s almost a blindness. On the news the other night a segment analyzing the Afghan situation going forward spent 14 minutes on the Taliban’s new control over its country. One minute on “oh, we do hold some of their money”. “Some” of their money! How about hundreds of billions of dollars in their assets and equal or more in foreign aid that is now being withheld. For a new leadership in a country that is literally starving and whose economy has collapsed, that’s a lot of power. The Taliban can not rule by terror alone. We also dismiss our ability to surveil and target military buildups and specific terrorists. Does it cross anyone’s mind that we still have a vast network of intelligence assets left in the country? Spies succeed because those their spying on don’t know who they are. Duh! Then there’s that other group. The Taliban will need help controlling ISIS-K, who clearly will be vying for power within the country. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. Another source of power.
The other blindness is what is happening all around us, while we delight in our real-life gamer voyeurism. Other nations, who are not devoting almost all their disposable income to war, are kicking our ass economically, smoothing the transitions required by a changing world and preparing for a sustainable environmental future. They also are helping other nations, and gaining influence and power without firing a shot. This is harder to see than blood and guts. But far more of a challenge to our place on this globe.
The final blindness is understanding how we are perceived by people around the world. We like to think of ourselves as the saviors of the less fortunate and a beacon of much sought after democratic ideals. Others see us as global hogs who would keep them impoverished in order to live at a quality of life ten times theirs. When we crush their duly elected governments, we’re not perceived as promoting their democracy. When we use their corrupt governments and lax environmental laws to cheaply access their natural resources and exploit their labor, we’re not heralded as a positive force in their lives. Because we refuse to see this reality, we are blind to the appeal of seemingly authoritarian nations, that do support their democratic rights and are willing to pay a fair price for their goods and services. No war will stop the erosion of power that comes when we lose credibility and are seen as a spoiled nation of users.
What this all comes down to is we face multiple challenges that are not going to be resolved on the battlefield. They will be resolved at un-sexy places like negotiating tables, military power by video clip, unheralded intelligence gathering and clandestine operations, using our financial leverage and supporting the needs of an increasingly struggling global community. Leadership by modeling a compassionate and helpful neighbor that can improve people’s daily lives. Damn, what’s the fun in that? Or as our kids might say, boring, boring, boring.
To do any of this we have to overcome the shooting war “lobby” and our own sense of what is patriotic. We need to redefine how best our coming generations can serve our nation. Until we see diplomacy as strength, not weakness, non-battle service as equally valuable to soldiering and indirect influence and power more effective than blunt force, we will neither understand the world we actually live in or succeed. Let’s own up to the hole in our outlooks and libido’s, that come with the absence of shooting wars (we used to call that peace). Let’s confront our uneasiness with the indirect vs the visible. Let’s take honest stock of our dwindling admiration around the world. This is tough stuff. This isn’t how the west was won. But it is how the future will be met and bent to the needs of people.
ihg – 9-3-2021
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