the cost of war

I've written a lot of posts that argue for a interventionist foreign policy, especially in regards to the War on Terror. Consequently, it's imperative that I acknowledge that this kind of policy has tremendous costs. The worst of those costs can be seen in excruciating detail in this story. Please don't follow that link unless you're prepared to see some sickening injuries.

Because the members of the American military pay a horrific price when we send them into battle, the decision to go to war should never be made lightly. War is not a game of chess and it's not an epic adventure; it's brutal, it's nasty, and no national leader should ever forget that fact.

Having said that, I owe a tremendous debt to the men and women who willingly face these dangers because they are ready and willing to fight the battles that I think are necessary. Austin Bay is one those men--he went on active duty in Iraq, understanding the risk, because he believes in the cause. If you want to know why I think America must continue the fight, read Bay's explanation:

Now, once upon a time we could ignore those suffering in the planet’s hard corners. Oh, we could send them a few bucks and the Lefties could bitch about colonialism and capitalism but the hard corners were isolated. A threat to security? Only nuns and missionaries and you are your brothers keeper types thought so. Well guess what — the nuns were right. 9/11 changed that deceptive calculus. Distance? [T]here isn’t any distance. We learned that the destruction of New York and Washington started in the backwaters, of Afghanistan, of Somalia. Technology has done it. We can’t escape one another, for good and for bad. Jet transports . . . put you on the other side of the globe in 14 hours. The internet doesn’t require description. East Asia shares diseases with Africa within days, if not hours. And special weapons? Nukes and nerve gas make every tribal war an international crisis. Goodbye Tokyo, Moscow, or Miami– because a sophisticated tribesman at war with his eternally despised neighbor decides that demolishing the global economy would make everyone pay attention to his neglected, forgotten grievance. Tyrannies keep breeding this insanity. The only solution is consensus, wealth-producing societies, where everyone gets a say and everyone has a buy-in. If it sounds like democracy then call it that. It’s sustainable stability, ever evolving sustainable stability when people police terrorists and don’t promote them. That’s a long struggle, and struggle may be a more apt word than war. But achieving it is so difficult. It takes more than military power, we know that. [T]he politics and economics will be decisive, but as long as the thugs are willing to kill we must fight. Is there a substitute for courage? If there is, show it to me. . . .

I don’t like it. I didn’t like it during the Cold War. Remember 1983? The same creeps who’ve quit now, quit then. Reagan was a warmonger, going to start a nuclear war in Europe [b]y responding to the Soviets deployment of theater nuclear missiles. The defeatists said the Cold War was our fault, we were the threat. Then the Berlin Wall cracked and that jackass calumny disappeared as Marxism’s Eastern European wreckage emerged in drab, polluted, horrifying, undeniable color.

This war follows the same arc, with the same defeatists adding new nouns to old verbs and adjectives. But it’s a war of liberty versus tyranny and they’re shilling for the tyrants.

It doesn’t matter if you and I don’t like it. We know the stakes.

Read the whole thing.

The relevant moral community

Richard Lowry notes an unusual bit of news: soldiers in the Iraqi Army have donated $1000 to the victims of the California fires. It's a negligible sum by American standards, but that shouldn't diminish the fact that they sacrificed to make the gift. Richard writes:

Unfortunately, most Americans do not consider Iraqis as people. We see them as terrorists or victims, not as everyday people with the same values as our friends, neighbors and relatives. Yet, most Iraqis are decent human beings with the same concerns, dreams, and compassion as most Americans. They want peace and are concerned about their fellow man.

Is it no wonder that we feel differently about the people of Iraq, when the American media only reports sensational news?

While the American media doesn't do itself any favors, I don't think we should blame the press for American attitudes towards Iraqis. The national debates about immigration and global trade make it clear that there's a strong streak of nationalism (if not xenophobia) in American society. The economics and the politics involved in these debates seems to mask an underlying question: what's the relevant moral community we should be considering?

Here's how George Mason economist Alex Tabbarok breaks down the issue of trade:

Peter wishes to trade with Jose. The individualist says the relevant moral community is Peter and Jose and presumptively no one else. Trade, the right of association, is a human right and on issues of rights the moral community is the individual. When Jose offers Peter a better deal than Joe it's wrong - a moral outrage - for Joe to prevent Jose at gun point from trading with Peter.

The more common view . . . is the nationalist view, the moral community is Peter and Joe. Joe gets a vote on Peter's trades. Peter should be allowed to trade only if both Peter and Joe benefit, otherwise too bad. Jose counts for less.

A third view, that of the liberal internationalist, says that Peter, Jose and Joe count equally and are together the moral community.

Now how does the positive economics apply to these three cases? Peter and Jose presumptively are better off from trade otherwise they wouldn't trade so the individualist economist (the economist who takes Peter and Jose as the relevant moral community) will support free trade. The liberal internationalist will also support free trade because there is a strong argument from positive economics that trade increases total wealth (comparative advantage, specialization, competition etc.).

In between, we have the nationalist economist for whom it depends. The case for trade for the nationalist economist is pretty good - after all the individuals involved benefit and the world benefits - so the case is reasonably strong that Peter and Joe taken together will also benefit especially if we consider many trade pacts on some of which Joe benefits directly. Nevertheless, . . . when you exclude Jose it is possible to come up with examples where Joe's losses exceed Peter's gains.

I would argue, however, that economists are too quick to take the nation as the relevant moral community. It is quite possible, for example, for Peter to benefit from trade but for Peter's city to be harmed, for Peter's state to benefit but for his region to be harmed, for his country to benefit but for his continent to be harmed. Why should we cut the cake in one way, excluding some from the moral community, but not in another? Indeed, geography is not the only way we can define the moral community. Why not ask whether English speakers benefit from free trade or Christians or left handed people? Each of these is just as valid as asking whether the collection of people called the nation benefit from free trade.

I understand individual rights and I understand counting everyone equally but I see less value in counting some in and some out based on arbitrary characteristics like which side of the border the actors fall on.

As some of Alex's commenters point out, this analysis can be applied to immigration as easily as it can be applied to trade.

Idiocy

Sometimes it shocks me that democracy works at all:

Nixon presided over an unprecedented expansion of the welfare state, established affirmative action, created the Environmental Protection Agency, proposed a guaranteed annual income and national health insurance, and established closer relations with communist China and the USSR. But he was still widely perceived as a right-winger. Similarly, liberals rallied around President Bill Clinton, while conservatives rushed to condemn him, despite his endorsement of conservative policies on free trade, welfare reform, crime control, and other important issues. Liberals defended Clinton and conservatives attacked him in large part because of what he represented on a symbolic level as a "draft dodger" and philanderer, rather than on the basis of his substantive policies (Posner 1999). In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the desire of liberal and conservative "fans" to rally around their leader or condemn a perceived ideological adversary blinded them to important aspects of the president’s policies—despite the fact that information about these policies was readily available.

Today, the hostility of partisan liberal Democrats to President George W. Bush, and the desire of partisan conservative Republicans to defend him, have largely blinded many in both groups to his adoption of numerous liberal domestic policies. To take just one example, Bush has presided over the largest expansion of domestic spending since (ironically) the presidency of Richard Nixon (Bartlett 2006). Thus, partisan opinion has to a large extent ignored an important aspect of Bush’s policies.

That's from a paper by Ilya Somin of George Mason University - School of Law. His larger point is that people are much more likely to vote than they are to have any useful understanding of the politicians and platforms that they are voting for. There's nothing to be done about it, really. Republican democracy is ugly and inefficient, but it's so obviously superior to all alternatives that I can't help but believe that America needs to be an exporter of democracy. The world would be a better place if every political system was as messed up as ours.

On the other hand, let's stop with all of these idiotic Rock The Vote campaigns. Our system can function despite voter ignorance, but that doesn't mean we should turn ignorant voting into a civic virtue.

The good old days

Megan McArdle has an uncanny knack for saying what I'm thinking:

Pretty much everything one can think of is better than ever. Wars are fewer, and kill fewer people. Everyone's richer. Racism and xenophobia are bad, but not as bad as they used to be. Women have more freedom and opportunity than at any other moment in world history. Health care is better. Our teeth are cleaner, straighter, and less cavity-filled. We know more, do more, and enjoy more than human beings ever have before. I mean, things may look pretty grim compared to the three years at the end of the last millenium, but that's life: you have good years, then you have less good years, then you have better years again.

But of course, people now in their early twenties don't really remember anything before the late Clinton administration; no wonder everything seems like it's going to hell in a handbasket. Their baseline is an unsustainable economic bubble in an unprecedented peacetime lull following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

We're living in the best times this world has ever known, but a lot of people are convinced that America is on its last legs economically and socially. Part of me believes that a big part of the problem is the horrible state of education today--children just aren't learning history in any meaningful sense. It would be really nice if we could fix education by going back to the good old days when history was taught properly. But a bigger part of me suspects that there never were any good old days when history was taught properly. I've said before that some problems have no feasible solutions--this is probably one of those cases.

Principles of Foreign Policy -- Part 5

I began this series of posts with a preview:

I believe we have real interests in the world that we have to defend. Defending those interests is only possible if we have a global military presence. We face real enemies in the world because our historical actions have placed us in conflicts with people that don't like us, but it's wishful thinking to assert that we could have avoided these conflicts in the past and it's foolhardy to pretend that we can avoid more such conflicts in the future. This is especially true because many of our worst enemies in the world are irrational operators whom we can't consistently influence without a credible threat of force.

I've already looked at America's interests, the need for a global military presence and the historical roots of our foreign policy problems. Let's take a look at the last statement: can we trust our enemies to respond to us rationally?

In 1967 Israel concluded that its Arab enemies (Egypt, Syria and Jordan) were incapable of winning a war, but that the Arabs were irrational enough to attack anyway. Israel launched a preemptive attack and won a decisive victory in the Six-day War [10]. In 1973 Israel concluded that its Arab enemies (Egypt and Syria) were incapable of winning a war, and that the Arabs were rational enough to refrain from attacking. Israel ignore several direct warnings and were nearly defeated by a surprise attack in the Yom Kippur War [11]. History is full of cases in which nations and leaders badly miscalculate and pay for their miscalculations. When we predict what the world would look like if America were to withdraw, we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that leaders throughout the world will understand that it is in their best interest to behave nicely to their neighbors and to America. It's far more likely that some power-hungry regimes will see America's withdrawal as an opportunity. Overestimating their ability to expand their power and underestimating America's willingness to defend its interests in the world, bad actors throughout the world would become more hostile and assertive, not less.

The assumption of rationality is especially misplaced when applied to our terrorist enemies. Al Qaeda doesn't view the world through the lens of realism but through the lens of fantasy [12]. No matter how irrational their plans for establishing an Islamic caliphate or how futile their desire to wage jihad against the West, Islamist terrorists see themselves in engaged in acts of fantastic devotion to their God, and no diplomacy, disengagement or bribe can change their willingness to strike a symbolic blow against their enemies. We are better off forcing them to fight their battles in Iraq (the outcome of which will either be a tremendous symbolic victory for one side or the other, in Al Qaeda's twisted logic) than allowing them space to plot for a bigger, better 9/11.

[10] The Six-Day War
[11] The Yom Kippur War
[12] Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology

Principles of Foreign Policy -- Part 4

I began this series of posts with a preview:

I believe we have real interests in the world that we have to defend. Defending those interests is only possible if we have a global military presence. We face real enemies in the world because our historical actions have placed us in conflicts with people that don't like us, but it's wishful thinking to assert that we could have avoided these conflicts in the past and it's foolhardy to pretend that we can avoid more such conflicts in the future. This is especially true because many of our worst enemies in the world are irrational operators whom we can't consistently influence without a credible threat of force.

I've already looked at America's interests and the need for a global military presence. Let's take a look at the third statement: what role does our past foreign policy decisions play in our analysis of current foreign policy options?

When we examine the world of today and make decisions that will shape the world of the future, we have to understand that the world of today was shaped in the past by real people looking at real circumstances, making really important decisions based on really imperfect information. It's commonly argued that America has created many of the problems we face today by supporting people like Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran and others. It's an easy accusation to make, but it tends to fall apart when our past foreign policy decisions are analyzed in context. Let's take a very brief snapshot of our history for the last century.

We're in Iraq because of 9/11. Regardless what specifically motivated Bush to go to war (WMDs, oil, anti-terrorism, cultural imperialism, whatever), it's hard for me to imagine a world in which 9/11 didn't happen but we invaded Iraq anyway. Why did 9/11 happen? Al Qaeda has tried to justify 9/11 by claiming that it is a response to America's presence in Saudi Arabia, to our attacks against Iraq during and following the first Gulf War and to our support for Israel [6].

Why was America in Saudi Arabia? Because of the stand-off that resulted from the first Gulf War. Why did we fight the first Gulf War? Because Saddam very clearly threatened our national interests by conquering Kuwait and putting his powerful military in easy striking distance of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE [7]. We simply can't risk letting so much the world's oil supply fall under the control of a violent, capricious tyrant.

Why was Saddam powerful enough to attempt the invasion of Kuwait? In part because of U.S. military support during the '80s. Why did the U.S. support Saddam? In general, we supported him because we were in the middle of a cold war and we needed allies in a region that was (because of oil) critically important. More specifically, we supported Saddam because he was a counter-weight to the power of Iran, a country that attacked our embassy and held American diplomats hostage for more than a year.

Iranians attacked our embassy because they thought we were covertly manipulating their government and trying to undermine their Islamic revolution [8]. The Iranians badly misjudged our capabilities and our intentions, but it is true that we were a long-time ally of the Shah (whom they hated). Again, our support of the Shah was based on our strategic need for allies in the region in light of the Cold War that developed after WWII. It's possible to argue that America is at fault for the cold war, but only if you argue that we could have supported White Russian forces and defeated the Bolsheviks by military intervention after WWI [9].

Regarding American support for Israel, that too has an internal logic through history, from a Cold-war desire to support a democratic nation against attacks by soviet supported enemies, back to a decision to support the creation of a homeland for the Jews after the genocide of WWII, back to the historical reality that the land of "Palestine" was merely a province of the Ottoman empire up until British gained Mandate control after defeating the Ottomans in WWI.

Should we have fought Saddam in the first Gulf War? Should we have fought the cold war? Should we have fought WWII? What about WWI? How far back should we go in deciding that America had no right to intervene in the world to protect her own interests? Should we have just decided to let the Brits keep their colonies so that nobody in the world would be offended by our actions?

Our past policies have always been based to some degree on a need to protect American interests throughout the world. Some of those decisions have been flawed but that is unavoidable: we have always had imperfect leaders, they have always been beholden to an imperfect constituency, and no American has ever been blessed with perfect information about present circumstances or the future consequences of various policy options. We are where we are because our past leaders have tried to do what's best for America, and it's impossible to say how much worse our history might look if America had chosen not to intervene in the world.

It's easy to identify various bad apples that have in some ways been supported by America in the past and turned against us, but at the same time we should recognize the positive results of our interference in foreign affairs (a prosperous Western Europe, prosperous Japan and South Korea, a victory in the Cold War, and stable world trade that promotes prosperity in America). Only by ignoring the truth about what happened in the past can you claim that all of our past interventions in the world were unnecessary and counterproductive.

[6] Al Qaeda's Fatwa
[7] John Kifner, New York Times, August 6, 1990
[8] The Fallacy of Power
[9] Toward an Entangling Alliance

Principles of Foreign Policy -- Part 3

I began this series of posts with a preview:

I believe we have real interests in the world that we have to defend. Defending those interests is only possible if we have a global military presence. We face real enemies in the world because our historical actions have placed us in conflicts with people that don't like us, but it's wishful thinking to assert that we could have avoided these conflicts in the past and it's foolhardy to pretend that we can avoid more such conflicts in the future. This is especially true because many of our worst enemies in the world are irrational operators whom we can't consistently influence without a credible threat of force.

I've already looked at America's interests. Let's take a look at the second statement: why do we need a global military presence?

The world is a big place, so logistics matters. When our interests span the globe we have to be able to effectively protect those interests around the world. Our air and naval forces are unmatched in the world, but neither force can be of much use if we don't have a logistical support structure built up that spans the globe. A fleet needs ports and an air force needs air bases. Ports and air bases are only available through the cooperation of allies.

Neither a navy nor an air force is sufficient to truly protect our interests throughout the world because neither force can put boots on the ground. Bombs, torpedoes and cruise missiles can cripple an enemy's economy by wrecking infrastructure and halting trade, but a regime that is willing to let its people suffer is a regime that can ignore our navy and air force if we don't have the capacity to put boots on the ground. While a few marine expeditionary units can be maintained on ships, MEUs simply do not have the firepower or logistical infrastructure necessary to fight and win a long war against a well equipped, large army [4].

If we want to be capable of winning wars like the first Gulf War, we have to be capable of quickly putting a modern army in the field. This is only possible if military equipment is prepositioned around the world. Prepositioning of military equipment again requires allies and basing agreements. If we want to have any chance of effectively intervening around the globe, we must have a logistical footprint of basing and cooperative allies around the globe to support our efforts [5].

[4] Rethinking Army-Marine Corps Roles in Power Projection
[5] The U.S. Army and the New National Security Strategy

Principles of Foreign Policy -- Part 2

I began this series of posts with a preview:

I believe we have real interests in the world that we have to defend. Defending those interests is only possible if we have a global military presence. We face real enemies in the world because our historical actions have placed us in conflicts with people that don't like us, but it's wishful thinking to assert that we could have avoided these conflicts in the past and it's foolhardy to pretend that we can avoid more such conflicts in the future. This is especially true because many of our worst enemies in the world are irrational operators whom we can't consistently influence without a credible threat of force.

Let's take a look at that first statement: what interests does America have that are worth defending with an interventionist foreign policy?

Commerce: we trade with virtually everybody which means Americans and American properties are everywhere, our economy relies on natural resources such as oil, and our prosperity is based in part on a global trade network that is only possible when stability throughout the world allows sea lanes to stay open and global trade to flow freely [1].

Power: All other things being equal, when America faces threats we are better able to deal with those threats if we have more power. Not every opportunity to gain power is worth the price, but sometimes it is absolutely true that we are better off paying a price to gain or maintain power. Additionally, power is only useful if there is a credible possibility that the power will be used. If we are forever demonstrating an absolute unwillingness to use our power, our enemies will learn that it is safe to ignore our power and attack our interests [2].

Honor: we are better off in a world in which we have many friends that want to cooperate with us and few enemies that want to harm us. This means that we have to preserve a reputation for being a good friend as well as a reputation for being a dangerous enemy. If we renege on promises to friends or we
demonstrate a willingness to back down in the face of provocation, we will find ourselves with fewer friends and more enemies [3].

[1] The Pentagon's New Map
[2] While America Sleeps
[3] On the Origins of War

Principles of Foreign Policy -- Part 1

For the last few weeks I've been engaged in a long running email debate with a friend of a friend about the merits of Ron Paul. Yeah, imagine that. Ron Paul is my white whale. Anyway, lately we've been discussing the role of the military in America's foreign policy. The basic issue seems simple enough: should America's military be spread out around the world intervening in the affairs of other nations, or should the military be primarily located within our borders and primarily tasked with protecting our borders?

As I was writing my latest email I realized that there are a lot of unspoken assumptions underlying any proposed strategy for utilizing our military in support of our foreign policy objectives. So I took a step back and laid out the basic assumptions I make when I talk about these issues. Rather than transcribe the entire email in a single post, I'll break it up and look at in a few chunks that are a bit easier to manage. Here's a preview:

I believe we have real interests in the world that we have to defend. Defending those interests is only possible if we have a global military presence. We face real enemies in the world because our historical actions have placed us in conflicts with people that don't like us, but it's wishful thinking to assert that we could have avoided these conflicts in the past and it's foolhardy to pretend that we can avoid more such conflicts in the future. This is especially true because many of our worst enemies in the world are irrational operators whom we can't consistently influence without a credible threat of force.

Deconstructing America's Savior - Part 6

Libertarians and constitutionalist conservatives typically support Ron Paul. Since I consider myself to be moderately libertarian in my political views and I lean towards originalist interpretations of the Constitution, I feel compelled to explain why I do not and will not support Ron Paul as a candidate for the Presidency. This is the sixth in a series of several posts in which I pick apart his policy platform and explain my objections.

Previous posts in the series:

1. An introduction to Ron Paul's policy platform.
2. Ron Paul on Debt and Taxes.
3. Ron Paul on American Independence and Sovereignty.
4. Ron Paul on War and Foreign Policy.
5. Ron Paul on Life and Liberty.

This time, let's pick apart his policy statement regarding The Second Amendment:

I share our Founders’ belief that in a free society each citizen must have the right to keep and bear arms. They ratified the Second Amendment knowing that this right is the guardian of every other right, and they all would be horrified by the proliferation of unconstitutional legislation that prevents law-abiding Americans from exercising this right.

I have always supported the Second Amendment and these are some of the bills I have introduced in the current Congress to help restore respect for it:

• H.R. 1096 includes provisions repealing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Federal Firearms License Reform Act of 1993, two invasive and unconstitutional bills.
• H.R. 1897 would end the ban on carrying a firearm in the National Park System, restoring Americans’ ability to protect themselves in potentially hazardous situations.
• H.R. 3305 would allow pilots and specially assigned law enforcement personnel to carry firearms in order to protect airline passengers, possibly preventing future 9/11-style attacks.
• H.R. 1146 would end our membership in the United Nations, protecting us from their attempts to tax our guns or disarm us entirely.

Once again, Ron Paul brings out the UN boogeyman. As I've said before, the UN is neither so dangerous, nor so useless as Paul suggests. But his objection to the UN doesn't really change my analysis of the underlying issue here, so I'll let it pass...

In the past, I introduced legislation to repeal the so-called “assault weapons” ban before its 2004 sunset, and I will oppose any attempts to reinstate it.

I also recently opposed H.R. 2640, which would allow government-appointed psychiatrists to ban U.S. veterans experiencing even mild forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome from ever owning a gun.

You have the right to protect your life, liberty, and property. As President, I will continue to guard the liberties stated in the Second Amendment.

What he said. Seriously, I can't find any fault in Ron Paul's stance on this issue. The only criticism I can make here is to point out that he repeatedly refers to legislation that he has "introduced". I'm unaware of any legislation that Ron Paul has successfully pushed through to become law (I haven't looked very hard, so it's entirely possible that I'm overlooking something). This just one more indicator that suggests Paul is more concerned with remaining true to his principles than he is with achieving tangible results.

Next up: Ron Paul's policies with regard to Social Security.