TOWARDS MILITARY POLICY SANITY

By H. N. Burdett

Andrew Bacevich, the West Point graduate, former career military officer and Pentagon intellectual who believes the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was a grievous error, has taken up his pen once again to offer yet another healthy dose of rationality.

In his previous books and articles, Bacevich, who heads the international relations department at Boston University, makes the case that war is armed hostilities between nations and as such cannot be declared and waged against "isms," including terrorism. Therefore, as he sees it, interventions into Iraq and Afghanistan under the pretext of a war against terrorism is a colossal blunder if not a deliberate hoax and the right thing to do is to get the hell out of there.

It would be wrong to label Bacevich a radical pacifist. In the wake of 9/11, he feels the objective should have been a laser focus on capturing Osama Bin Laden and holding him and al-Qaeda accountable for their butchery.

Had the hunt for Bin Laden been formulated as an international police action, with the cooperation of the so-called coalition of the willing, rather than a full-scale military operation, Bacevich would have been supportive.

Moreover, had the obscene amounts of money the U.S. has poured into fighting two countries under the ludicrous rationale that they were threats to United States security because one of them had weapons of mass destruction that apparently never existed been spent on a coordinated international police action, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda might by this time have been relegated to history.

The route of perpetual war chosen by the Bush administration appears to have been calculated to ensure long-term Republican domination of the White House and Congress under the hypothesis that horses are not changed in midstream, nor presidents in mid-war. This together with U.S. reliance on oil providing the necessary national security and national interest elements converged to form the perfect storm that swept George W. Bush into the White House for an unlikely second term.

In his latest book, Washington Rules, Bacevich goes beyond the West Asian adventure, courtesy of the United States, to suggest a far different approach to U.S. military policy.

Over the past 60 years, he contends, U.S. military policy and practice have demonstrated troubling "elements of continuity." He has found what he calls "the sacred trinity" -- a policy reflecting "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism."

Bacevich traces this thinking to the "American credo," expounded before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany and Italy, in early 1941 by the influential publisher, Henry Luce. Writing in his Life magazine, Luce exhorted Americans to "accept wholeheartedly our duty to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit."

Luce's manifesto is one that any dictator might pronounce most reasonable, but any leader dedicated to the principles and ideals inscribed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution might rightfully repudiate. Considering what was happening in Europe at the time, with Hitler's war machine toppling country after country, Luce's ringing rhetoric seemed more of a call to arms against an advancing tyrant than standard dictatorial rant.

To ensure that the United States avoids in the future repetitions of lunacies like waging preemptive war against two countries that had nothing to do with the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities, while Bin Laden remains at bay, Bacevich calls for "a new trinity."

"The proper aim of American statecraft is. . .not to redeem humankind or to prescribe some specific world order, nor to police the planet by force of arms," he writes. "Its purpose is to permit Americans to avail themselves of the right of self-determination as they seek to create at home a 'more perfect union.' Any policy impeding that enterprise -- as open-ended war surely does -- is misguided and pernicious."

Recalling another early American tradition, the anti-imperial origins of the United States under the banner, "Don't Tread on Me," Bacevich proffers a new military policy based on the principle that this country "does not seek trouble but insists that others will accord the United States respect." Consistent with this tradition, he outlines a contemporary version as a substitute for the current "sacred trinity":

* First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or to remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.

* Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is America.

* Third, the United States should employ force only as a last resourt and only in self-defense.

"The Bush doctrine of preventive war -- the United States bestowing on itself the exclusive prerogative of employing force against potential threats even before they materialize -- is a moral abomination," Bacevich says, "the very inverse of prudent and enlightened statecraft."

He adds: "Never again should the United States undertake 'a war of choice' informed by fantasies that violence provides a shortcut to resolving history's complexities."

Bacevich suggests that the alternative triad would result in dramatic changes in our national security posture: "Military spending would decrease appreciably. The Pentagon's global footprint would shrink. Weapons manufacturers would see their profits plummet. Beltway bandits would close up shop. The ranks of defense-oriented think tanks would thin. These changes, in turn, would narrow the range of options available for employing force, obliging policymakers to exhibit greater restraint in intervening abroad. With resources currently devoted to rehabilitating Baghdad or Kabul freed up, the cause of rehabilitating Cleveland and Detroit might finally attract a following."

Not only should Bacevich's book be placed on Barack Obama's bedside table, it should be mandatory reading for anyone even thinking of seeking the presidency in 2012 and within the foreseeable future.