On US over-stretch

When I blogged about the Ossetia crisis Sunday, I wrote that one thing it clearly showed was that “The ‘west’ is hopelessly over-stretched, what with all its current commitments of troops in Iraq, a crisis-ridden Afghanistan, and (still) in the Balkans…”
Today, McClatchy’s dogged reporter Jonathan Landay gives us more details of that over-stretch. (HT: Dan Froomkin.) Landay quoted one US official as saying that the US military authorities had not really understood the seriousness of the preparations the Russian military had recently made along the Georgian border– because US spy satellites and other means of technical espionage were “pretty well consumed by Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan.”
That, you could describe as logistical over-stretch. But there has also been political over-stretch. You’ll recall that back last year, shortly after the Bush administration announced that portions of its new “ballistic missile defense system” would be placed in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia announced that it would withdraw from the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE). Few people paid much heed at the time, or thought thaqt Moscow’s exit from that older treaty was very important. But one of the key provisions of the CFE Treaty was that signatories were committed to engaging in regular exchanges of information about troop movements and submitting to challenge inspections from other treaty participants.
Guess what. After Russia withdrew from the CFE, they no longer had to do that.
And guess what else. It truly seems that no-one in the Pentagon was on duty last week as Russia’s troop build-up gained momentum.
All that, despite Condi Rice’s long-vaunted reputation as a go-to “expert” on Russian military affairs…
Landay quoted the unnamed US official as saying,

    “I wouldn’t say we were blind… I would say that we mostly were focused elsewhere, unlike during the Cold War, when we’d see a single Soviet armor battalion move. So, yes, the size and scope of the Russian move has come as something of a surprise.”
    Now, the United States is left with few options for countering what it calls Russia’s “disproportionate” response to Georgia…

And that, mind you, despite the continued presence of presence of some 130 US military trainers in Georgia.
Ouch. Did anyone say “over-stretch”?
… So what does it all mean?
It means that this conceit that members of the US political elite of both parties have nearly all entertained for the past 15 years: that the dominance of the US military over just about the entire globe is really, kind of the natural order of things… and that yes, of course, our country has “vital” interests in very distant parts of the world that yes, of course, we need to be able to protect– on our own, if necessary… now, that entire conceit is no longer going to be sustainable.
We are, after all, less than five percent of humanity. Sure, there are still a few countries we can bludgeon in one way or another into supporting this or that military adventure. Like the way Tony Blair and Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili agreed– for their own reasons– to contribute their support and a limited amount of their own manpower to the US project in Iraq. Like the way that some (but not all) NATO countries got strong-armed into acting as if Afghanistan were really right their in their own “North Atlantic” backyard. But these contributions from the increasingly resentful allies never added up to anything that would solve either the intense manpower problems, or the intense legitimacy-deficit problems, or the horrendously mounting funding problems suffered by these imperial-style US projects in distant countries.
So we need a radically different model of how the world’s countries can act in response to the security challenges that just about all of our countries face.
As it happens, this model exists. It is one that the US itself created, back in 1945. It is one based on the unassailable foundations of a commitment to finding nonviolent ways to resolve thorny international conflicts, and a deep respect for the equality of all human persons and all nations. It’s called the United Nations.
It also happens that just last week I wrote a piece in the CSM arguing strongly that the US should seek UN leadership of the peace-restoration efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan…
Just imagine if, over the past seven years, the US government had put its energies into using, building up, and reforming the UN and its associated principles, instead of going full-bore for unabashedly US-led military action in Afghanistan and Iraq!
Imagine how much stronger the mechanisms of nonviolent conflict resolution available to the world’s leaders would be today.
Imagine how different the politics of Russia’s relations with its neighbors and with the world’s other big powers would be.
Imagine how different Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine, and that whole part of the world would look today.
Imagine the resources that, instead of being thrown into equipping very expensive, hi-tech military units and sending them halfway round the world to kill and die, could instead have been spent on rebuilding flourishing communities in Africa.
Imagine the lives that would have been spared. Imagine the families that would still be whole, instead of having to live with their current pain of bereavement or displacement…
Well, regarding the past seven years, we can only sit here and imagine that alternative universe.
But regarding the coming seven or 20 years, there are many things that we who are US citizens can and need to do, to turn our country away from the dead-end of unilateralism and militarism.
What’s happened this past week in Georgia has been a tragedy of serious proportions. But we also need to look at it as a lesson of what happens when one country, that represents only five percent of the world’s people, tries to run the whole world– and then finds itself hopelessly over-stretched.
There is a better way.
It’s called shared leadership, and the rebuilding of sturdy institutions of all-nation cooperation and action. Let’s pursue it.

14 thoughts on “On US over-stretch”

  1. Stay the course:
    – carbon and fission-based energy
    – faith-based public policy
    – privatized, competition-based economic relations
    – race and gender-based social relations
    – ethnic-based nation states
    – ever-multiplying population and weaponry
    – violence-based dispute resolution

  2. Helena,
    “The ‘west’ is hopelessly over-stretched,
    I thing this statement not quite reflect the facts about the west and its power.
    If we talking about US military stretch may be applicable so but combining US and its allied NATO and other 30 nations within Coalition of the Willing in my view this is not over-stretched problem as such.
    The war in 2003 when the liberation changed to occupation of state of Iraq with all the manipulations undervalues of the truths and realities severely damage US image all around the world. That made other nations evens those who are strong supporter for US reluctance to move fast enough for US call for to help or more engagement.
    This is really the issue here it’s more than “hopelessly over-stretched”.
    We can say US hopelessly failed to regain her image as trusted Partner with image of freedom and human right symbol.

  3. Yes, I wonder how much more serious this over extension can become?
    Just shooting from the hip (no pun intended about American strategies), I wonder if this shows that Russia views Georgia as being within its sphere of influence and wanted to demonstrate the limits of American power.
    I wonder if this shows what happens if a country becomes over dependent upon its military and either does not have the influence or political skills to influence international events? Have we become so dependent upon military adventures that the evolutionary process leaves international politics about as functional as some body part like our appendix.
    A couple of foreign media sources view the conflict between Russia and Georgia as an indirect or even close to a direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S. The U.S. had been involved with various oil interests and the foreign media says that Israel even had ambitions of building a pipeline through Georgia.
    In the end, Russia prevailed. Evidently, this shows that the U.S. has lost power.
    Without a doubt, politics would be better than the military flailing about aimlessly in Iraq and Afghanistan and not being able to influence events in Georgia. However, we have to search high and low before we can find anyone that really knows how to deal with the political structures—I emphasize the plural of “structures” —–in Afghanistan or Iraq. Various think tanks and government offices talk about “rule of law” or “institution building”, and even negotiations but they are also “shooting from the hip” because they too know very little about Afghan or Iraqi politics.
    The politics come first, then we can talk about building institutions that have the ability to negotiate.
    Of course, we can do it, but I guess we just choose not to make the effort.
    How about this? Let’s not even think or talk about over extending the military, but let’s debate about political and economic goals and how best to achieve those goals. If we do that, maybe some day the military will be the appendix.
    Bob Spencer

  4. Bob: your comments are good. You might enjoy the blog “fabiusmaximus.blogspot.com” He talks constantly about military overstretch. He’s a libertarian-type fan of 4GW (4th generation warfare) and a more humble foreign policy as the answer to our legitimate national needs.
    I argue with him, and Helena in this case, that there is no citizens movement, certainly no major political party, that can oppose the power of the Pentagon and its industrial allies, over Congress. Take a look at Chalmers Johnson’s last three books on this subject.

  5. Yes, the profiteers certainly are powerful. But, how come the Viet Cong was so much more powerful? Currently, why can’t the profiteers make worthwhile gains in Afghanistan?
    I sometimes wonder if sectors of the U.S. government and NGO’s could figure out ways to collaborate with well intentioned politicians and other leaders in conflict areas. Whoever can organize the broadest political base will prevail in a developing political system. If low cost efforts at collaborating with the right people became a vigorous strategy, then the military industrial complex would be irrelevant just as it was in Viet Nam and now in Afghanistan.
    If you think this might be idealistic pie in the sky, I remember Bill Colby, the former CIA Director, fussing about the U.S. always choosing the wrong people to support. Life would probably be much better if we support the right people and help them do their thing. Bucking the system in these countries and doing this sort of thing really isn’t that difficult.
    Bob Spencer

  6. Yes, the profiteers certainly are powerful. But, how come the Viet Cong was so much more powerful? Currently, why can’t the profiteers make worthwhile gains in Afghanistan?
    I sometimes wonder if sectors of the U.S. government and NGO’s could figure out ways to collaborate with well intentioned politicians and other leaders in conflict areas. Whoever can organize the broadest political base will prevail in a developing political system. If low cost efforts at collaborating with the right people became a vigorous strategy, then the military industrial complex would be irrelevant just as it was in Viet Nam and now in Afghanistan.
    If you think this might be idealistic pie in the sky, I remember Bill Colby, the former CIA Director, fussing about the U.S. always choosing the wrong people to support. Life would probably be much better if we support the right people and help them do their thing. Bucking the system in these countries and doing this sort of thing really isn’t that difficult.
    Bob Spencer

  9. From Juan Cole:
    McCain Strategist Lobbyist for Georgia;
    Scheer: Did He Stage Provocation?
    McCain’s campaign strategist Randy Scheunemann was a lobbyist for Georgia until recently, and remained part of Orion Strategies until May 15. OS had signed a $2 mn. deal to provide “strategic advice” to the Georgian government.
    Update: Bob Scheer entertains dark suspicions that Scheunemann, a leader of the Neoconservative Project for theNew American Century, put Saakashvili up to provoking Russia in hopes of providing the Republican Party with a foreign policy crisis to run on.

  10. They have bloody well succeeded in upsetting the applecart.
    The Crimea and the Fleet base in Sevastopol is another hot spot.
    In a sign of heightened regional tensions, Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukranian President, signed a decree tightening restrictions on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.
    The decree bars Russian ships from returning to their base in the Ukrainian Crimea without permission from Kiev requested ten days in advance. A Russian naval squadron has been deployed to Georgia’s Black Sea coast as part of the military action against Georgia.

  11. Over-stretch, as you describe it, Helena, could be described as a typical product of those regimes who go for military solutions to foreign policy problems. There will always be another war to fight. So you are bound to end up fighting wars on all fronts, and this seems to be what is happening to the US. I still regard it as a really brilliant achievement on the part of the Bush regime (irony) to have led the US from a position of complete world domination, to being bogged down in two Middle Eastern wars, and to be on the point of relighting the Cold War.
    As for the historical examples, we don’t need to cite Nazi Germany, who declared war on everyone in sight, and certainly suffered from over-stretch. Or Imperial Japan. Napoleon did the same. Of course, in those cases, an opposing coalition was able to form, and finally defeat them.
    That will not happen today. So the end must be exhaustion, financial exhaustion. The new presidential candidates have committed themselves to going on. But the economic effects are already influencing the politics.
    I’ve been very struck by the way the oil price has declined since the US stopped being bellicose against Iran, and sent Burns to take part in the negotiations with Iran in Geneva, even if nothing happened. The lesson will not have been lost on the White House. It is that lesson, in my view, which has put a final end to the prospects of a US attack on Iran, or to the possibility of US approval of an attack by Israel (who are not affected by economic concerns), in as far as an Israeli attack implies the US joining in.

  12. I’ve been very struck by the way the oil price has declined
    The more struck thing here is usually we witnessed the prices of oil jumping for very funny reasons, what I mean by funny is the claims like the threats by Militant attacks on oil installations in Nigeria (Nigeria’s Oil Production Drops Below 1 Million …) so with war in Georgia and most media consternating on the importance of oil/Pipelines of the area we have seeing no affect so whatever on oil prices in fact there is drop five days ago about 5USD/B in the market.
    This tells what hidden agenda those who push oil prices and who benefits form this hidden oil war.
    All those strikes on civilian apartment buildings and other non-military targets? Some may be intentional (the Russians aren’t above terror-bombing), but most are just the result of ill-trained pilots flying scared.
    They’re missing pipelines, rail lines and oil-storage facilities – just dumping their bombs as quickly as they can and heading home.

  13. American-Educated Overstated Pronouncements Department
    Georgian president’s Russia claims raise eyebrows
    Tbilisi, Georgia (AP) — It was a claim that could have provoked a dangerous Kremlin response: the United States is readying to take over airports and ports in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The claim, by U.S.-backed Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili on Wednesday was swiftly shot down by officials in Washington, who denied any such designs on Georgian soil. Yet, it was the latest in a string of OVERSTATED PRONOUNCEMENTS by the AMERICAN-EDUCATED Georgian Leader that are further fueling tensions with Moscow. His comments — along with a stream of biased, conflicting and often false information coming from both Russian and Georgian officials — have made it hard to figure out what is really happening in the world’s latest hotspot. (…) Saakashvili … graduated from COLUMBIA University Law School, ….
    Ah so, Columbia! John Dewey and progressive pædagogy [*] have much to answer for . . . .
    Happy days.
    ___
    [*]
    Public school teachers have been trained to cherish the little “Émile moments” of a child’s self-discovery. Therefore, all these unstructured fluff activities lack direction and discipline. They are little more than playtime with crafts and self-entertaining individual or group amusements.

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