How the West was lost (and how to get it back)

Despite its current economic woes America is still by far the most powerful country in the World.

For all its inability to control public spending, the US economy is still five times larger than its nearest rival (China). The US military machine is much, much, larger than any other. US defence spending is five times more than its nearest rival (also China).

And yet America’s military expeditions in foreign lands since WW2 have all been notable by their failure. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, none of these have been indisputable American victories. Only Vietnam was an outright defeat, but Korea was at best, a draw and Iraq and Afghanistan have been tactical victories, but strategic defeats. But why?

Well, in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, the military campaign was swift efficient and effective. It has failed to meet its objectives because its objectives were political and hopelessly naive. They were, to create modern liberal democracies in medieval countries.

I have met many educated, intelligent and sophisticated Americans. But there is a thread of naivety in the national psyche, especially about foreign affairs. It is often about a simplistic desire to ‘do good’ as they see it. They are not so naive as to be unprepared to do bad things to achieve that end, but the end will usually be relatively moral.

As the most powerful nation on Earth they wish to project their power. Their wish to do good may be a little naive to older nations' cynical eyes, but who can doubt it is better than, say the USSR which wished to impose a horrible single party tyranny on the world. And therein lays the US problem.  Everybody does not share the same view of good.  For example, the medieval Islamic nations adore their chains. Indeed they think the world would be happier if it shared them.  Obviously, not all Muslims think this way. But the Islamic parties hold a majority of the seats in the newly formed Egyptian post revolutionary parliament. And there are very powerful Islamic factions in post revolutionary Libya.

The US wishes, legitimately in my view, to project its power. But it does not want an old style Empire. This more novel than it might appear. All old style world powers did seek to create empires, and they always have, since antiquity. So the US is creating a new model for world domination – and it’s not working very well. So we return to the question – why?

Because the are trying to do good in a world that is unready for that type of morality.

In Korea and Vietnam they were trying to protect those nations from communism. And having seen how well communism worked for the people of the USSR, Cambodia, Cuba and (since then) North Korea, who can doubt that was a noble aim. But they were reluctant to unleash the full horror of their war machine on their enemies, so they lost.

In Iraq and Afghanistan they learned that lesson, and the US military juggernaut soon crushed the opposing forces. But, then came the strategic mistake and the reason why those missions will end in failure. They stayed. 

Exactly why they invaded Iraq is a complete mystery to me. Al Qaeda was not a significant presence in that country, and the classic conspiracy story about oil, does not stand up. The West could have had as much Iraqi oil as it wanted, and at a much lower price in lives and treasure. Afghanistan was much clearer cut. The Taliban, hand in hand with Al Qaeda launched a murderous attack on the USA, killed three thousand innocent civilians and injured another six thousand. If you attack the most powerful nation on Earth, there will be a price to pay, and it will be very expensive. So a punitive mission was inevitable. But. . .

For the US a simple revenge attack was not enough. There had to be a moral justification, and that moral justification was the transformation of both Iraqi and Afghan society into Liberal democracies.

Although as a fairy tale, Hollywood, ending that would have been nice, it was a terrible strategic error. The Allied lives wasted and the fortune spent on this lost cause is tragic beyond words. And not just Allied lives. The price paid by the Iraqi and Afghan people has been dreadful.  Civilian deaths since the wars were ‘won’ are estimated at around fifty thousand Afghanis and over one hundred thousand Iraqis. It's probably many more. Their societies have been transformed – they are much, much, more dangerous.

America wants to project its power across the world; it wants to remove oppressive regimes, a noble aim. But Afghanistan and Iraq are decidedly not the models for doing it. America is good at assault and can win. It is passing bad at occupation, and will lose.

So my proposal for a New Model Empire is: America should stick to what it is good at. It can easily and relatively cheaply use military power to remove regimes it is not content with. Having completed that exercise, they should leave. Let the locals sort out their own salvation, or otherwise. Thus America (and its Free World allies) can achieve their aims of world leadership, remove despicable regimes and move towards a world of free liberal democracies. That move will be slow, it was slow in all old world free democracies. But by making life very uncomfortable for regimes that are not democratic, the process will be hastened. And while some human suffering will actually be created by this policy far more be relieved.    

The arguments usually ranged against this are:

1. The same, or very similar, villains would soon re-establish themselves. 

Quite possibly. But a second or even third operation to remove them would be cheaper and more effective than a ten year war of attrition. Even the most primitive of tyrants would soon realise it was a rather short term career option. A relatively few high profile executions of their predecessors would soon persuade leaderships that compliance with a few Western ideals was an acceptable idea.   

 2. Chaos would ensue.

Maybe it would, but would it be worse than the chaos we cause by staying? And local chaos is more acceptable to populations than chaos imposed by uninvited foreigners.

Civilised societies, where the rule of law runs, human rights are respected and democracy is true are rare. They are virtually unknown outside North America, Western Europe and Australasia. That is a very precious thing, worth protecting and expanding. In our world, that means fighting. The only debate is how we conduct that fight.