Larsson läser
Janerik Larsson
Janerik Larsson
Debatten om var gränsen går mellan politiska/diplomatiska insatser och militära sådana har pågått mycket länge i USA. Det är en högst dagsaktuell debatt.
Den mycket respekterade politiske analytikern Charlie Cook skriver i sin senaste National Journal-krönika såhär:
Americans by our nature are easily given to outrage, anxious to stop invaders as well as to avenge atrocities. Standing idly on the sidelines is not our way. Recent barbaric acts committed by Islamic State extremists, including the beheadings of Westerners and the immolation in a cage of a Jordanian air force pilot, shocked the nation. Now we learn of the death of Kayla Mueller, a 26-year-old American aid worker held hostage by ISIS since August 2013. This is exactly the kind of evil that triggers our desire to ”do something.” That impulse has also led many in recent weeks to call on the United States to arm Ukraine against what is tantamount to a Russian invasion.
But what should we do? Exactly how do we ”do something” in these two cases? The 12 continuous years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the longest period of conflict in American history, came at an extraordinary cost of lives, limbs, and treasure. As a result, Americans are extremely leery of putting ”boots on the ground” anywhere new so soon. While there are more antiseptic forms of kinetic military action, such as the use of drones—which have been highly effective in taking out terrorists—and cruise missiles, experts tell us that there is a limit to what can be accomplished with weapons that kill our enemies without endangering American or allied lives. Strikes with manned aircraft can take things a bit further, but how far can and will our regional allies go without our troops beside them? The reality is that, in order to ”do something,” it is sometimes necessary to send service members into harm’s way—whether that means relatively small special-operations units or larger battalions—something the American people appear to be quite reluctant to support after the nation’s recent traumatic experiences.
I sitt avskredstal till det amerikanska folket varnade president Eisenhower för det militär-industriella komplex som andra världskriget skapade:
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
I USA finns det idag öster som vänder sig mot vad man beskriver som president Obamas skepsis mot att lösa politiska problem med militära medel:
James Jeffrey som var ambassadör i Irak 2010 – 2012 skrev härom dagen i Washington Post om detta:
The Obama administration sent to Congress last week its second report on national security strategy. These updates are mainly a dry inventory of our aspirations, what’s happening in the world and what the United States can do in response, rather than a true strategy. That was the case for this one as well, but bits of it reveal much about how President Obama views the world. Combined with his recent interview by Fareed Zakaria on CNN, his State of the Union address last month and his speech last May at West Point, we can glean a good summary of the president’s basic principles for security policy. Unfortunately, that summary is troubling.
Although Obama’s goals are consistent with mainstream U.S. foreign policy since the onset of the Cold War, his dismissive approach to military force represents a clear departure from that consensus.
Jag citerade härom dagen Fareed Zakaria som kritiserade en av republikanska hökarna:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) recently offered the most honest reason why some in Washington advocate military assistance. Although it doesn’t seem likely to work, it’s a way of doing something in the face of Russian aggression. “I don’t know how this ends if you give [Ukraine] defensive capability,” Graham said at the recent Munich Security Conference, “but I know this: I will feel better because when my nation was needed to stand up to the garbage and stand by freedom, I stood by freedom.”
But the purpose of American foreign policy is not to make Lindsey Graham feel better. It is to achieve objectives on the ground. That means picking your battles and weapons carefully.
Jag följer tidskriften The National Interest som har fokus just på frågan hur USAs militära maktmedel ska användas. Tidningens egen policy formuleras såhär:
Over almost three decades, The National Interest, founded in 1985 by Irving Kristol and Owen Harries, has displayed a remarkable consistency in its approach to foreign policy. It is not, as the inaugural statement declared, about world affairs. It is about American interests. It is guided by the belief that nothing will enhance those interests as effectively as the approach to foreign affairs commonly known as realism—a school of thought traditionally associated with such thinkers and statesmen as Disraeli, Bismarck, and Henry Kissinger. Though the shape of international politics has changed considerably in the past few decades, the magazine’s fundamental tenets have not. Instead, they have proven enduring and, indeed, appear to be enjoying something of a popular renaissance.
Until recently, however, liberal hawks and neoconservatives have successfully attempted to stifle debate by arguing that prudence about the use of American power abroad was imprudent—by, in short, disparaging realism as a moribund doctrine that is wholly inimical to American idealism. This has been disastrous. After the Bush administration’s failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it became abundantly clear that the lack of a debate in Washington was part and parcel of a larger foreign policy failing, which was the refusal to ponder the larger implications and consequences of the promiscuous use of American power abroad. A reflexive substitution of military might for diplomacy, of bellicose rhetoric for attainable aspirations, dramatically weakened rather than strengthened America’s standing around the globe. But today, as Russia, China, and Iran assess and act upon their own perceived national interests, Washington must attempt to understand those nations as they understand themselves.
This is why a return to realism has seldom been more imperative. It is notions of interdependence, the end of sovereignty, and the inutility of power that have all proven wanting in the past decade. International relations was not reinvented in 1989. While it may be an old foreign policy concept, the notion of a national interest is not an antiquarian one. On the contrary, it has never possessed more relevance than now.
Att president Obama skulle vara konsekvent skeptisk mot användandet av militära maktmedel stämmer knappast. Här två exempel på kritik mot Obama för att han inte är mer försiktig på det området.
Mest uthållig i sin kritik mot amerikanska militära insatser utomlands är de säkerhetspolitiska kommentatorerna på det liberterianska CATO-institutet. Här en bit av en sådan kritisk kommentar:
Today, six months after President Obama unilaterally launched our latest war in Iraq, five months after he expanded the war to Syria, four months after his administration thought up a name for the war, and three months after he promised to go to Congress for authorization, the president sent congressional leaders a draft “Authorization for the Use of Military Force against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”—along with a message insisting that “existing statutes provide me with the authority I need” to wage war anyway.
I tidskriften Foreign Policy varnas för att Obamas krig mot ISIL kan bli ett evighetskrig:
Debatten fortsätter.