As my vacation comes to an end, I want to thank Columbia's Jack Snyder and Georgetown's David Edelstein for their thoughtful
guest posts. Last week David had an excellent entry on the war-aversion of most contemporary realists and I wanted to offer a brief reaction. I've always found it odd that many
academics see realism as a hawkish view of world politics and think that
realists are big fans of using military power, even though most contemporary
realists -- with a few exceptions like Henry Kissinger -- have generally been prudent
about the use of force and skeptical about most overseas military
adventures. As Edelstein points
out, realists like Waltz, Morgenthau, and Kennan were opposed to U.S.
involvement in Vietnam -- on strategic rather than moral grounds -- and younger
realists (including me) opposed the Iraq War in 2003, were ambivalent about our intervention in Balkans or Africa in the 1990s, and think attacking Iran would be major
strategic blunder today.
Edelstein's discussion of this issue is excellent and I
don't have any major disagreements with his post, but I would add a few additional
points.
To start with a minor correction: the invasion of
Afghanistan in 2002 is not the only post-Cold War military operation that
realists supported. As I recall,
most realists also supported Desert
Storm, the 1991 liberation of Kuwait. Moreover, it was two realists -- John Mearsheimer of the University of
Chicago and Barry Posen of MIT -- who offered the most optimistic (and as it
turned out, accurate) pre-war forecasts of how easy that war was likely to
be. (By contrast, both doves and a
surprising number of hawks seemed to think ousting Saddam from Kuwait was going to be very
difficult).
As one might expect, realists supported Desert Storm for good balance-of-power reasons. If Saddam's Iraq had absorbed Kuwait
permanently, its GDP would have increased by about 40 percent and it could have
translated that additional wealth into additional military power. Although Saddam's
military machine was never very impressive by U.S. standards, a somewhat stronger Iraq might have posed a more serious
long-term threat to the regional balance in the Gulf and presented a more
serious threat to Saudi Arabia in particular. Given that the United States has always sought to prevent
any single power from dominating this oil-rich region, it made good strategic sense
to expel Iraq from Kuwait and to degrade its military power in the process. Most of the rest of the world
agreed, by the way, which is why they helped us do it and why that operation
did not tarnish our national image.
It was also the right decision not to go to Baghdad back
then, because toppling Saddam in 1991 would have dragged us into precisely the
same quagmire we have been dealing with since we foolishly invaded in 2003.
The other reason why contemporary realists have been skeptical
about many recent military adventures is essentially structural. Since the end of the Cold War, the
United States has been in a remarkably favorable geopolitical position. Realists care primarily (thought not
exclusively) about the balance of material power, and there just isn't a lot of
additional power out there to be won via military action. Instead, the main arenas of American
military activity have been conflict-ridden backwaters of little or no
strategic importance. They are
hard to get to, difficult-to-impossible to pacify, and don't have a lot of economic
potential or military power of their own. Getting bogged down in places like Iraq or Afghanistan just strengthens jihadi narratives about America's alleged antipathy to Islam, and
as with Vietnam, it ultimately won't matter very much whether we win or
lose. On simple cost-benefit
grounds, therefore, realists don't think these wars are worth the effort.
In short, because realists understand that military power is
a crude instrument and that governing alien societies is a costly business,
they have argued against such foolishness. Instead, the main advocates of military involvement
have been a coalition of neoconservatives and liberal internationationalists,
driven by a a variety of agendas and infused with a remarkable degree of
hubris. The results -- first in
Iraq and now in Afghanistan -- have not been pretty.
Realists have lost these debates, however, for somewhat similar
structural reasons. When a state
is as big and powerful as the United States is, it is hard for its leaders to believe that they
can't do the impossible in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. And when you are geographically distant
from the places you are meddling, it's hard to believe that it will have any serious
consequences back here at home (9/11 notwithstanding). Also, as I've noted before, the Cold War got the United
States in the habit of going everywhere and doing everything, and led to the
emergence of a large set of domestic institutions whose cumulative impact is to to keep the
United States engaged in as many places as possible.
So long as there are no great power rivals out there, it is
hard to argue that attacking some country we have taken a disliking too
(whether for valid or bogus reasons) is going to be costly or difficult. Even worse, there will always be
various propagandists and clever briefers out there to explain why this time
the intended target is really dangerous and this time the war really will pay
for itself, and this time failure to act will have catastrophic consequences, and oh yes, this time other states really want us to do it, etc., etc., etc. And no matter how many times the hawks
have been wrong in the past, plenty of people will take them seriously. For an 800-lb gorilla like the USA, amnesia seems to be a congenital condition.
One last point. Contrary to what some critics think, realists don't want a weaker
America. But they do understand
that a robust economy is the foundation of all national power and that wasting
money or lives on foolish foreign adventures, excessive military spending, or a
large, secretive, redundant, and dysfunctional "intelligence" apparatus does
not make the country stronger or more secure.
As the realist Kenneth Waltz put it back in the early 1980s,
"more is not better if less is enough." Those wise words apply to the entire national security establishment,
and to the costly misadventures that civilians have been asking it to do in
recent years. So in addition to the reasons that Professor Edelstein emphasized, that's why realists have been wary of using force in recent years.
Alright then, what about the nations that we decided against continued efforts in (partially due to their lack of power and partially due to domestic discontent) that later became serious problems? Somalia is now one of the largest exporters of piracy and appears to have a nascent international terrorism industry.
On Iraq, even just maintaining the balance by sending soldiers through Saudi Arabia was enough to push militant groups to focus on the 'far enemy' of the United States.
Lastly, what if they work? A few hundred British soldiers in Sierra Leone were enough to completely reverse the situation (even though they had only been sent there to evacuate foreigners).
Alright then, what about the nations that we decided against continued efforts in (partially due to their lack of power and partially due to domestic discontent) that later became serious problems? Somalia is now one of the largest exporters of piracy and appears to have a nascent international terrorism industry.
Um...We have been continuing 'efforts' in Somalia - through Ethiopian proxies with American 'advisors' and air cover. Hasn't been working out all that well. In particular the Islamic Courts Union, which was possibly a little bit too friendly to al-Qaida, has become the al-Shahaab, and openly pro-al Qaida. Heckuva job.
Lastly, what if they work? A few hundred British soldiers in Sierra Leone were enough to completely reverse the situation (even though they had only been sent there to evacuate foreigners).
*Shrug*. What about it? Steve's post didn't directly address humanitarian intervention, which is a different question from Afghanistan and Iraq anyway. I'm sure we could have a good debate here about Kosovo, Sierra Leone, etc. etc. 'Success' in a single case may be dangerous, however, if it teaches the wrong lesson.
1. To start I was referring to the 1991 peace keeping efforts where the U.S pulled out of Somalia after soldiers were killed, effectively killing the peace keeping mission. That not only said to the world that the U.S would not tolerate casualties, it also paved the way for the current situation where Al-Shabab does seem to be more and more likely to conquer Somalia with each passing day. So far U.S efforts to combat this have all been low key, either involving aid to the Transitional Government or covert ops. Additionally I don't think that you've looked at Somali politics. Even just a quick glance at CNN, BBC or even Wikipedia would tell you that the Union was an alliance of multiple militant groups inspired partially by Islam that broke up after the invasion by Ethiopia. Al-Shabab was the most hard line of the different factions. Also the current president of Somalia was the former Commander in Chief of the Union.
2. They are effectively the same in that they can be called 'liberal wars'. That is to say, wars or military actions that are fought not directly for immediate national concerns but for humanitarian reasons and possibly for long term concerns (only possibly though). Perhaps the best lesson of all on such wars isn't that they are inherently bad, but that sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. It might be better to devote more study to why some work and some don't rather than automatically stating that they are bad.
1. Right. The Islamic Courts Union was a broad front that was somewhat bad from an American point of view. The Shahaab is quite a bit worse from an American point of view. To me it looks like our proxy war has radicalized the Somali Islamists. Do you believe it would have turned out differently if we'd intervened directly?
2. The Sierra Leone intervention looks a lot like your classic Monroe Doctrine operation in the Caribbean or Latin America. Those are countries which like Sierra Leone have a fairly compact hinterland which can be controlled by occupying a single major port city. Anyway, Sierra Leone has some incredible mineral deposits, so there may have been good realist reasons for intervention anyway. What concerns me is labeling it a 'liberal war' and concluding that 'liberal wars work' - which is exactly what Blair et al. seems to have done in the wake of that and the Yugoslav war etc.
If we had intervened more forcefully instead of withdrawing in 1991 I think we could quite possibly have managed to avoid the debacle we face now. That is of course debatable, but the warlords were certainly less popular than Al-Shabab. At that point the nation was mostly controlled by warlords and not by an ideologically motivated movement*. As for Al-Shabab and the Union, it sounded to me like you were assuming that one became the other when instead the Union fragmented with some factions joining the Transitional Government. Ultimately this gave the government some time, though it seems unlikely that it can continue for much longer without massive reinforcements and a real effort to make the government a better provider of services.
On Sierra Leone, the officer in charge actually was acting directly against his orders. The U.K wanted to leave the country to its fate.
Or. perhaps realists recognize that perhaps launching another foreign adventure is both irresponsible and premature in a time of economic uncertainty. Most Americans (including myself) would throw a fit if our military went into some other country when millions upon millions are still unemployed and our national infrastructure is going to s**t. In addition to all their other qualities, realists also have common sense.
It's just a shame that some in the Congress don't have this same common-sense, like John McCain (who I actually supported in the last election), who looks like he's going off the rocker by beating the war drums on Iran.
this is what you call a logical response...how can we rationally spending so much on wars and let our home go into financial ruin?
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As much as I tend towards the "Realist" idea I have to say that I think way too much is made by foreign policy thinkers of defending what they think that means or what "Idealism" means, and why the other side is wrong.
Seems to me in many many instances Realists will disagree amongst themselves as to what should be done, as will Idealists, and indeed in many both will (or should) admit to having to cave to pure Pragmatism.
If it can't even be clearly decided historically with all its material whether this or that happened or didn't happen or failed or succeeded due to Realism or Idealism, you just know that there's never going to be any real agreement into the future as to what's what and what's right.
Reification is thinking that merely because you can come up with some word to try to describe something that it really exists as some discrete taxonomic entity in nature somehow. And it's just surpassingly foolish reification to think that's true even with such general words and concepts such as Realism or Idealism.
They are just general words and concepts, and who the hell cares what you are if you are right as to the true nature of a problem and the true solution? One's analysis of things ought to be just subject to the normal rules of evidence and logic and etc., and not whether it can be labeled as X or Y.
Of course everyone recognizes this, which is why you don't see people saying "obviously I'm right because I am an X" or "because I am a Y]." But, nevertheless, we still see these ferocious, extended arguments over what X or Y means as if such statements would have any validity.
In the end, you can take damn near any proposition you want and with just a little imagination make it out to be either Realist or Idealist, so meaning that the correct response to those who overly concentrate on such labels to be "So What?"
Exceptions to "realists skeptical about overseas military adventures" including Henry Kissinger, George Schultz (Lebanon, Grenada) and James Baker (Somalia, Kuwait) include most of the realists who have actually directed foreign policy.
In fairness to Kissinger, the administration he served inherited the Vietnam conflict, and Kissinger was more accepting of the pre-1969 conventional wisdom about the war than he was an active contributor to it (his focus was on US-Soviet relations, and Europe). It may be appropriate to note, as well, that the whole definition of "realist" necessarily underwent a change when the perceived existential threat represented by the Soviet Union disappeared. With that said, those are some pretty significant exceptions, raising the question of whether academic realists sitting on the sidelines are quite the real deal.
I mean by this not only that academic realists don't do (instead, they teach) but that realism as a school of thought can support profoundly unrealistic courses of action. The first Bush administration's declaration of victory in the Gulf War, for example, won it praise, great visuals, and a victory parade -- at the cost of beginning a long, hostility-generating military commitment to freeze in place the local geopolitical status quo. Realism led the elder Bush to leave large numbers of American troops in Saudi Arabia; assume the role of spectator as an Iraqi Shiite rebellion was crushed within sight of the huge American army Bush had sent halfway around the world to save Kuwait; establish a protectorate over Iraqi Kurdistan; and organize economic sanctions that ended up souring relations with any number of other governments and hollowing out the Iraqi government outside the security services, while not loosening Saddam's grip on Arab iraq at all.
Some officials of the first Bush administration have never ceased patting themselves on the back for that one, and academic realists are prone to assume that the decision about what to do at the end of the Gulf War and that of what to do about Iraq in 2003 were basically the same one -- decided correctly the first time and incorrectly the second. But in fact it was a very shallow realism in 1991 that interpreted American interests in terms of lines on a map. Our true interest was to find a way to deter regional upheavals while avoiding (as we had mostly done up to that time) direct American involvement in the treacherous, barbarous currents of Arab political culture. To advance that interest, the cost to the leader who had upset the regional status quo had to be made plain, and for that to happen Saddam Hussein had to go.
The test of foreign policy is not whether it can be called realist, but whether it succeeds. Nixon's mostly succeeded; the elder Bush's, conducted under far more favorable conditions, succeeded early in his tenure but piled up problems for his successors to struggle with later on. His son's graphic demonstration that there are many other ways to screw up has obscured the costs of the elder Bush's shallow realism.
Your objections to Bush I policy are cogent but somewhat phony. Any success necessarily brings with it hidden costs; we only have the choice of bad option.
Case in point, your assertion that Nixon's policy didn't come with serious costs down the road. Srsly? The 'Nixon Doctrine' boiled down to "we'll tolerate higher oil prices in exchange for greater armament purchases from oil-exporting powers." Now, this was a much subtler policy than Bush I's and its effects have been subtler. But there has been an appreciable cost to having practically every oil power be an armed to the teeth police state.
All I said about Nixon's foreign policy was that it mostly succeeded. I also alluded to the fact that it was conducted under highly unfavorable conditions, mostly related to the Vietnam inheritance but also having to do with Nixon's own misconduct and the collapse of his administration.
I do not recognize the description of the Nixon Doctrine offered here, nor do I accept it as the cause of the problems mentioned. Higher oil prices than prevailed during the 1950s and 1960s were inevitable; to call them the product of American foreign policy is absurd. Nixon's administration coped with a changed environment and ended up on good terms with oil producing countries, the best outcome that could have been expected under the circumstances.
The Bush Defense, by now a traditional response to criticism of the second as well as the first Bush administration, goes "well, sure, some bad things happened -- but we couldn't have known, it wasn't our fault, and anyway we'll have to wait fifty years to see how everything shakes out." That the first Bush administration, operating in the most benign international environment since the end of World War II, ended with America committed to containing one country that it had just mobilized the world to defeat on the battlefield, deep into Somalia with no plan for getting out, and standing paralyzed as Yugoslavia came apart suggests that grading on a curve this steep is inappropriate.
This is a very good post without the usual potshots at the neocons and the Bush Administration. As a Chicago student during Desert Storm, I distinctly remember the heat Prof Mearhsheimer took for his public predictions that the outcome would not be as dire as many on the Left were predicting. All the handwringing about thousands and thousands of body bags turned out to be not necessary.
Although Prof Walt says a "surprising number of hawks" thought it was going to be difficult, let's also not forget the Senate vote authorizing the use of force. The final vote was 52-47 and every no vote was a Democrat except for one. That was a shameful exercise in my opinion and had a deep resonance for my political leanings.
Professor Walt, thank you for your consistently excellent blog.
Una preguntita: What do Realists make of the US--sorry, UN--imposed sanctions against Iraq after the first Gulf War?
The sanctions surely weakened Iraq as part of an offshore balancing strategy. Once I saw noted realist Brent Scowcroft on TV discussing how effective they were.
The sanctions also killed so many civilians.(Scowcroft on TV manfully admitted the civilian damage but refrained from tearing up.) The former UN apparatchik in charge of the sanctions quit, saying that the program was arguably genocidal. A new book published by Harvard University Press by Joy Gordon documents the carnage.
Madeline Albright blithely told Leslie Stahl she thought the sanctions were, y'know, worth it. Is this a proper realist assessment?
Is it possible to evaluate the success of the first Gulf War without taking the sanctions and their enormous civilian death toll into account? Shouldn't the sanctions be seen as part of the first Gulf War? So often it is hard to say when a war ends. Do you know what Mearsheimer thinks of the sanctions?
So how does Realism as espoused by Scowcroft, Krasner, Waltz et al assess the sanctions?
The answer will certainly help us assess Realism, and Realists.
"And when you are geographically distant from the places you are meddling, it's hard to believe that it will have any serious consequences back here"
In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory, from a longer continuance of the war.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/06/04/adam-smith-quote-of-the-day/
You've been out Dr. Walt, but let me point out that your entire article is a logical waste of time. You say, realists like war sometimes and othertimes don't. So, since realism offers no clear guide you are simply twisting and working double time to justify and abstract label--that offers no clear guidance.
All academic nonsense. There were many reasons to "liberate Kuwait" much of which has to do with pay-offs, kickbacks, and other justifications who's rewards would extend to very few.
"A somewhat stronger Iraq" Man, what are you smoking. As the late comic Bill Hicks pointed out, that Iraq's "4th largest Army in the world" was substantially behind the first 3 armies. This is utter intellectual fraud. The Soviet Union NEVER rivaled us as secret files reveal. But, you want to argue that Saddam posed a real threat? Come on, try sincerity and earnestness.
If you would get off the silly defense of an abstraction--"realism" fully 2/3rds of your article could be deleted. I wish you had spend more on exposing the vast, venal temptation of declaring war. We are asking our politicians, even your upper level career diplomats to literally forgo millions of dollars in personal wealth to do what right and altruistic. I wish you'd spent more time describing the difficulty of war. Of the self-contradictory nature of our missions in these battles.
What we don't need is defense of a label. Labels, it can be said, lead to the World Wars and many of these piss-ant invasions of South American and African "socialists" and "communists."
"It might be better to devote more study to why some work and some don't rather than automatically stating that they are bad."
That would be better than declaring some action, "Realist," "Humanitarian," "Liberal" or "Neo-con" and then trying to derive something out of that. War cannot be argued or justified deductively. PLEASE STOP THE LABELS, THEY ARE LITERALLY MEANINGLESS. If don't get me, go visit the philosophy dept. Your terms change, you eqivocate, you waste hours, ink and inches on abstractions that would make the philosophy dept crazy. When the philosophers are the physical scientists at the table, we're sitting at a very metaphysical table.
I believe the question that best summarizes the realist position on the use of military force is one that Kenneth Waltz himself just posed this past year when he received his lifetime achievement award. That singular question was "do we need to go to war?" The key here is an objective "need" rather than a subjective desire. In other words, this is call for a rational weighing of strategic costs vs. benefits, devoid of orientations relating to party, ideological positions, or even to some degree a moral "rightness". It is this central question that separates the realist view of foreign policy from others. This central question allows for Desert Storm to fit the paradigm and not Afghanistan and even less so the last case of Iraq.
Although there is certainly an academic side to realism, which I am a part of, it does not ignore nor does it have the desire to separate itself from practical policy. Instead, it hopes to inform the debate and apply this central question. If there is any hesitation in response to, then perhaps restraint is called for. Foreign policy following this Waltzian view will often not call for conflict, as the objective reality becomes that there are very few strategic goals that warrant the high costs of war. This objective reality differs greatly from the perceived one that policy makers and the public are often generally tie themselves to. Certainly this is not to say policy needs to be devoid of morality or emotion, just merely that perhaps the foundations or starting point should be. Of course that is easier said than done, but still it is a simple question that is not asked nearly enough...do we really need to go to war?
I will be curious to see Professor Walt's reaction to the TIME magazine cover story (and picture) regarding the consequences of the US withdrawing from Afghanistan. For all his blustering about the terrible consequences of our presence in Afghanistan in Iraq, let's not forget there are negative consequences to the US leaving as well.
As if women aren't having acid thrown at them now that we're there. As if it doesn't happen in Pakistan and India every day. Perhaps the next cover should show a boy rape victim of the Afghan police with the caption 'What Happens if We Stay in Afghanistan'.
A public brandishing of all supporters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as being enemies of the state is long overdue. No other have hurt American national interests as they -- ever. Yes you may argue there were others in the past, but the shear numbers this time ensures that theyIsrael can afford it (The US pays - that was a cracker)
Israel can afford these wars. After all, Israel is the most securitised country in the world.. It islong time since someone attacked its interests. Don't think that it is due tp a lack of want.
Israelis and their supporters couldn't be more indifferent if the rest of the world are to taste the same medicine as they have been used to for decades, in the form of security-checks, surveillance and infringements of human rights. They are a country still at war (Only Egypt and Jordan have signed peace thraties) - and couldb't care less if YOU has to take off your shoes when you board an aeroplane, or that your wife should have her bra fumbled with.
Costs of wars chief responsible
The costs of the two wars are chief-responsible for the deteriation of U.S. public finances, that has taken place during the last decade. All thrue friends of America wants to see a strong US - which means - by implication - that all who supported the wars are enemies of the state and its thrue national interests.
A public brandishing of all supporters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as being enemies of the state is long overdue. No other have hurt American national interests as they -- ever. Yes you may argue there were others in the past, but the shear numbers this time ensures that they hold the record.
It is my hope, that when we decry this group collectively, they themselves will turn on the real culprits - the neoconservative pundits with ties to Israel, who systematically have misled the American citizens Saddam was an old foe of Israel and best friend and benefactor to the Palestinians. And everythinhg that kills "extreme terrorists" as they call it, is by itself good - and if it happens as far away as Afghanistan, even better. In their sick mind it even makes sense to have US troops close to the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons,- Pakistan. That Pakistan has descended into chaos due to the war in next door Afghanistan, merely proves the defunct state of these peoples analytical provess - something we also saw with regard to the Iraq-war, the chaotic outcome of which now poses a greater strategic threat to Israel than Saddam did.
Israel can afford it (The US pays - that was a cracker)
Israel can afford these wars. After all, Israel is the most securitised country in the world.. It islong time since someone attacked its interests. Don't think that it is due tp a lack of want.
Israelis and their supporters couldn't be more indifferent if the rest of the world are to taste the same medicine as they have been used to for decades, in the form of security-checks, surveillance and infringements of human rights. They are a country still at war (Only Egypt and Jordan have signed peace thraties) - and couldb't care less if YOU has to take off your shoes when you board an aeroplane, or that your wife should have her bra fumbled with.
Costs of wars chief responsible
The costs of the two wars are chief-responsible for the deteriation of U.S. public finances, that has taken place during the last decade. All thrue friends of America wants to see a strong US - which means - by implication - that all who supported the wars are enemies of the state and its thrue national interests.
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