For many, probably most, statesmen war is just another policy option. A government can apply diplomatic pressure. It can impose sanctions. It can launch a military attack.
The U.S. is a democracy and Americans like to think of themselves as setting a moral standard for the world. Yet since the end of the Cold War no country has more promiscuously used military force. Few of the conflicts presented even the barest claim of "defense" as justification. Most were simply wars of choice, used to advance one policy end or another.
American officials demonstrated a surprising lack of concern about the consequences of unleashing death and destruction upon other lands. The public tended to treat most wars, at least initially, like live video games,
But attitudes are different in the two nations which did the most to cause World War II and suffered the most as the conflict ground them underfoot. Pacifism remains particularly strong in Japan, the only country to suffer from the actual use of atomic bombs.
Military intervention remains controversial in Germany as well. Only recently has Berlin begun to deploy German troops overseas. Many Germans oppose giving NATO an "expeditionary" function.
In late May German President Horst Koehler visited Afghanistan, where he gave a radio interview in which he observed: "A country of our size, with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade, must be aware that... military deployments are necessary in an emergency to protect our interests -- for example, when it comes to trade routes, for example when it comes to preventing regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes."
That comment would be unexceptional for an American politician to make. Secretary of State James Baker pointed to access to oil and protection of jobs as reasons to attack Iraq in the first Persian Gulf War. Many U.S. military interventions have had at least a partial economic justification.
But Koehler found out that Germany is not America. Criticism was sharp and spanned the political spectrum. He was accused of promoting "gun-boat diplomacy" and undermining the German constitution, which speaks only of defending Germany. Friendlier critics denounced his "awkward" rhetoric. The idea of Germans becoming "soldiers of international trade" did not go over well.
Under political siege Koehler complained that he was not shown the respect proper for a head of state and quit. The contretemps proved to be an extraordinary embarrassment for Chancellor Angela Merkel. He was a member of her party and she might lose the upcoming parliamentary vote to choose his successor.
Some Americans found the spectacle to be evidence of geopolitical immaturity. Journalist Clayton M. McCleskey complained: "Mr. Koehler found himself isolated, a lonely leader attempting to push Germany to recognize the reality of its place in the world." Maybe, though it's entirely appropriate for citizens to demand that their leaders provide good reasons -- better than those typically offered in the U.S. -- for marching off to war.
In fact, America desperately needs a serious debate about when it should resort to war. Maintaining trade routes by protecting the freedom of the seas is a traditional national objective, but they normally are threatened only in broader conflicts, such as World Wars I and II. President Koehler claimed his comment on protecting trade routes referred to anti-piracy patrols near Somalia, but the latter don't compare to combat in Afghanistan.
Economics is a dubious justification for any war unless national survival is at stake. A country shouldn't start bombing other nations because it fears a modest spike in the unemployment rate or even a hefty rise in gasoline prices. Trade is good, but not good enough if it can only be conducted through war.
Anyway, economics has nothing to do with the Afghanistan conflict. To fight there in order to prevent Koehler's second concern, "regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes," would make even less sense than normally comes out of the mouths of politicians.
Instability is a global reality. But instability in most countries and regions doesn't much matter to large and prosperous Western states. Instability in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Central Asia has little impact on the U.S. and Europe.
Certainly no Western nation is going to have to worry about its "trade, jobs and incomes" as a result of conflict in Afghanistan. That tragic nation has been roiled by war for decades. U.S. intervention in 2001 sparked another major flare-up of combat.
Even if America or its allies did worry about an adverse economic impact, that would not justify nearly nine years of war, with no end in sight. Interest is a necessary but not sufficient justification for war. There needs to be moral right as well as a reasonable chance of success.
The former was present with Washington's decision to defenestrate the Taliban regime after it hosted al-Qaeda. But it's impossible to justify coercive nation-building, which usually does more to promote than discourage terrorism, in the same way. Although there are plenty of dedicated Afghans seeking to build a decent society, the Karzai government rarely represents them. No matter how well the American military performs and the Afghan military is trained, people will have little reason to die for the Karzai government.
Thus, success looks increasingly improbable--at least at reasonable cost in reasonable time. The notion of sacrificing tens of thousands of lives, both allied and Afghan, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a supposed humanitarian crusade is dubious enough in theory. It is worse in practice.
At a meeting with U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently acknowledged the problem of civilian deaths at checkpoints: "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force." He added that he knew of no case when "we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it." This is a humanitarian conflict?
But to engage in all of this in order to protect "trade, jobs and incomes" would be particularly offensive, as the Germans realized. It should be considered outrageous even in America.
War is an ugly reality. As long as people are human we are unlikely to eliminate the practice. But we can reduce its incidence.
And since America is more likely today, at least, than any other nation to resort to the use of force, it has a special opportunity and responsibility to think more critically before resorting to arms. In this regard the Germans have something to teach the U.S.
War should be a last resort, used only when necessary to promote essential ends. Fighting terrorism is such an end but even then war is rarely an effective means.
There should be no more wars of choice, no matter how quick and easy they are expected to be. Ease of victory is not enough to make might right. And, as we learned in both Iraq and Afghanistan, war is rarely the cakewalk that it is often advertised to be. War should not be just another policy option.
Some things are worth fighting for before a serious potential danger to 'many American citizens' becomes an actual one. That was certainly a completely bogus argument for invading Iraq, but it was not bogus at all when entering WWII.
That's the problem with generalizations: despite the seductive certainty which they provide, they always turn out to be wrong at some point (even, of course, this one - but I'll suggest not in this particular case).
http://daynepost.blogspot.com/
Anytime the MIC can make a buck
Anytime a pol thinks it will help him get re-elected
Anytime an enemy has little or no capability to strike back
Anytime the rest of the world doesn't give a R.A
need more?
The USA is no more a democracy than its voting citizens are birds: it's been a plutocracy since Day 1.
The voters had opportunities to terminate our two continuing wars in 2004 and 2008 (there were presidential candidates in both races who pledged to do so) and chose not to. Whether they had an opportunity in 2006 is less clear: many would claim that that's what they were voting for by turning both Houses of Congress over to the Democratic party, but those they elected obviously did not feel bound by any such 'mandate' (and in fact many of them did not explicitly campaign with that promise).
That American voters are uninformed, intellectually lazy, and sheep-like in their ability to be herded does not mean that they do not have a choice in these matters. While the national media certainly does not live up the the role which the Constitution envisioned for them when protecting them, it actually does leak sufficient information for people to be informed, even without the additional resources now available over the Internet.
“I, (AB), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”—Text of the oath of office for members of Congress
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence—Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution
The President and members of Congress have failed to live up to their oaths of office because there’s an invasion of the United States underway through the Southwestern border and nothing is being done to stop it.
Nowhere do I see we need to attack foreign countries.
That is, I think, the intention of the respective clause in the German constitution, and the point of the article.
I think you are right about Germans being fed up with war --- it helps to have had the cultural experience of major conflicts on your own soil, which lingers on even past the generation who experienced it first-hand. Let's hope that that is not the only way in which a culture can be pacified.
If we aren't there to get Bin Laden (and there's no evidence he's there), let's let the Afghans work out their internal politics on their own.
Didn't the lesson of Vietnam (don't get involved in a civil war) teach us anything?
Just because one side is better armed than the other doesn't mean it isn't a civil war.
Just look at our own Civil War. I'm fairly certain the North had the advantage in both the number & quality of their guns, and the number of troops it could field.
It was still a civil war.
Put yourself in their shoes!
Germany has had its trauma that forced it to reassess the role of war. Maybe the U.S. can have this discussion even though most casualties of its wars are foreign.
Germany is smart enough to remember that wars hurt people. Hooray for them for having the sanity to now question it.
In Germany everyone knows about the war on terror that is biggest lie in America now slowly they are coming to know. In US media news for americans are different and for Europe different that means that information for the public rare.
I hope one day america will be tired of war and the world can breath openly specially Muslims as to capture the resources all the wars are being carried out.
I guess the US is "war impoverished".
Just look at European public education, health care, mass transit, six weeks vacation and the environment.
Give me "peace fattening" any day!