American Foreign Policy: Time for a Change? Part VI
By jbcobb | June 16, 2011
The Effectiveness of the War on Terror
The argument for a great deal of the military adventurism and foreign expenditure in recent years is that it is necessary for America to expend large amounts of wealth and human capital in foreign lands to restructure societies into more liberal democratic regimes to remove the disaffection and hopelessness which makes these failing states breeding grounds for terrorist organizations. But, sometimes those interventions have unintended consequences, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States sought to contain possible terrorists, but the intervention arguably left the borders more unenforceable than before (Elder, 2007, p. 829). But, even Barak Obama, who campaigned on a policy to extract troops from Iraq, has supported increased troop levels in Afghanistan and enjoined a third struggle with a dictatorial Muslim regime, purportedly in support of rebels fighting for greater freedom. As Zalman and Clarke (2009) point out, “liberal commentators are expressing concern – and conservatives expressing satisfaction – that despite his initial moves Obama is basically adhering to Bush-era policies” (p. 102). His methods of foreign involvement might be slightly different, but liberals and conservatives alike seek to use American money, troops, and influence for regime change to quell the spread of an existential threat to the American way of life.
Are terrorist networks a threat on the same order as communism in the 20th century, which can arguably be said to have been miscalculated or oversold? While terrorists infamously murdered more than 3,000 innocent people in coordinated attacks on the United States in 2001, some analysts have made the argument that the few remarkable, and admittedly horrific, events are insufficient reasons for the magnitude of expansion of missions and spending abroad, and the corresponding negative effects on civil liberties at home which have taken place.
To compare the war against al-Qaida to the threat from the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the last existential threat to the nation, seems to be quite a stretch of logic. Michael C. Desch (2008), the Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Politics of Texas A&M University, explains that the USSR truly possessed the ability to destroy every living being on earth, while the most reasonable worst-case scenarios are that al-Qaida might acquire one or two crude radiological “dirty bombs”. Moreover, the death toll from the global network of the late Osama bin Ladin has been relatively small compared to other significant conflicts in American history (p. 40). While terrorist organizations are certainly deadly, and their ability to attack American interests and innocent people needs to ameliorated through an effective national security strategy, the threat needs to be realistically assessed. Desch (2008) effectively puts this ongoing struggle into perspective:
Fewer people have been killed since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in the war against al-Qaida as a percentage of the population (0.0009), than the American Civil War (1.78), World War II (0.29), or even Vietnam (0.03). Indeed, terrorism ranks very low as a cause of death among Americans in the period from 1995 to 2005 (3,147), well behind car accidents (254,419), workplace injuries (59,730), influenza (19,415), and even complications from hernias (16,742)”. (p. 40)
While his comparisons may not be persuasive to those who recognize that threats against American interests have only become a significant concern over the last two decades, it is interesting to note the impact that one successful plot had on the entire national security structure and on the domestic civil liberties of the global superpower.
David Gold (2007) claimed that “There have been attempts to identify progress with respect to the effectiveness of specific US actions…These evaluations are necessarily qualitative but it is hard to see how these evaluations would yield a benefit cost ratio greater than one” (p. 8). This would mean a lack of return on investment, which would probably have zero effect in real terms. But, what would the effect of a less intrusive and forceful foreign policy have on the threat to American interests form global terrorist organizations? While Desch (2008, p. 42) does not recommend complete withdrawal of all resources in the present struggle, and maintains that a healthy engagement is necessary, he argues that an approach based on realist international relations theory, as opposed to the liberal approach of neoconservatism and American liberalism, would result in both the reduction of deployed assets and the levels of threat. This assumption is based on the belief that American hegemony, and the imperial impulse to remake the rest of the world in its image, is counter-productive and dangerous. Thomas Walker (2008) explains the Kant-Paine dilemma of liberalism:
All liberals share a broad faith that democracies will remain at peace with one another and free trade will contribute to that peace. Liberals also share a general mistrust of military spending as a means to achieve security. While liberals agree that a democratic world will be a more peaceful world, they disagree over marshalling military force to achieve this end” (p. 465).
Desch (2008) argues that only foreign policy realists, understanding the anarchical structure of international relations, can bring constraint to imperialist overreach, because “They fear that as the United States grasps for the mantle of world domination, it will generate opposition around the world, resulting in greater international tension and conflict” (p. 41).
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Liberation Theology: What Happened in Latin America? Part V
By jbcobb | June 9, 2011
Challenges from Other Sources
Liberation theology, which had proven to be one of the most powerful and compelling developments for social and political change in Latin America during the three decades following Vatican II, began to witness great resistance from theological and political forces in the 1990s. More conservative elements of the Catholic Church, who had remained in power following the liberalization of Church policy in the 1960s, began to reassert themselves on doctrinal issues in the last decade of the century (Soares, 2009, p. 481). Additionally, more conservative Christian denominations began to move to Latin American countries in greater numbers, and brought with them ideologies which were antithetical to the leftist and socialist political orientation of liberation theology (Soares, 2009, p. 481). And possibly more important than these challenges, the failure of central government driven developmental strategies, such as import substitution industrialization, to successfully address issues of income inequality, abject poverty, and overall economic modernization in Latin American countries opened the door for new market-oriented solutions and free trade policies. Judith Soares (2008, p. 481) stated that “The defeat of socialism and the decline of the Marxist left, the return to liberal and pluralistic politics and the implementation of a neo-liberal economic agenda have left many wondering about the relevance of theologies of liberation in a world that has rejected Marxism as an ideology of social change and socialism as an alternative social system”.
Part of the theological challenge to liberation theology came not from within the Roman Catholic Church’s adherents of more traditional doctrine, but from the proliferation of protestant denominations, whose missionaries brought a more fundamentalist approach to religion, which not only stood in direct opposition to the theology of liberation, but which pronounced it as patently anti-Christian. Soares (2008, p. 483) explains the conflict between the fundamentalist and liberation views:
In opposing liberation theology, fundamentalism was premised on the view that any change in society could only be effected through divine intervention, because “salvation” could only be achieved through personal rebirth, and hence, a personal relationship with God and not with any man, government, or political party.
In effect, there is an ongoing struggle for the hearts and minds of believers in Latin America. While the more radical theology of liberation and their sympathizers among some protestant denominations have largely been marginalized by traditional elements of the Catholic Church and the growing numbers of conservative fundamentalist denominations, there still exists an allure among the poor in many countries for a concerted effort from the clergy to challenge the political status quo.
However, as a socio-political force in the region, liberation theology has certainly waned in popularity. Socialism and government-driven economics have been replaced by globalization and market driven economics throughout much of the region. While populism still retains some appeal to the very poor and politically oppressed, and communism still exists in Fidel and Raul Castro’s Cuba, they are now the outliers of Latin America, struggling to survive. Judith Soares (2008, p. 486) remains optimistic that liberation theology can survive as well, but not as one of the dominant forces in society, but “remains accessible for mobilization into popular movements under appropriate conditions and at particular historical junctures”.
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American Foreign Policy: Time for a Change? Part V
By jbcobb | June 2, 2011
Bush Doctrine in Historical Context
Even though the United States had employed an interventionist foreign policy since the end of World War II, initially as part of the containment policy toward the Soviet Union and its satellite states, the rate of intervention has increased proportionately with its relative global power since the fall of communism in Europe. Arguably, this level of intervention reached its zenith, for now, during the administration of George W. Bush. The Bush administration’s response to terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 was to invade Afghanistan to root out al-Qaida and their Taliban enablers, to preemptively invade Iraq to prevent the fruition of perceived plans to further develop and disseminate weapons of mass destruction, and to enjoin a global war on terrorism. The sum total of these actions was the many-fold increase in the deployment of troops to foreign lands, especially in Muslim-dominated regions.
The argument for such a massive increase in foreign military action was not one of simple retribution or the removal of imminent threats. The danger to America was larger than al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, and was being fomented in many countries by national and non-governmental actors. Condoleeza Rice, National Security Advisor to President Bush, stated that “there is no longer any doubt that today America faces an existential threat to our security—a threat as great as any we faced during the Civil War, World War II, or the Cold War” (Leffler, 2005, p. 1049). Lest one get the idea that the Bush Doctrine of unilateral and preemptive military action is a completely new concept, Leffler (2003) makes the case that American presidents had based their foreign policies on similar grounds for most of the preceding century (p. 1046). In particular, regarding United States foreign policy during the Cold War, which many have described as defensive and reactionary in its entirety, Leffler (2003) counters this view:
Although many contemporaries and historians define U.S. Cold War policies in terms of containment and deterrence, America’s real strategy was to pursue a preponderance of power. U.S. Cold War policies were always designed not so much to contain Soviet power and influence as to roll them back, and to transform the Kremlin’s approach to international politics”. (pp. 1051-1052)
Furthermore, Leffler (2003) added that although not all presidents advocated that America utilize independent and offensive military intervention, “Eisenhower’s deployment of forces to Lebanon, Johnson’s military intervention in the Dominican Republic and Reagan’s attack on Libya, as well as Kennedy’s blockade of Cuba and Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia and Laos, all possessed unilateral preemptive qualities” (1052).
Therefore, it can be argued that the Bush doctrine is not so much an aberration in American foreign policy, but possibly is a logical evolution of the post bi-polar world, in which America enjoys military-backed foreign policy hegemony. To the critics of the Bush policy, it can be pleaded that the core issues of preemptive intervention against terrorism had been incorporated into American foreign policy over the previous two administrations. A bipartisan commission addressing national security for the 21st century, appointed during the Clinton administration, stressed the growing vulnerability of America in an increasingly chaotic world in which more and more states were doomed to failure, and in which a reliance on deterrence would no longer be sufficient (Leffler, 2003, pp. 1053-1054). The report issued by the commission stated that American military capabilities and the “will and ability to prevail” were necessary, and Leffler (2003) purports that, “Experts might argue over the mix of policies, but few doubted that innovation in weapons technology and military tactics were needed, as were a vast array of preventative actions and preemptive options” (p. 1054). Moreover, David Dunn (2005) explains that “despite the fact that successive administrations and others have warned against the perceived resurgence of isolationism in the post-Cold War period there is little evidence of support for a radical retrenchment of America’s overseas engagement” (p. 260). Thus, Bush and his neoconservative supporters not only possessed the causus belli, but could reference a bi-partisan commission and the judgment of military and foreign policy experts as justification for greater military action abroad.
Barak Obama has replaced George W. Bush in the Oval Office and world opinion skyrocketed in the early months of the new president’s tenure, but there has been very little of significance to distinguish the two presidents’ policies regarding the prosecution of the battle against terrorism or the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama promised much change in America’s approach to foreign affairs, and was steadfast in his belief that America’s interventions in foreign countries were eroding the country’s standing in the world. But, most of his words were simply effective political rhetoric. In some ways, President Obama is even more intent on imposing America’s will on Muslim nations. He has approved increases in troop levels in Afghanistan for renewed “surges” against insurgents, and has sanctioned additional drone attacks in the region.
The present Administration’s policy toward Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the Arab world seems little different than what has been seen over the last decade. In fact, although Obama remains popular in Europe, he remains an unpopular figure in the Arab world. According to polls in 2010, he is a little more popular and enjoys slightly more confidence in the region than his predecessor, which is understandable, but his popularity declines as his tenure lengthens (Pew Research Center, 2010). Additionally, the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden garners great support in America, but will probably not endear him to many sectors of the Arab world. Overall, the perception of America has not changed significantly on the Arab street.
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