Prof. Bacevich on U.S. Grand Strategy
Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Oversight and Investigations Tuesday. I'm inclined to agree with him.
Quote:
Yet there is a second way to approach questions of grand strategy. This alternative approach – which I will employ in my very brief prepared remarks – is one that emphasizes internal conditions as much as external threats.
Here is my bottom line: the strategic imperative that we confront in our time demands first of all that we put our own house in order. Fixing our own problems should take precedence over fixing the world’s problems.
....
Since the 1970s, Americans have talked endlessly of the need to address this problem. Talk has not produced effective action.
Instead, by tolerating this growing dependence on foreign oil we have allowed ourselves to be drawn ever more deeply into the Persian Gulf, a tendency that culminated in the ongoing Iraq War. That war, now in its sixth year, is costing us an estimated $3 billion per week – a figure that is effectively a surtax added to the oil bill.
Surely, this is a matter that future historians will find baffling: how a great power could recognize the danger posed by energy dependence and then do so little to avert that danger.
Example number two of our domestic dysfunction is fiscal. Again, you are familiar with the essential problem, namely our persistent refusal to live within our means.
When President Bush took office in 2001, the national debt stood at less than $6 trillion. Since then it has increased by more than 50% to $9.5 trillion. When Ronald Reagan became president back in 1981, total debt equaled 31% of GDP. Today, the debt is closing in on 70% of GDP.
....
In fact, the Long War represents an impediment to sound grand strategy. To persist in the Long War will be to exacerbate the existing trends toward ever greater debt and dependency and it will do so while placing at risk America’s overstretched armed forces.
To imagine that a reliance on military power can reverse these trends toward ever increasing debt and dependency would be the height of folly. This is the central lesson that we should take away from period since September 11, 2001.
....
In the end, how we manage – or mismanage – our affairs here at home will prove to be far more decisive than our efforts to manage events beyond our shores, whether in the Persian Gulf or East Asia or elsewhere.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/07...tegy/#more-758
Went to war for oil meme ...
I will not criticize or speak against a man who has lost a son in the war. I hope that that is a feeling I never experience. Bacevich has a right to hold any position he wants. But the one proferred here is the tired "we went to war for oil" meme, so incorrect that it doesn't warrant the time spent to refute it. Discussion threads at the SWC have graduated beyond that meme.
I'm all in favor a national energy policy, something we have never had as a country. But assuming that we have the grandest policy imaginable in the future (drill for oil off our own shores, start up another hundred nuclear reactors, electric cars, etc., etc.), it will have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with battling militant, Islamic extremism where it exists.
As for whether we do this overseas or within the homeland, well, take your pick. Don't be surprised if you choose to wage counterinsurgency on the homeland soil and that's actually what happens. In other words, be careful what you ask for. The "evils" of imperialism have kept the battle off of the homeland soil thus far. We have enjoyed peace and stability, including Bacevich who believes it's all about oil.
I understand the dangers of imperialism. There are consequences - and unintended consequences - to both isolationism and imperialism. But the long war - as Abizaid called it - will go on until one side or the other capitulates, one way or the other, one place or the other.
The interesting thing about all those testifying and
cited here is that they were testifying truth to power in every sense.
Most of their testimony is essentially correct; one could quibble about war for oil and reindustrialization plus a few others but those cited are basically correct in their assertions. We need to fix a lot of things.
Every thing we need to fix that we can indeed actually fix can be laid directly at the feet of Congress. This or that President may have facilitated what Congress wanted but those guys only serve for four or eight years -- as all the testimony above shows, we've been headed downhill since the '60s. Only the Congress has been around that long. So congress can do the fixing. Somehow, I doubt Congress will fix itself...
Thus, we need to fix Congress.
If Iraq was rich in carrots, isntead of oil...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Danny
But the one proferred here is the tired "we went to war for oil" meme, so incorrect that it doesn't warrant the time spent to refute it. Discussion threads at the SWC have graduated beyond that meme.
Well, I guess we went to war in Afghanistan because of the attacks on 9/11.
As to why we are at war in Iraq, it seems pretty persuasive to me that petroleum has something to do with it. If Iraq's principal economic resource was that it was rich in say, carrots, I doubt we'd be that interested in the goings on in Mesopotamia.
The primary thing concerning Oil in Iraq
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacitus
...As to why we are at war in Iraq, it seems pretty persuasive to me that petroleum has something to do with it. If Iraq's principal economic resource was that it was rich in say, carrots, I doubt we'd be that interested in the goings on in Mesopotamia.
was that it could be invaded with minimal disturbance to world oil supply -- and we really want China and India, two large users of ME Oil, to have all the Oil they need with no interruptions. There were some other synergistic effect involving oil but they were minor and paled into insignificance alongside the no-disruption factor and Iraq's geographical centrality in the ME and its pariah status at the time.
Thus the oil issue is not Iraq's oil but that in the greater ME.
Turkey is a nice idea but . . .
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fuchs
Turkey is ideal.
. . . there's that little sticking point known as Cyprus, which is also a problem for EU admission. The Turks' official positions wrt Kurds and Armenians are also concerns. And, we've already had trouble getting cooperation from Turkey--remember the 4ID debacle in 2003?