We Would Lose an Arms Race with the Whole World
I haven’t written about the now-underway U.S. military action in Libya, mostly because lots of other people are more expert on this topic than I. But for the purpose of exposing my biases at the start of this post, I’ll lay my cards on the table: I am against it. I assume the military phase will be devastating for the regime, and hope that the overall effort goes as well as is possible, but I think it’s a mistake for the U.S. to expend significant economic, human or moral resources in a military attempt to control the evolution of the conflict in Libya.
I understand the humanitarian impulse to help the underdog, but we have finite resources, and cannot hold ourselves responsible for the political freedom of every human being on Earth. As many others have said, the obvious problem with this action is that we must set the pretty gauzy-sounding benefits of influencing public opinion in the Middle East, avenging ourselves for the Pan Am bombing, possibly improving the lives of people in Libya and so forth, against the many ways that this could plausibly turn into a much more expensive proposition than is currently anticipated – and not only in terms of money. (It also seems very far from clear that in this case the underdogs are people who, once in power, would be materially better than the current government for Libyans, Americans, or just about anybody else.)
What seems so striking to me, though, from the perspective of being in Paris and London, is the default belief among so many in the U.S. that America needs to “be a leader” on this. I think that over time, whatever our tactical decision with respect to this particular crisis, we need very much not to be a leader in this sense. We can’t afford it.
The discussions that I read from the U.S. take American military predominance as a fact of nature. There are (as I understand it) unique U.S. military assets that are important to this specific operation, but that is an outcome of prior European strategies that can, and should, be changed. From a longer-term perspective, it is entirely natural that Europeans should be responsible for whatever external military action is taken in somewhere like Libya.
This is for at least two reasons.
First, while it’s easy to use anecdotes to paint an impressionistic picture of European nations as a bunch of small countries populated by elderly people who have given up on having real armies, the facts on the ground are different. Britain and France are taking the lead on Libya. They are, in fact, major countries, with huge populations, economies, and militaries. Together, the UK and France have a population approximately equal to the sum of those of California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. They have a combined GDP (which was partly designed to be a measure of traditional war-fighting potential) that is about one-third the size of America’s. The UK has the world’s third-largest military budget, and France the fourth-largest.
Second, they are a lot closer to Libya. Tripoli is about the same distance from Marseille as Mexico City is from Dallas, or as Miami is from Memphis. Libya is on Europe’s doorstep, but is almost 5,000 miles from Washington, DC. Distance still matters a lot for physical force projection. This also means that there are much more practical national security implications for Europe than for America, ranging from the potential for massive refugee waves to direct or terrorist strikes.
If, over time, Europe can’t or won’t pursue missions like the current effort in Libya, then either they’re not worth doing, or the U.S. must carry the entire burden of policing the world on its own. If we were ever able to do that, we can’t any more.
The central geostrategic fact of our era has nothing to do with Middle Eastern terrorism – it is the economic rise of the Asian heartland. With enormous and stressful struggle, America has been successful in roughly maintaining its share of world GDP for the past several decades in the face of this. Europe and Japan have been ceding share to the rest of the world. Considered in isolation, the relative power of the U.S. has not been declining – but that of our closest allies has been. Countries that do not share as much of our culture and values are increasingly ascendant. China no more wants American “leadership” than did the Soviet Union.
This will make it ever-harder for the U.S. to control events. Yes, we ”spend more on our military than all other major powers combined.” But, depending on how you measure it, the U.S. has about 20 – 25% of world GDP. In the long-run, we cannot win an arms race with the whole rest of the planet.
I believe that the sucker play in this situation is to adopt an ever more imperial attitude, dig in, and attempt to use unilateral military force to protect our existing position. We would bankrupt ourselves trying to freeze history in place. This is probably what most powers in history would do in our situation. But that doesn’t mean we’re fated to make this mistake. If there’s such a thing as an American genius for dealing with the world, a big part of it is marrying real belief in high ideals with a kind of unsentimental, almost ruthless, practicality. We need that now.
Even our current level of military expenditures could be matched over time by a sufficiently aggressive collation, and if we are trying to project power very far from our shores, adversaries would not have to come close to matching it in order to defeat us. The saying “no land wars in Asia” is there for a reason. And we are unlikely to maintain our current spending levels as a percentage of GDP. America is deeply in debt, and has an enormous structural deficit. We are in need of severe budget reform, which primarily means entitlement reform, but will very likely require reductions in military expenditures. These cannot be made imprudently. Reducing expenditures prudently means reducing commitments. Consider that, though it is losing global share, Europe has a larger population and economy than does America. We must, in our own self-interest, place Europeans (and Japanese, Koreans and others) in the position of defending their own interests to a much greater degree than they do today. We need real allies.
The quid pro quo is that you don’t order allies around, you work with them, and they get say. This will create risks, and some degree of loss of control, versus the case of perpetual U.S. global military dominance. But that dominance will not persist indefinitely anyway. Wishing it weren’t so won’t change it.
(Cross-posted at The Corner)
Very well said. I agree in particular with your conclusion: we need real allies, and you can’t just order allies around. The corollary, though, is that real allies support each other. France and the UK are leading on this – but we are supporting them. We probably would have to do this even if we think it’s a bad idea, if only because we expect reciprocal support in places like Afghanistan.
— Noah Millman · Mar 21, 02:36 PM · #
Noah,
Thanks,
Yes, this is clearly the strongest argument in favor of what we’re doing (though I don;t hear it articulated very often). The counter-arguments are that (1) if we don;t have such a reciprocal structure in place, it’s not yet in our interest to do this, even if it would be in such a hypothetical future structure, and (2) even in such a structure, if something is believed to be a bad enough idea, you just have to take the damage to your alliance to avoid the worse costs of getting stuck in it.
I have an opinion (rather than an informed judgment) that on balance it is still a really bad idea, but I meant what I said at the start of the post about really just wanting to expose my biases on that point. It is conceivable to me that there is secret information available to the administration that would change my vie on this.
Best,
Jim
— Jim Manzi · Mar 21, 03:31 PM · #
I’m with Noah. I probably wouldn’t have done this if I were in charge, but (1) it’s not obviously immoral or disastrous; so (2) I’m inclined to contribute if Britain and France are leading the team. Of course, I think that’s what got us into Indochina . . .
— J Mann · Mar 21, 03:40 PM · #
Oh I don’t know, Dr. Manzi. I think Obama is opportunistic and exploitive and the situation dynamics are case-driven, and no one should treat Operation Odyssey Dawn as setting policy for anything else.
For example Obama would probably like to intercede in Yemen, but since he recently asked “President” Saleh to let the US secretly swarm suspected al-Q camps with predators and reapers I doubt Obama can get Saleh to stop cracking student skulls. But guess what? Since Res 1973 passed, Yemeni generals and diplomats are joining the protestors.
Co-oincidence? Maybe.
But it is indisputable that many Benghazi lives were saved when the French scrambled jets to bring the rain to Qaddafis massed armor columns last night.
Obama just signed us on to do what we do best— airpower strike force. Its what we did in Gulf I and Gulf II. Every one seems to forget that Gulf II was a success….It is what happened afterwards, with OIF and the occupation and COIN and the “surge”. Now those were all epic disasters, and COIN continues to be an epic fail in A-stan.
But Res 1973 states EXPLICITLY no invasion, no occupation, no boots on the ground.
We get to be the good guys for once, and the smoking scrap lot outside of Benghazi is testimony. You know damn well Qaddafi agreed to the ceasefire while never stopping the shelling and trying to get tanks into Benghazi so he could use opposition citizens as human shields.
So stop your handwringing and pearl clutching.
Obama is waay too smart to try to impose judeochristian democracy on Libya.
Libya is 97% muslim, just like Iraq.
Only conservatism is selection for stupid, and there will never be another OIF or OEF either.
And we really need to be the good guys. We can use the global PR.
Honest.
— matoko_chan · Mar 22, 01:24 AM · #
And just in case you haven’t noticed, Dr. Manzi cher , the new global arms race is human capital. And non-hispanic caucasian christians are global paupers in that race.
— matoko_chan · Mar 22, 03:34 AM · #
Jim
Re ‘the central geostrategic fact of our era’, I wrote some guest posts on James Fallows’ blog last week on conservatism and US foreign policy, which I think complement your argument:
Part 1: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/is-there-really-an-international-society/72486/
Part 2: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/america-should-be-aware-of-its-own-decline/72549/
Part 3: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/why-conservatives-should-learn-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-un/72590/
— Sam Roggeveen · Mar 23, 12:17 AM · #
With respect, starting with “This is for at least two reasons,” everything you write is kind of a bait and switch. It could all be true and still I’d be wondering, “But what do we do about Libya?”
Our dominance won’t persist indefinitely? Okay, but how is that relevant to the Libya situation? How do you connect the dots?
You go on: “We have finite resources, and cannot hold ourselves responsible for the political freedom of every human being on Earth”? Okay, but who said we had to? Why couldn’t a reasonable person believe that our duty to our fellow man is finite, limited by practicality, and also believe that going into Libya is right and/or smart? These positions aren’t mutually exclusive, at least not obviously.
Again: “The central geostrategic fact of our era has nothing to do with Middle Eastern terrorism – it is the economic rise of the Asian heartland…China no more wants American “leadership” than did the Soviet Union…This will make it ever-harder for the U.S. to control events…We can’t win an arms race with the whole world.”
How is that a case against this particular action? As possible outcomes, “Goes into Libya” is entirely consistent with “Avoids Arms Race with World” (it’s also consistent with the other three sentences).
And “you don’t order allies around, you work with them, and they get say?” What if, in return for their international cooperation writ large, they require, either expressly or implicitly, our occasional acquiescence to their will—at the UN Security Council, on small potato projects like Libya that interest them more than us? Wouldn’t this, then, be a smart move, similar to the way a man must pick and choose his battles with his kids? If they absolutely have to take the car to the store once in a while, let them do it when they’re not drunk and when they’re not driving into a tornado.
What I’m trying to say: Almost all of what you wrote is backdrop, more a statement of your prepared perspective than a persuasive argument against jumping into Libya. It felt like telling a driver that he better not drive 80mph indefinitely or he’ll get in a wreck or run out of gas. That’s exactly true, but what if he drives safely and stops to refill?
I’m not saying an argument can’t be developed from what you’ve written, I’m just saying there is a giant “yada yada” between your premises—Libya is costly, resources are finite, Allies’ pride needs to be stroked, Asia is ascendant, we can’t win an arms race with the world—and your conclusion that going into Libya is not a smart idea. For us, given this, right now — you have not made the case against the war.
/devil’s advocate.
— KVS · Mar 29, 05:06 AM · #
Sadly, President Obama has failed to make the case for it, as well.
— KVS · Mar 29, 05:07 AM · #
Dr. Manzi, I understand you feel you have to wil’ out on Libya because you can make this about Obama.
But Afghanistan is far more problematic.
I totally dont get your pearlclutching. Right now we are ARE engaged in a 10 year ground war, with absolutely no hope of winning, that is costing one billion taxpayer dollars per month to make more Taliban. Atrocity incidence is ramping up, the mini-surge has failed, and other ME states are falling to islamic democracy….like dominos.
The situ is looking more and more like Vietnam II to me.
THAT is where we need an exit strategy.
Unless our exit strategy is Operation Frequent Wind II.
— matoko_chan · Mar 29, 12:19 PM · #
Do you know what we saw last night, Dr. Manzi?
The birth of the Obama Doctrine.
It seems to me that the Obama Doctrine reads like this….will we intervene? It depends.
The Bush Doctrine and COIN brought us the Epic and Ongoing Disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hopefully the Obama Doctrine won’t.
;)
— matoko_chan · Mar 29, 03:33 PM · #
KVS:
The post is not an argument against going into Libya (that’s why I say I am exposing my biases at the beginning, say that “whatever our decision in this specific case” later, etc.). It’s about, as I tried to say in the title, not imagining that we can use military power to coerce the rest of the world in the way that many commentators (and apparently senior politicians) seem to think we can. It’s an argument for being realistic about the extent of our position in the world. I agree that in any specific case an argument for military intervention could be made, though as I say up-front, I’m completely unconvinced by the arguments I’ve heard for attacking government forces in Libya.
matoko:
I hope it works too.
Best,
Jim
— Jim Manzi · Mar 31, 12:59 PM · #
“I’m completely unconvinced by the arguments I’ve heard for attacking government forces in Libya.”
wallah, just use an optimization algorithm. Qaddafi can’t hold on. Qaraddawi and the Muslim Brotherhood put out a fatwah on him, and some brother is going to want to collect all that hasanat. Egypt borders Libya on the east and can flow insurgents and arms into Libya if they decide to. Qaddafi is a pariah in the Arab world. The rebels have already secured 80% of libyan oil reserves. And he is what…82?
Obama is bettin’ on a kind of sure thing here, Qaddafi is going.
Plus, unlike A-stan and Iraq, we are on the same side as the muslim populist insurgents, instead of trying to wipe them out.
It is the new American Humanitarian Interventionism— America will perform a humanitarian intervention if we are pretty sure it is going to succeed. Its cutdown optimized Just War Theory. We can call it Just Intervention Theory, but the caveat is we better be pretty convinced that beneficiaries of our humanitarian “aid” are going to succeed.
Optimization uber alles.
— matoko_chan · Apr 1, 05:38 PM · #
And look, Dr. Manzi. If the French had not scrambled brought the rain to Benghazi, it would all be over. Qaddafi’s only chance was to quickly crush the rebellion and kill as much of its leadership as he could.
The smoking scrap yard of arty and T-72s and BMPs outside the city testifies to his failure.
Now it is just a matter of time.
Eventually, Qaddafi will have to go.
— matoko_chan · Apr 1, 05:50 PM · #