To Guard an Era: American Purpose after Iraq

Mission

It should be the American purpose to serve as a guardian of the 21st century, protecting those who cherish and partake of its ways, opposing those who would destroy them, and doing everything in our power to aid those who want in. This will require a national commitment, a stern and reasoned national commitment, at least as steadfast as the Cold War consensus. But it will also require new ways of thinking. John Maynard Keynes once remarked that, in the end, even the most practical businessman is the slave of some defunct economist. For too long we have been the slaves of too many (living and dead) social scientists, pundits, and prognosticators, military and civilian. It's time to zero-base our thinking and, in accordance with the motto of a certain ersatz Australian steak house chain, adopt as our interim guide: "No Rules. Just Right."

First to go: the entire "world's only superpower" cant. Not only does it encourage hubris, it positively mandates irrelevance. Next on the list: the notion that balance of power must be essentially bipolar or, if you prefer, manic-depressive. We've entered an era, similar in some ways to Europe from Westphalia to Napoleon although far more complex, of fluid and shifting arrangements. We have a few friends. Beyond that, we have relationships of various degrees of permanence. Beyond that: hook-ups. Best we remember which is which. Also time to deep-six the whole "If you're not with us, you're against us" mentality. It sounds tough. But it's also worth remembering that the rest of the planet has concerns of its own, and sometimes even your friends wouldn't mind seeing you taken down a peg or two. In any case, a nation that grows ever more deeply indebted to the world, while willfully destroying its own economic capabilities, should not expect its "superpower" or any other status to last forever.

Finally, we need to rid ourselves, once and for all, of the belief that the planet's highest aspiration is, or should be, to be like us—along with the notion that we can force people to be free. As the story goes, a young psychoanalyst, ardent with his profession's redemptive possibilities, once sought out Sigmund Freud for advice. The master listened quietly, then replied, "Don't try to save people. They don't want to be saved." To be the guardian of an era is not to be its savior. Or, for that matter, its therapist, its cop, or its nanny.

The skyrocketing costs of ships and aircraft like the USS San Antonio (LPD-17) and the F/A-22 Raptor have led to the tag line: "Defenseless on a trillion dollars a year."

Concept

To guard this era requires, obviously, military, economic, and various forms of so-called "soft" power. It also requires clarity about their uses and their limits. Kennan understood that victory over the Soviet Union required containment until they changed from within, not an impossible military conquest. So it is today, when the enemies of this era are diffuse and, in their way, even less vulnerable to military conquest. Our fundamental strategy should be to minimize the need for major commitments of force by working through and with regional associations of nations, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and the myriad organizations of civil society. In practice, this means four things.

First, let regions take care of their own problems, including war and national break-ups, whenever possible. As for the United Nations: We should listen respectfully to any delegation whose members pay their parking tickets.

Second, help the Islamic and African worlds create the civil societies without which constitutions are mere machinery to be taken over and civil rights weapons in the hands of those who would destroy them. Civil society requires, above all else, citizens. To the Greeks, a citizen was a man who was empowered to participate in the public world by virtue of education, material sufficiency, and arms. We must reaffirm this "enabling civic triad"—adequate education, remunerative work, and the bearing of arms for all citizens, male and female.

Third, adopt humane and rational policies on everything from environmental protection to the strict regulation of child labor and the abolition of all forms of human trafficking. An old Rudy Vallee song holds that, "You're Going to Do It Someday So Why Not Do It Now?" Let's do it now.

Finally, remember the Politiques . These were the men who ended the French Wars of Religion by deciding that, whatever their beliefs, they weren't going to kill each other over them anymore. Today, the more Politiques , the better. Especially among the young.

All very fine. But what about the hard fact that this guardianship also entails, and in some ways requires, war?

The Military Dimension

It is not necessary, for this readership, to review the current condition of America's armed forces, save perhaps to note that we may well be approaching a situation described as "Defenseless on a Trillion Dollars a Year." At best, we're imploding: the Army, Marines, and National Guard because of Iraq, the Navy and Air Force because of the obscene cost of new ships and planes. To reverse this situation, it's vital to rediscover one great truth. America's military must be structured and used primarily for those things that only the military can do, most specifically, win wars decisively.

This means that our great comparative advantages, aerospace and naval power, must be maintained and enhanced, and that most of our land forces should remain oriented toward such eventualities. Counter-insurgency and operations other than war are best handled by the Marines, enhanced special operations forces, and (please pardon the non-PC allusion) modern variants of "colonial infantry" within the Army.

Which brings us to the fundamental question du jour: Should the United States be in the business of occupying other nations in order to redeem them?

Iraq

The Wars of Ideology were about how to organize polities and economies. Certainly, these still matter greatly. But the fundamental questions of the Wars of the Ways are more personal. What does it mean to be human? And what does it mean to be more fully human? These questions already dominate American and European politics. From issues such as abortion and euthanasia to whom we fight and how, from civil rights to human rights and the status of women and minorities to immigration policies, western civilization more and more holds that there are certain things you may not do to human beings because they are human, and there are certain things you must do to make them more fully human. The furor over Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo may be in some ways naive and in some ways hypocritical, but it is also an accurate reflection of the fundamental concern of this era. So the Wars of the Ways are not simply about the freedoms conferred by democracy and markets. They are about what we do with our freedom.

What have the people of Iraq done with their freedom?

The United States, historian Loren Baritz once wrote, "goes forth not to pillage but to instruct." Inevitably, we instruct according to our own sense of what matters, which is to say, what is comprehensible to us. In Iraq, we have emphasized elections, constitutions, national armies, and police forces. We have emphasized metrics, from insurgent body counts and police academy photo-op graduations to numbers of soccer balls and Frisbees passed out. We have proclaimed, indeed flaunted, our belief that Baghdad must become a democratic "city on a hill," and that the light of Iraqi freedom will somehow light the world. What we have not done, indeed have assiduously avoided, is testing the Iraqi commitment to freedom in the only way that such commitment can be tested.

The people of Iraq are armed, indeed, have greater de facto Second Amendment rights than we do. In that part of the world weapons are easier to come by than fast food calories in America. They have the means and the knowledge to root out the insurgents, effectively and with finality. But that would involve forming local militias, which are illegal and might well lead to civil war. According to public reports, some militias have formed; we just don't call them militias. Some have co-operated with American forces and done good work; we just don't call it outsourcing the struggle. But the vast majority of Iraqis have remained, at best, passive.

This could change, and there are certainly exceptions. But the preponderance of evidence indicates that, opinion polls and press releases and the last election notwithstanding, the Iraqi people—shall we speak plainly?—just don't care. They may want many things for themselves and for their country; they may have many reasons for what Erich Fromm once called "escape from freedom." But as our Founding Fathers well understood, any people that will not fight, as a people , for their freedom won't keep it.

I suggest here that it does not matter how long we stay, or how many insurgents we kill, or how many constitutions and elections we honcho. I suggest also that the time is coming when we should say to the people of Iraq:

"We liberated you from a hideous tyrant. We gave you years to think about what you wanted. We poured in billions of dollars to protect you, to help you rebuild. We sacrificed thousands of our finest young men and women, now dead, maimed, and hurting in body and spirit. We proclaimed you a lesson to the world. But now it is you who must teach that lesson. We've other work to attend to. Let's see what you do with your freedom. Your success may well inspire others. Your failure will teach lessons, too."

American Purpose after Iraq

It would be tragic were failure in Iraq to occasion a replay of 1970s-style cheap cynicism and willful disregard of peril. It would be no less tragic were eventual success, however modest, to delude us into believing that Iraq provides a template for future uses of American power. I opposed the Iraq war not because I considered the total threat so unimportant, but because I took it so seriously. I remain convinced that the best thing we can do now, as a guardian of the 21st century, is to turn our attention to the rest of the struggle.

George Kennan concluded his "X" article with a peroration thanking Providence for a challenge that required the intelligence, patience, and unity of the American people once again. Today, even the most non-PC among us might find such gratitude a bit of a stretch. So perhaps it would be best to end with a suggestion:

Perhaps, as we ponder what the Iraqi and other peoples of the world are doing with their freedom, we might also consider what we're doing with our own. Starting with our willingness as a people to defend it. Or our lack thereof.

Dr. Gold holds a Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University. He has spent 35 years in the national security field, first as a Marine officer, then as a defense analyst, university professor, journalist, and author. He has published five books and over 800 articles. This is adapted from his book in progress, To Guard an Era: American Purpose After Iraq.

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