Bush risks leaving global security worse than he found it
Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at 11:36AM This is a huge and growing problem for America. You can say, "We gotta do what we gotta do!" But when your war is waged--inevitably--within the context of the everything else that is globalization (What is globalization? It sure provides more work-arounds than gate-keepers), that just isn't good enough. That attitude gets you stalemates at best, and quagmires at worst.
Me? I like to win--all the time And America can't win with a rule-set population of 1-and-a-half (us and hardliners in Israel) in a world of close to a couple hundred (and counting) statesl
That, my friends, is the grand strategy equivalent of pissing in the wind. Basically, it's a terrible way of washing your socks (I prefer taking myself to the cleaners).
Bush first-term was great for establishing the need for a new rule set on global security.
Bush second-term has been a disaster in getting buy-in from the world. So bad, in fact, that he risks leaving the global security order far worse than he found it, and that's too bad, because I believe he was the right man for the job. He just stayed too long at his post.
Reader Comments (7)
Their reluctance/refusal to "buy-in" can always be attributed to a "failure" on our part. After all, so the thinking goes, if we were doing enough, wouldn't they have bought in already? But at some point their refusal is less our fault than it is their unwillingness to engage in the intellectual heavy lifting to come to the realization that it really is in their interests to shrink the Gap.
He had no discernable plan for the end game, for winning the peace, only for winning the war, which we did in grand style. Unfortunately, without a plan for peace, he left most of our would-be allies out of the game. No, he didn't "leave" them out of the game, he flat out told them that if they didn't start the game, they wouldn't be allowed to play at all.
Yes he stayed too long, but that wasn't the real problem.
Army Lawyer, with all due respect, I would think we would find a way to better determine state "buy-in" prior to engaging in such a risk taking adventure. Haven't metrics been set for war gaming various levels of state "buy-in"?
I think the Vietnam war sparked an 'anti-american' feeling throughout most of Europe, which has been on the rise ever since.It gains momentum every time the US 'screws the pooch' (CIA bringing down Allende, US non-commitment to the Kyoto Protocol),and seems to be unaffected even when the US takes the lead in matters we agree on (intervention in Somalia and the FRY).
If the US is always wrong by default (in the eyes of most europeans), it is not hard to recognize what a catastrophic mistake the build-up tothe invasion of Iraq has been.
You had a republican(!) president with questionable rhetoric skills, false claims of WMD's, the dirty little 'The US just want to secure the oil'-argument, and in the end a superpower acting against the wishes of the UN.
This all comes together in a sense that the US does what it damn well pleases, and she will lie through her teeth to get what she wants.
I have a real fear that the lack of trust in the US will become chronic. The current Bush administration will only make matters worse, tainted as it is by it's previous mistakes. A new administration faces an enormous challenge in restoring some of this trust.
Even then, there was not enough forethought to securing the borders, securing the ammunition dumps, and securing the oil resources. They then allowed a disasterous sequence of events. Dismantalling the army and government infrastructure leaving 300-500,000 unemployed fueled the insurgency. Diplomacy in the area was not and still is not being used.
Post war Planning? What planning? We would be welcome as liberators. If we had kept an infracture, started public works programs, employed and made the population stakeholders, then yes - we would have been welcome as liberators. In WWII we spent almost three years planning for the peace.
The recent lessons of Kosovo and James Baker in Gulf I are being treated as NIH (not invented here). It appears that they have a secondary corollary (1st one was if you're not with us you must be against us) that's "If we didn't think of it, it's not good".
Gen Petraeus had the right idea at the right time in the sequence of events. Since his ideas were not a part of a unified strategy at that time, he is going to fight an uphill battle to get to the original goal of situational security.
Some questions that I think pertinent: Can the existing Coalition members actually be doing more than they are? Need the Coalition (the largest number of member states of any coalition in history) be larger? And what about buy-in from the NGOs, too?
Here's a left-handed example--Despite the general agreement that, despite the lack of difference in mission, Afghanistan is the "good" part of the war, some partners won't willingly engage in direct combat. NGO's that are supposed to be doing SysAdmin parts of the job cruise Kabul in luxury SUVs while, a couple of blocks away from their offices, three women with their children have died of exposure in the streets. (http://afghanlord.blogspot.com/2007/01/died-from-exposure.html)
If the UN and Doctor's Without Borders can't provide basic shelter, and NATO members won't fully participate in the good part, how is anyone, let alone President Bush, going to get buy-in to the really tough part? Not to mention all the other parts that no one seems to know about because they don't make headlines (Horn of Africa, Colombia, Indonesia, Philippines,...).