Energion Roundtable Week 4 Responses – The Military 2
In the ongoing discussion stemming from the week 4’s Energion Roundtable question, Arthur Sido, wrote a long response to my comments on the military. As we are already posting on week five, I will just address a couple of his question/responses to clarify my position.
Sido asked, “Are the Armed Forces of the United States designed to be a force to project American will around the world or as a primarily defensive force that is intended to counter direct threats to our sovereignty?”
While I believe Sido intended this question to contrast our positions, the problem is that I, like Sido, would argue the latter. I suspect that the main difference is not in the question above but the underlying assumption behind it. We have a technologically advance economy that depends on international trade and alliances. To take just one example, we do have a direct interest in ensuring in freedom of navigation in places like the Straits of Hormuz and the South China Sea.
One could argue that it should not be this way and we should, for example, be moving to develop our own domestic energy sources, something I would agree with. But wishing the current situation was different does not change it. Nor do I think it is even desirable in all areas and even if it were desirable I do not think it is practical.
Sido’s analysis of potential threats is a mixture of ridicule, diminishment, and blaming the US. It is also combined with a moral equivalence that I firmly reject. This is not to say, “that our motivations are pure.” At least not always. But I believe that in the history of the world the United States has held a pretty unique place. After all, it is pretty hard to find a valid selfish reason for the US to have intervened in Korea and to have kept troops there all these years. But the contrast between North and South Korea makes for a pretty good moral case.
Sido confidently claims “None of the Middle East regimes is going to invade or directly attack America.” I wish I could believe that. In one of his more disturbing sentences Sido writes, “Certainly Iran is working toward nuclear weapons, the same nuclear weapons that we have had for decades and have used on civilian populations in the past.”
He is quite correct. We did drop two atomic bombs on Japan, an action that ended a war and saved literally millions of lives. The problem is that there is little if any moral equivalence between America and the Iranian governments. Iran is a state that actively sponsors terrorism around the world. More importantly, I believe that if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, they will use it, and have said as much repeatedly. So while we used atomic weapons to end a war, they will, I believe, use them to start a war, and I do not see these as morally equivalent.
Sido claims my argument is “difficult” because “When you examine the rhetoric that surrounds even the faintest suggestion of reducing military spending and indeed suggestions that we increase military spending, the “enthusiastic embrace of unlimited military spending” seems to be appropriate.”
I do not see what is so difficult. For example, the Navy says that we need at least 300 ships to meet the defense needs of the US. A bipartisan review in 2011 said that we needed 346 ships. Yet since 9/11 we have dropped from 316 down to 282 and look headed to 250. As Robert Kaplan put it, “There is a big difference between a 346-ship US navy and a 250-ship navy – the difference between one kind of world order and another.” The difference he lays out is not an encouraging one. But regardless, asking for a 300-340 ship Navy is not asking for “unlimited military spending.”
Finally Sido is at least partially correct when he claims that “our armed forces are rarely used to ‘defend’ America.” While I would argue that our defense concerns are much broader that those accepted by Sido, I would agree that our actions have rarely been solely defensive. Many of the wars we have fought, from Korea and Vietnam, up to the current wars have, at least to some degree, been to resist evil, and this does set America apart.
Most world powers could be classified as evil or indifferent to interests beyond their own. America has been one of the few powers in history to have fought for the freedom of others. As I Christian, I do not believe that my responsibilities and concern for others in need stops at the border and that we do have a responsibility to resist evil in the world to the extent that we can. On the other hand, I do not believe we can be the policeman of the world. Between these two views are very difficult decision with a number of complex considerations and a full examination of these issues goes far beyond the scope of this discussion. Let me just say that to characterize this as “enthusiastic support for wars of aggression” is a gross mischaracterization at best, yet another in a long line of straw men.
