Matthew Yglesias has an interesting post:
Indeed, I would say that the major flaw of American efforts at democracy-promotion is a failure to recognize that the bipartisan tradition of realpolitik was not some fifty-year long silly error. I think it’s true that, some time ago, this ceased to be a viable strategy and that we ought to revise it. Still, there are many things to be said in its favor. People need to really think about that before they advocate abandonning it. If you’re prepared to give up the gains of dictator-promotion (and I am) then you need to face up to what you’re doing. What Bush has been trying to do is discover a cost-free democracy-promotion scheme. Thus you get the very odd Iraq bank-shot.
This is half-way to a really good point. The problem is that all sides use rhetoric implying that there is some sort of cost-free or super-cheap democracy promotion scheme. An uncharitable view of Bush’s rhetoric would be that you invade Iraq and PRESTO you get a U.S.-friendly democracy right afterwards. Obviously he never says any such thing directly, but the fact that he never outlines the (rather significant) costs makes it an implication (perhaps a fair implication, perhaps not). Many of Bush’s opponents, especially in Europe, seem imply that if only the U.S. would quit fucking up, PRESTO democracy or at least peace would come to the Middle East. This is closely related to the fantasy that if only the U.S. would apply pressure to Israel that peace would come to the Middle East. Obviously they don’t say so directly, but the fact that they never outline steps about the significant changes that would need to come about other than the U.S. not fucking things up makes it an implication (perhaps a fair implication, perhaps not).
While each side may decide to tacitically deny the difficulty of the project, I think in their more candid moments each realizes that the Middle East has to be changed and that the changes are likely both to be very difficult to implement and very costly for the West.
But neither side wants to deal with difficult and costly, that doesn’t sell well.
So many on the right act as if a quick war will bring democracy to the Middle East and the left act as if a lack of Western military action will bring peace to the Middle East. And any useful debate fails to occur.
Let me be clear in my views:
1) To ultimately deal with Islamist terrorism, democracy needs to come to the Middle East.
2) It won’t come about on its own very quickly (within the next 50-75 years). And if it isn’t fostered, it can quickly turn into despotism (see Iran).
3) We can’t wait that long.
4) Therefore we are going to have to work to actively topple governments in the Middle East. Not all at once, but certainly in the medium term.
5) Sometimes that is going to require invasion.
6) Whether or not Iraq was a good second choice for toppling governments (after Afghanistan), it was going to have to be part of the project and now that we are there we ought to finish it.
7) Bringing democracy to Iraq (and the Middle East) is going to be both very expensive (like the Marshall plan) and will require a long term commitment (like the 40+ years of troops ‘occupying’ Germany).
8) One of the ways it is going to be expensive is in troops. We need more. Even if Rumsfeld is right and we don’t need more for Iraq proper, there are going to be other fights in the near future (even if we don’t pick them) and we can’t just pull all of our troops out of Iraq anytime in the next 2-3 years. Therefore I suggest that in the next 2-3 years we raise taxes slightly for the specific purpose of raising troop salaries (for better retention) and allowing for many more troops to be hired. I say in the next 2-3 years not to avoid the election (I’m announcing the plan now) but to give the economy a bit of time to recover. I would also suggest that we cease farm subsidies, which would help third world farmers and free up a significant chunk of change, but why doom my proposal right at the beginning?
Doesn’t solve everything, but this is my contribution to what I think ought to be a serious debate about the tough steps that need to be dealt with in the next 3-6 years.
(P.S. If you think it was stupid to invade Iraq, please comment in one of the other numerous posts on the subject. If you think the Middle East was on the verge of becoming peaceful and democratic on its own, please send me the drugs you are taking but don’t mention the fantasy in the comments. The subject of this post is realistic but tough steps. If any lefties have some ‘tough steps’ that you think would be great, feel free to share. But if you idea of ‘tough steps’ is ‘get international approval for everything’ you are right that it would be tough, but it isn’t much of a useful step. My question to you is, if you could get international approval to do stuff, what stuff would you do?)
Whatever. It actually looks good to me, Alternatives at Henley (You’ll love his Libertarian plan, trust me) and Better Angels of Our Nature. We are still trying to do this as cheaply as possible. Events on the ground will control us until we control them. We control them by massive overkill, by having 2-3 times as much as we plan for at any one time. Redundancy a pretty good idea in wartime, don’t you think.
Cold war we had 2-3 million active at a given time, and 50 million probably saw service 45-75.
Psychologists recommend 30 days consecutive combat, 90 days lifetime. Lifetime. After that effectiveness degrades. Vietnam after 67, we were just exhausted.
We can discuss it, do research, but I don’t think WWII soldiers saw all that much more than that. Usual grunt saw two major battles, officer might see three. Our entire military is screwed. 2-3 more divisions ain’t even gonna cut it for Iraq. The guys will go, will fight, on their 3rd or 4th or 7th tour but they will be shooting anything that moves or not shooting at all.
Are you ready to go war yet?
“I would also suggest that we cease farm subsidies, which would help third world farmers and free up a significant chunk of change, but why doom my proposal right at the beginning?”
Also, textile subsidies and protectionism.
You can kill all the subsidies but at the same time you would kill any competivness in those segments of the economy. Also remember the US isn’t the only place on Earth that playts the subsidy game. Most European contries also play the game.
At present we have 37.000 troops in Korea. Cut that by 5-10,000 and pull all troops from Europe. The EU is getting all high an mighty with their new “Mobile NATO Force” let them get off their ass and use them. That would free 20-40,000 troops to be used elsewhere as needed.
I think this is the problem with your reasoning: you leap from 1, 2, 3 (all of which are reasonable enough, though in no way resemble actual US foreign policy now or at any time in the past) directly to 4 + 5: topple governments, if necessary by invasion, or presumably (as in Haiti or as was attempted in Venezuala) just by standing back and letting the coup happen. “Fostering democracy”? Sure.
I’ve never really understood why people believed that it was possible to bring democracy to Iraq by invading it. Democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people, right? So doesn’t that mean that by definition it is impossible to ‘bring’ democracy with you to someone else’s country? Doesn’t democracy have to arise from the people themselves?
I mean, taking your army to someone else’s country and then imposing a government on the people there whether they want it or not is something that unfortunately happens pretty often; but ‘democracy’ isn’t really the right word for that kind of thing. Normally we refer to that as ‘imperialism,’ or ‘conquest,’ or something similar. cite
The problem with fostering democracy is that a democratic country will not necessarily support the US. (Just imagine for a minute that the royal family of Saudi Arabia was overthrown, and replaced by a democratically elected government. The US support for fostering democracy in the Middle East would not last past this democratic government ordering the US troops out of their holy land and deciding to switch OPEC to Euros. Of course I have no idea what this hypothetical and improbable democratic government of Saudi Arabia might do – but the fact is the US has never “fostered democracy” where a democratic government defied the US and there was a convenient tyrant to support the US. Look at Reagan’s support for Saddam Hussein the 1980s. No fostering of democracy there.
The ideal of fostering democracy is a grand one. But the idea that it can be done by invasion, conquest, and occupation is an indescribably foolish one: and the idea that the Bush administration cares about fostering democracy has already been proven wrong, twice over, by anti-democratic coups supported (at least in public speech) by the White House.
My question to you is, if you could get international approval to do stuff, what stuff would you do?
I already wrote about this on Tacitus last year. Sadly, I think things have gone too disastrously wrong for my plans to be carried out: the US military has built up too much ill-will against itself to carry out any sensible plans.
Hand over to the UN. If necessary, that means American units under UN command wearing blue helmets. The US has to acknowledge it’s made a thumping disaster of a mistake, pay up to repair what it broke, and let people better able to deal with the situation try to fix it.
I’ve never really understood why people believed that it was possible to bring democracy to Iraq by invading it.
Must have been our experience in Germany, Japan, Italy et al.
I would love to see your alternative plan to bringing democracy to Iraq.
Must have been our experience in Germany, Japan, Italy et al.
(I realize I may be preaching to the converted, but, this is an important point:)
Invasion did not “bring” democracy to Germany, Japan, Italy et al. Invasion overthrew despotic regimes in Germany, Japan, Italy et al. Democracy came only through a lot of post-war, non-military effort. And democracy did not start to flower until the war(s) were over.
In Iraq, we’ve not yet won the war. Let’s do that first, and then turn our attention to bringing the Iraqi people democracy.
Fair point, Von.
In Iraq, we’ve not yet won the war. Let’s do that first, and then turn our attention to bringing the Iraqi people democracy.
There is a question whether it’s now possible for the US to win the war: but at the moment Bush’s plan appears to be to keep declaring victory and hope that the real world is kind enough to meet his declarations, and it’s certainly not possible to win on that basis.
Also remember that the civilian populations in Germany and Japan were severely beaten down in the later stages of the war. Whole cities were taken out at one blow, in both countries. That kind of thing changes the way you think.
Edward:
The problem with all this is that it is assuming that somehow all those ME countries need to have the US go and save them from themselves, it all sounds very colonialist to me.
Personally my solution would be to:
1) Foster on the ground democratic organisations in the ME.
2) Link aid and trade money to democratic developments.
3) Work out solutions to the Iraeli/Palestinian conflict, the Kurdish problem.
4) Make up with Iran. Get tough on Saudi Arabia.
5) Help get Turkey into Europe (already being worked on, so no argument there)
First of all, I think that Iran and Jordan were headed in the right direction before the war. The various emirates seem to be in relatively good shape. And it’s worth noting that we did basically nothing to reform Kuwait, which should have been a red flag.
Now here’s a dilemma: what do we do about Egypt? From where I sit, it looks like Mubarak has us over a barrel right now, although he’s probably sitting on a keg of dynamite … if he’s assassinated, it’s likely that the next leader of Egypt won’t be so helpful.
One thing I’m convinced we need to do is strengthen our ties to the civilian sectors of Middle East regimes. Right now, our best liasons seem to be with intelligence agencies (Turki) and militaries. The extent to which we work with these folks at the expense of their civilian counterparts strengthens the organizational capacity and therefore clout of the wrong guys.
One thing I’m convinced we need to do is strengthen our ties to the civilian sectors of Middle East regimes.
Exactly why I think GWB’s proposed Middle East Free Trade Area (or whatever it’s being called now) is a brilliant idea. But more on that later.
(And, if SDAI is reading, I realize I still owe you a response on Iraq.
5) Sometimes that is going to require invasion.
If we’re going to need to invade other countries, we should really start changing the national mindset now. Americans seemingly cannot stomach a long occupation or extended violence against our troops. The patient and stern determination that occupation requires is not innate to Americans, or so it would seem. If we need to be more imperialistic (openenly, that is), a propaganda campaign to harden the nation cannot start soon enough. Clearly, scare tactics are only as good as they are realistic/provable, so that’s not a good route.
Perhaps forced labotomies are the fastest way to get this done.
Americans seemingly cannot stomach a long occupation or extended violence against our troops.
Long is what duration (in years or months)?
The patient and stern determination that occupation requires is not innate to Americans, or so it would seem.
Yet, we had it only a couple generations ago.
I do find it distressing that we seem to be getting softer, and more fickle, as a people. Part of it is undoubtably because the world is going to hell.* Part of it, though, relates to President Bush’s failure to clearly communicate both the stakes and the costs of our occupation of Iraq. (Same thing occurred when he pushed thru his tax cuts.) He’s starting to turn this last bit around, however — at least w/ respect to Iraq.
von
*Curmudgeonly conservatism, here I come!
Von, while I know that you are not a student of history, I’m just wondering if you can remember a speech by Truman (or even Marshall) which laid out the cost or duration of the Cold War.
Bush has clearly laid out the stakes of the Iraqi conflict, failure is not an option. Which if I remember correctly, is the similar position laid out by both Truman and Marshall regarding the Cold War.
Why short clarity is better, I think of Truman and his winding discussion on the American sphere of influence where he left out Korea. That was a mistake.
“First of all, I think that Iran and Jordan were headed in the right direction before the war.”
I’m not clear that a theocracy run by a Supreme Leader which was, and has now succeeded at, systematically crushing the life out of all the reformers in the system, resulting in them having no power whatever, and the overwhelming majority of citizenry sinking into complete political apathy, in one case, and an autocracy that believes that perhaps the citizenry, 60% of whom identify with a neighboring land, might be ready for some bits of democracy in another forty or fifty years, in the other case, constitutes “headed in the right direction,” save through a very optimistic view.
Of course, this might be correct, and given a sufficiently long time view, it’s inevitably bound to be.
“Part of it, though, relates to President Bush’s failure to clearly communicate both the stakes and the costs of our occupation of Iraq.”
Part of my point about the original MY comments is that most liberals, von excepted but Kerry definitely not, want to have it both ways. They want to continue their own lack of communication on the stakes and costs (except those who pretend that there are practically no stakes whatsoever in mostly ignoring the Middle East) while actively and intentionally making it politically difficult for Bush to communicate any such costs and stakes. The classic response to this criticism on this board is “Bush is the president”. Which strikes me as a lame response. You are advocating your own candidate for President, and he shares the exact same flaw in failure to communicate. Except he doesn’t, in the primary he made all sorts of statements which sound like he doesn’t take Iraq and the Middle East seriously at all. His response to the question about whether or not he thought he, if elected, would be a war-time president is seriously disturbing. Now that he is out of the primary his entire solution to the Middle East problem seems to be ‘let the UN take over’. Since the UN has repeatedly proven to be a horrible and deeply corrupt organization I’m not comforted by that.
If liberals didn’t think that dealing with the Middle East was a pressing problem, it would be fine to act that way. I don’t believe most of them are that stupid, so their failure to communicate while simultaneously increasing the political costs of anyone else communicating on the issue must mean something else.
See for example the now fashionable, ‘Bush should have made public and prominent August 2001 terrorist warnings’. Considering the vague nature of the ‘warnings’ and considering how many liberals whined about the political implications of the alert status changes (and this even immediately after 9/11) this strikes me as mere carping.
However, thank you asdf for raising some interesting issues.
They want to continue their own lack of communication on the stakes and costs (except those who pretend that there are practically no stakes whatsoever in mostly ignoring the Middle East) while actively and intentionally making it politically difficult for Bush to communicate any such costs and stakes.
Did I miss a press conference? Has Bush EVER tried to communicate the costs and stakes unpolitically?
He’s playing politics with a war he started…there’s a big difference between that and Kerry, who’s in the uneviable position of having to both support the troops and the war on terror and criticize the man who’s currently calling the shots.
TtWD —
I’m just wondering if you can remember a speech by Truman (or even Marshall) which laid out the cost or duration of the Cold War.
Well, here we’re conflating a couple things. The War in Iraq is a traditional war, and an aspect of the inappropriately-named “war on terror.”* As in other traditional wars that form part of a larger struggle, leaders do best when they lay out clear conditions for victory and carefully state the costs. (Cf. the Korea War and the Vietnam War).
The war on terror, however, ain’t a traditional war. Rather, I’ve come to agree with you (TtWD) that it’s very much like the Cold War. As such, we judge the standards of the war a bit differently.
To the extent that I previously conflated the War in Iraq with the larger (again, poorly-named) “war on terror,” it’s because my thinking was confused. And, in no small part, I’m less confused now because of your questioning.
von
*I actually made this point a bit ago in a blog post(i.e., war on terror is a poor name, we’d better come up with a better name — as we did with the cold war) , but didn’t give you the credit for changing my mind.
If you want to wage it something like the cold war. 25-50 years. I was around the last time. You wanna buy Rummy’s “lean, mean fighting machine”, go ahead; Iraq ain’t good evidence.
1) Keep in mind it will warm-to hot half the time.
2) You need deterrence to keep hot periods to a minimum; you need redundancy to move to hot spots quickly
3) You need 3-5 million active troops at any given time. You can scoff at this. Next post.
4) You need an economy that keeps the troops, veterans, and their families very very happy.
5) Think 1955. Conservatives ain’t gonna want to go there.
Simple. For every division, you need two at home. We really need 300k troops in Iraq right now. Means 1 million total troops. If Iran and Syria get frisky, could easily reach 1 million stationed in middle east. Equals 3 million
Other committments another million
Keep allies happy with troops and bases another million
Any kind of war is expensive. A cold war is not a cheaper war, it is a more expensive war.
You can kill all the subsidies but at the same time you would kill any competivness in those segments of the economy.
I can’t begin to predict in what sort of universe this is true. Subsidies encourage competition?
Eliminating agricultural subsidies would indeed be a boon to third-world farmers. However, it is political suicide for Republicans, and I would think, contrary to the Democrats’ economic philosophy.
1. End the subsidies.
2. How about calling it “The Sandy War?”
I can’t begin to predict in what sort of universe this is true. Subsidies encourage competition?
For more subsidies, perhaps.
“1. End the subsidies.”
And outsource America’s food supply?
Suggestion: keep Argentina and Canada very very happy. Oops. al-Qaeda sets off bombs in Rio and Toronto. Canadian gov’t under extreme pressure to end US occupation of Syria. Stop food shipments, or double price.
You guys don’t want to go to war.
“And outsource America’s food supply?”
According to my reading there are no likely circumstances, barring plagues, where America is going to wind up having trouble feeding itself with domestic produce; we’d just wind up putting less food in warehouses to rot, or dumping it on the world market.
And, on the important front, if we’d quit subsidizing sugar, it would be cheap enough that we’d have soft drinks made with actual sugar, instead of corn syrup.
Part of it, though, relates to President Bush’s failure to clearly communicate both the stakes and the costs of our occupation of Iraq.
As far as it’s possible to tell through words and actions, Bush & Co have consistently failed to face the costs of the US occupation of Iraq. If we suppose that Bush & Co did understand how expensive it was going to be to occupy Iraq, then “failed to clearly communicate them” becomes a polite way of saying “lied through their teeth”.
Which is certainly plausible: since they lied the US into invading Iraq, it’s conceivable (see Edward’s post on his friend V) that they also lied about the costs and the stakes of occupying Iraq. But this becomes too much of a conspiracy theory for me to believe it: I tend to think that Bush & Co simply never faced reality, but chose to listen only to people who were telling them what they wanted to hear.