Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War
Introduction
In his new book, Washington Rules, Professor Andrew J. Bacevich argues that this is the moment, when America’s power is failing, to take a radically different approach to our national security policy. Otherwise, he says, we face war without end--and bankruptcy, both financial and moral. Reject militarism, he argues, and fix Detroit and Cleveland instead of Afghanistan and Iraq. He offers, finally, a new set of Washington Rules.
What are the Washington Rules?
The Washington Rules describe the national security consensus to which policymakers have subscribed ever since the beginning of the Cold War. That consensus consists of two complementary elements.
The American Credo defines purpose; the Sacred Trinity defines practice.
The Credo summons the United States – and the United States alone – to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.
According to the Sacred Trinity, the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States – and the United States alone –
to maintain a global military presence,
to configure its forces for global power projection, and
to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism.
How does adherence to the Washington Rules harm us?
The rules don’t work; indeed, blind adherence to the Washington Rules is proving to be counterproductive – something that event have made increasingly evident since 9/11.
Promising Americans safety and security, the Washington Rules have produced something akin to permanent war.
Promising to preserve the American way of life, the Washington Rules have set the United States on a course toward bankruptcy, both financial and moral.
How can we change them?
We need to recognize that Washington itself won’t bring change. Washington is deeply invested in the status quo, which benefits Washington even if it doesn’t serve the interests of the people. So the force for change is going to have to come from below. Not to be corny about it, but from the people.
You say that the citizens of the US have forfeited any capacity to ask first-order questions about the fundamentals of our national security policy. How can we begin to ask those questions without seeming like nonconformists, oddballs or, worst of all, subversives?
In many other realms of life, Americans view nonconformity and even subversion as not only permissible but even admirable. What would art be like of all artists conformed to a fixed set of values? Americans need to welcome heretical or unorthodox thinking into the realm of national security policy as well.
You quote a telegram from General Maxwell D. Taylor concerning his assessment of the bleak and deteriorating situation in Vietnam in January 1966. That same telegram could be written about the situation in either Iraq or Afghanistan today. Can you comment on the truism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it?
It’s an oversimplification, but not without truth.
You say that the phrase “global war on terrorism” has become an epithet redolent of deception, stupidity and monumental waste. Can you comment?
"Terrorism” is a tactic. To say that we are at war with terror both obscures and overinflates the problem we actually face. It provides militarists with a blank check.
You say that the “global war on terrorism” has become the “Long War”—i.e., war without end. Isn’t that like the state of permanent war in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four? How frightening is that?
Americans should find it very frightening indeed. Unfortunately, too many of us have come to accept war as a normal condition. We do that because most of us are insulated from the immediate effects of war. The burden of service and sacrifice are loaded on the shoulders of a few while the rest of us carry on as if there were no war.
You say that since 2006, we have been fighting in Iraq to create conditions that let us leave without acknowledging defeat. During the Vietnam years, Senator George Aiken, Republican of Vermont, had a suggestion: Let’s just say we won, and get out. Could we do that now?
We are doing that now. President Obama is attempting to get out of Iraq while suggesting that the outcome is somehow positive. Both parties are committed to forgetting Iraq as quickly as possible. There will be no serious accounting because Washington is opposed to such an accounting.
You quote President Eisenhower on the dangers of excessive military buildup: “Every gun that is made…[is] a theft from those who hunger and are not fed….” He also warned us about the dangers of the military industrial complex. Is it too late to pay attention to his warnings?
It’s never too late.
You say that if the ruinous Washington Rules persist, we have no one but ourselves to blame. Isn’t that a bit harsh on a population that has been brainwashed, badly educated, and now economically oppressed for decades?
Either this is a democracy or it isn’t. If it is, then we cannot absolve the people of responsibility for things done in their name.