Preserving Options & Flexibility
In the five or six years after 9/11 it seemed correct to lump together together the current and potential conflicts on the horizon together into a single GWOT or a Long War - maybe it was needed to get our arms around it - maybe it was a way to consider how our perception of the world had changed - although arguably the conditions were there, they'd just not come to our shores in so violent a way.
I'm not sure its a good way to look at the world anymore. By creating a conglomerate problem we potentially mask both the real causes and potential opportunities.
I'm going to the long way around this explanation - but I think it relevant.
Like IEDs, the ability and opportunity and perceived rational for those both inside the U.S. and outside the U.S. to inflict harm on us (physically, fiscally, morally and spiritually) has increased over the years - it is a condition. Its also I think a by-product of who we are. Others see us as diverse, pluralistic, secular, capitalistic, expansive, invasive, accepting, free, vulnerable, strong, weak, and a host of other adjectives that have both positive and negative connotations - we are an enigma to some because we are often the only ones there with aid and offering hope amidst great crises, but we are also faulted with ulterior motives and being the greatest of manipulators.
Its interesting to me that we are attributed a degree of control of events that is beyond us (even among our own citizens we look for conspiracy and contrivances). If we as Americans have a difficult time reconciling how the most powerful state in history can exhibit so vast a duplicity without knowing it, imagine how that must appear from the outside - at the micro level one of the hardest things to explain to was why we could not whistle up a solution to this problem or that problem. With all the satellite media beaming in images of seemingly infinite wealth and opulence, images that rarely reflect the realities most average Americans face in day to day life your average non-American has a perception of us as elite and privileged and as such the reason we do not do something is because we choose not to. Amongst those with access to such images and influence, the more deprived and uneducated a person and their families are, the greater seems the animosity attributed to us.
I am not saying that such attacks are justified, or that they are invited, are anything like that - however, I am saying that perception matters at both the local and international level, and that as Thucydides remarked - we go to war out of fear, honor and interest. This is a condition of a world that is shrinking due to IT/mass media and other aspects of accelerated globalization through technology, curiosity and growth requiring resources and markets. There are qualities to what Friedman, Barnett, Huntington and other recent authors have described in trying to articulate the problems and possibilities they see. I think they all have a piece of it in their main thesis, but these thinkers all came to different primary cause and effect relationships - why? I think depending on how you look at it (the natural bias we carry with us) the problem will appear differently. Because we are dealing with people with diverse problems, diverse motivations, living in diverse conditions, etc - there is no singular way to describe it. This is disconcerting to us as people (I believe this is a universal human characteristic not a cultural) because we seek answers that we can accept, we seek solutions - and that leads us to identifying problems - we do this because we want to move on and find more answers -etc.
I do believe we are going to see more wars - I'm not sure I like the word "persistent" because it leads to the idea of a continuation of the same thing - a longer problem. I think its likely to be greater frequency brought on by unstable conditions where "more" peaceful political discourse has come to an impasse and one or more sides in a conversation where multiple speakers wish to have their say, perceive themselves as stifled and stagnant and as such must make choices that range from accepting their lot until new opportunities arise, or to take up arms and use violence to give an edge to their voice - there is a wide range of "in-betweens". Within the party of those who feel they have been silenced - there may be varying degrees of cooperation or contention as groups evolve and gravitate, break off, reform etc. Some may feel their grievances have been sufficiently addressed for the time being, others may simply see an opportunity to attach themselves to a more powerful group with like enough objectives to live with.
Some of our current policy problems stem from exhibiting a natural tendency to see things as we'd like them to be - problems with solutions that offer long term stability - a fire and forget solution so we can move on, be left alone and get back to business - this is often derided as being "myopic", but I think its natural - although that does not make it right - we expect more from those in whom we invest so much power.
This may be one of the reasons we seem to turn to the military decision so quickly - it seems on the surface to offer an unambiguous decision - however, our culture and values require us to fix things and make them better - its who we are - and I can't imagine wanting to be anything else - in the past when we have had to resort to military force we have been the most gracious of victors and the world has recognized us for it.
The best we may be able to do is to look at each war we make or involve ourselves in differently. Even if on the surface they exhibit similar characteristics, the peoples who take part in the war(s) will see themselves differently - even we change - continuous war does something to populations - again Thucydides makes some worthy observations about how Athenians and the greater Greek world changed over the course of the Peloponnesian War - not just the general population of Athens- but also the way the political leadership changed, and the way in which smaller city-states within the Greek world were altered.
We should refrain from distilling and generalization of the wars we must contemplate - each should be seen in its uniqueness. Each should be considered in political context of all the participants. While we must have grand strategy that husbands ends, ways and means toward a political purpose with balance and consistency - we must also preserve unforeseen opportunities, and the capability to take advantage of them, which might only come into being as a result of inter-action. I'm not sure we can do that if we lump everything together under a banner where we are predisposed to see what we expect, rather then what is.
Best Regards, Rob
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