Progressives and Democrats are largely perceived as worse on defense issues than conservatives and Republicans. This is in reality not true, and the conservative misadventures in Iraq are helping to bear this out. Nevertheless, the established wisdom still claims that unless Democrats outmacho the Republicans, the public will continue to see them as weak.
This is an outgrowth of progressives not only ceding the issue of defense to conservatives, but more importantly, not talking about their vision of using military power that the public can understand and support.
Americans, particularly in the last century and so far in this one, see military force as an essential element in what makes America truly American. Our success in wartime, especially WWI and II, left us with a sense of moral right and military invincibility. Korea, and in a much larger sense, Vietnam, brought the invincibility ideal to its knees.
Most people in the Vietnam anti-war movement were Democrats, and as the years have progressed, more people incorrectly blame the public dissatisfaction with the war for making us lose. Combined with the Democrats running peace candidate George McGovern in the ’72 election, the idea that Democrats wanted America to be weak gained traction.
The final nail in the coffin was Carter’s inability to get our hostages home from Iran, highlighted by the disastrous rescue attempt left Americans feeling helpless, and ultimately - un-American. It is no accident that they turned to Ronald Reagan and the Republicans who swore to restore that feeling of invincibility we had lost. So how do the Democrats get back the mantle of being able to lead America militarily?
The biggest problem is that Democrats do not have a consistent message on how to approach foreign policy. Secondly, assuming they have agreed on a policy, they do not know how to explain their perspective to the public in a convincing way. So first of all, what do progressives believe regarding foreign policy and the use of force?
Policy
Using raw military power as your only basis of security and foreign policy is ineffective, immature, and most of all, perilous. It relies on what I term ‘sandbox logic’, that is, a way of looking at human interaction that you had when you were 3 years old playing in a sandbox. That is the level of sophistication of the ‘might makes right’ and ‘peace through superior firepower’ theories.
Neoconservative principles believe that diplomacy is weakness since it usually results in compromise, and nations can only get what they truly need at the expense of other nations. It logically follows that in any political confrontation, unless your opponent completely capitulates, military action is the preferred means of dealing with it, since other means of coercion, like economic sanctions, will not force your opponent to surrender their position quickly and completely.
This is clearly moronic. And it is a fundamentally inaccurate way to view military power. The military is a tool, and a very blunt one at that, for achieving political results. It should only be used if the cost of the war does not exceed the benefit gained from winning. Today, most political ends are sophisticated and complex, not too mention relatively minor.
Now disputes are over human rights abuses, trade policies, the flow of oil, etc…. Hence, the political object is more defined and less important to the survival of the nations involved. As such, the costs of war almost always exceed the political benefit gained even if you win. Thus, war is the wrong tool for solving most modern political conflicts.
This is pure Clauswitz. War only serves the political object, and most political objects are not worth the cost and effort of a war. Look at Vietnam. Our political object in Vietnam – to stop Communism – was not as important to us as throwing off a corrupt regime was to the people of South Vietnam. As they had a greater political object than we did, they were willing to go to greater lengths to win than we were. Nothing was going to change that equation. Ultimately, no matter what the U.S. did, we lose that war.
Iraq is unfortunately the same. The bottom line is that modern asymmetric warfare makes using traditional military force virtually obsolete, particularly since it costs hundreds of billions more for an advanced military power like the U.S. to prosecute its wars than it does for the insurgents to resist us. We taught that lesson to the British.
Targeted military strikes on key people or installations may serve smaller political purposes quite well, but large scale efforts, like in Iraq, are almost never worth the resources, lives, and energy for the political gains made, even if we do win.
There are exceptions. The first Gulf War was fought with a limited political object: get Saddam out of Kuwait and severely, but not decisively, damage his military. This object did not require an occupation, and since the political object was also limited for Saddam - maintain control of Iraq - it was easier for him to surrender.
In other words, we had an exit strategy. And exit strategies are political, not militaristic. You can get your military out victoriously only if you have an achievable political goal.
Policy Highlights
1) War is used to achieve political ends. If the cost of the war is not worth the political objective gained, do not go to war.
2) Using military force to solve all but the most extreme political situations is ineffective and not worth the cost. Other more appropriate options exist.
3) America’s goals and interests are best achieved in conjunction with other nations, not in opposition to them.
4) By all means, make sure you have an exit strategy. If you cannot get out, you will never achieve what you wanted when you initially went to war.
Messages
1) Only fools use war as their primary political tool.
2) Do not ask our brave military to sacrifice everything for war unless everyone else will.
3) Ask questions first, shoot later.
4) Do not go in unless you can get out.
5) Conserving our military strength preserves American power.