Sunday Dialogue: How We Decide When to Go to War
March 31, 2012
NYT
Readers debate how recent military interventions abroad have swayed public sentiment.
The Letter
To the Editor:
In “Falling In and Out of War” (column, March 19), Bill Keller laudably seeks to pin down the “right questions” a president should ask before deciding on war. He comes up with no fewer than five, each with multiple caveats.
In fact, America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risks of overseas military entanglements.
America’s involvement in foreign wars has typically corresponded with stark public perceptions of threat — German submarine warfare brought the United States into World War I; Pearl Harbor did the same in World War II; North Korea’s invasion of South Korea legitimized cold-war containment.
When threats seem diminished, Americans renew their age-old demand for limits in foreign policy. America’s failed humanitarian experiment in Somalia elicited loud calls to disengage from the world in the 1990s.
The 9/11 attacks renewed America’s militarism in foreign affairs. But now, after a decade of enormous costs in blood and treasure, and visible successes against Al Qaeda, the nation is again insisting on a more modest global role.
While there may be the occasional limited humanitarian action (as in Libya), it will be difficult to win public support even for military endeavors linked to tangible security interests.
As Mr. Keller points out, global dangers are swirling — from Iran’s nuclear program, to emboldened affiliates of Al Qaeda, to a rising, more assertive China.
The risk is that America will default back into a 1930s or 1990s complacency, only to be forced back into the world at a time, place and manner not of its own choosing.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 26, 2012
The writer, a former Senate foreign policy adviser and speechwriter, teaches international affairs and public policy at Columbia University.
Readers React
As Mr. Gottlieb notes, there is a real danger that the pendulum representing America’s global involvement could swing back to 1930s isolation or 1990s complacency. Such are the consequences of our ill-conceived military campaign and occupation of Iraq and the overextended occupation of Afghanistan.
Foreign engagement must always be related to our national security interests, with military action reserved for those occasions when diplomacy has failed and the threat leaves us with no choice. Our failure, after the 9/11 attacks, to bring a disciplined approach to our response to stateless terrorism as personified by Al Qaeda cost us dearly in lives lost and permanently damaged, as well as treasure. Without a doubt, it weakened our financial capacity and the willingness of the American people to respond to international entanglements.
But there is no way to rewrite our lost decade. We can only hope to recognize our mistakes and trust that our government will call for national sacrifice when, and only when, the circumstances require it, and when, and only when, we are responding to real threats and not, as was true with Iraq, for the sake of flexing our military might against imagined enemies.
JAY N. FELDMAN
Port Washington, N.Y., March 28, 2012
While Mr. Keller and Mr. Gottlieb have started a welcome dialogue, they both make the dire mistake of overemphasizing the military’s role in national security. The United States and other great powers face existential threats to basic security that military commitments do almost nothing to combat. They include a changing global climate that is already producing extreme disruptions to the climate norms that have allowed humans to flourish with reliable food and water.
Two decades after the cold war ended, we have also failed to secure the greatest weaponized threat to civilization: the enormous and costly stockpiles of nuclear weapons and explosive material.
If New York City is struck by nuclear terror or submerged by rising seas, Americans will rightly ask: Where were the leadership and investment in long-term security when the United States was busy fighting wars of choice and drilling for more climate-altering fossil fuels?
LUKAS HAYNES
New York, March 28, 2012
The writer, a former State Department speechwriter, is an adviser to the Center for Climate and Security.
John Quincy Adams was right in 1821 when he said of America: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” And he is still right today.
It is long past time that we paid attention to our own defense and ceased playing at world policeman and behavior dictator. We have saved Kuwait and freed Iraq, neither of which benefited us one bit. What should have been a quick and limited cleansing of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan became an overlong, costly and muddled mixture of revenge and a failed attempt to nation build. Iran threatens us not a bit. Let it and Israel work out their problems.
Drawing back into self-defense and self-interest need not mean a regression to helplessness.
We must stop inventing monsters to destroy and settle back down to being an America that speaks softly and carries a really big stick only in defense of its own territory and vital interests. Mr. Keller provided a very good outline for doing just that. Mr. Gottlieb would rather continue to create nonexistent monsters for future destruction by dwelling on false historical comparisons and predictions.
BILL BARRY
Huntsville, Ala., March 28, 2012
In this age of expanded presidential powers, a factor that often goes overlooked is our constitutionally mandated process for making decisions about war. Article I of our Constitution is clear: Congress “shall have the power ... to declare war.”
The founders understood the implications of such a decision and sought to decentralize it and tie the process to the will of the people as expressed through their representatives.
It seems that the only way Mr. Keller’s five questions on whether to go to war can be answered is through the process of Congressional debate. We saw the failure of that process with President Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam and President George W. Bush in Iraq. In the former, Congress was simply lied to, and in the latter, a military timetable for invasion was established by the president and Congress was bullied into meeting it. Both proceeded to entangle our nation in lengthy wars based on Congressional resolutions that fell short of a full declaration of war while having the same dire implications. We deserve better than that.
As our conflicts with Iran continue to fester, Congress must uphold its constitutional mandate to defend the country and take the nation to war only after full and open debate. All members of Congress must be prepared to be accountable to their constituents and to the country as a whole for their vote on a declaration of war.
VICTOR M. GOODE
Flushing, Queens, March 28, 2012
The writer is an associate professor at City University School of Law.
What Mr. Gottlieb omits in his letter is that the “fear” he associates with the public’s willingness to support military intervention is largely manufactured. In many of America’s military interventions since the Spanish-American War, elites have fanned, manufactured and exploited public fears to shore up support for interventions that are utterly unrelated to any national security interests but have everything to do with American corporate interests.
Indeed, the foreign policy makers are very often once and future officers of the very corporate interests that the military is deployed to protect. Confusing economic interests with national security interests is nothing new, but as long as corporate interests dominate the policy-making apparatus, we will witness the discovery of endless enemies in need of policing.
DANA WARD
Claremont, Calif., March 28, 2012
The writer is a professor of political studies at Pitzer College.
Every few years, the American foreign policy establishment solemnly warns of the return of isolationism. Although public opinion polls have certainly shown that the American public is weary after a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, the specter of American disengagement from the world remains severely overstated.
Since the American National Election Studies first asked Americans in 1956 whether they thought the country would be better off if it didn’t concern itself with problems in other parts of the world, isolationists have always been outnumbered by at least 2 to 1, and among Americans with at least a high school diploma, the gap is even starker, with isolationists being outnumbered on average by 4 to 1.
To be sure, when economic conditions sour, or when foreign policy misadventures mount, public support for an outward-looking foreign policy dips, but the public’s foreign policy mood has been remarkably stable.
Indeed, my own research done with colleagues has found that isolationism is still very much a dirty word in American politics. When we present Americans with their scores from the standard questions political scientists use to measure foreign policy attitudes, many of our isolationists dispute the results, taking pains to protest that they are, as one participant put it, “in no way, shape or form an isolationist.”
JOSHUA KERTZER
Columbus, Ohio, March 28, 2012
The writer is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Ohio State University.
Mr. Gottlieb writes, “America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risk of overseas military entanglements.” I submit it is time for a different calculation.
As Leo Tolstoy made clear in “War and Peace,” wars invariably lead to unintended consequences. United States forces ousted Saddam Hussein only to leave behind an autocratic ruler and a society fractured by religious and ethnic violence. In Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s dictatorship has been replaced by continuing tribal rivalries and revenge killings. We rid Afghanistan of Al Qaeda but it is flourishing elsewhere, and the Afghan people show increasing anger at our presence. Meanwhile the number of dead, injured and displaced people resulting from our military interventions can hardly be estimated.
It is time to ask whether any objective is worth the enormous human suffering that modern warfare involves and to seek a more rational method of dealing with our adversaries before it is too late.
RACHELLE MARSHALL
Mill Valley, Calif., March 28, 2012
The Writer Responds
I would like to thank the responders for their engaging insights. The letters may be placed into two categories: those that expect too much of America’s foreign policy decision-making system, and those that expect too little of America’s role in the world.
In the first category, Mr. Feldman and Mr. Goode assert that smarter foreign policy can be found through improved policy making — presidential deference to Congress; acting “when, and only when,” certain metrics are met; and so on.
This all sounds reasonable in the calm light of day, but in moments of strategic uncertainty decision making becomes far less cohesive, and presidential power (for better or worse) assumes the mantle of leadership.
On the broader question of America’s global role, Mr. Haynes accurately points out that nonmilitary initiatives are sorely needed. But threats do exist, such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, that cannot be solved by soft power alone.
Lastly, Mr. Barry’s invocation of John Quincy Adams is most welcome, as he is the standard-bearer of America’s prudent unilateralism. But do his words hold true as much today, in an age of American global power, as they did in 1821?
Winston Churchill cautioned, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” And for more than a century, each of America’s attempts to return to a more modest role in the world has been interrupted by gathering global dangers.
It is precisely the tension between the embedded wisdom of John Quincy Adams and the practical realities of global leadership that makes America’s role in the world so unique — troubling, inconsistent and invaluable.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 30, 2012
NYT
Readers debate how recent military interventions abroad have swayed public sentiment.
The Letter
To the Editor:
In “Falling In and Out of War” (column, March 19), Bill Keller laudably seeks to pin down the “right questions” a president should ask before deciding on war. He comes up with no fewer than five, each with multiple caveats.
In fact, America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risks of overseas military entanglements.
America’s involvement in foreign wars has typically corresponded with stark public perceptions of threat — German submarine warfare brought the United States into World War I; Pearl Harbor did the same in World War II; North Korea’s invasion of South Korea legitimized cold-war containment.
When threats seem diminished, Americans renew their age-old demand for limits in foreign policy. America’s failed humanitarian experiment in Somalia elicited loud calls to disengage from the world in the 1990s.
The 9/11 attacks renewed America’s militarism in foreign affairs. But now, after a decade of enormous costs in blood and treasure, and visible successes against Al Qaeda, the nation is again insisting on a more modest global role.
While there may be the occasional limited humanitarian action (as in Libya), it will be difficult to win public support even for military endeavors linked to tangible security interests.
As Mr. Keller points out, global dangers are swirling — from Iran’s nuclear program, to emboldened affiliates of Al Qaeda, to a rising, more assertive China.
The risk is that America will default back into a 1930s or 1990s complacency, only to be forced back into the world at a time, place and manner not of its own choosing.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 26, 2012
The writer, a former Senate foreign policy adviser and speechwriter, teaches international affairs and public policy at Columbia University.
Readers React
As Mr. Gottlieb notes, there is a real danger that the pendulum representing America’s global involvement could swing back to 1930s isolation or 1990s complacency. Such are the consequences of our ill-conceived military campaign and occupation of Iraq and the overextended occupation of Afghanistan.
Foreign engagement must always be related to our national security interests, with military action reserved for those occasions when diplomacy has failed and the threat leaves us with no choice. Our failure, after the 9/11 attacks, to bring a disciplined approach to our response to stateless terrorism as personified by Al Qaeda cost us dearly in lives lost and permanently damaged, as well as treasure. Without a doubt, it weakened our financial capacity and the willingness of the American people to respond to international entanglements.
But there is no way to rewrite our lost decade. We can only hope to recognize our mistakes and trust that our government will call for national sacrifice when, and only when, the circumstances require it, and when, and only when, we are responding to real threats and not, as was true with Iraq, for the sake of flexing our military might against imagined enemies.
JAY N. FELDMAN
Port Washington, N.Y., March 28, 2012
While Mr. Keller and Mr. Gottlieb have started a welcome dialogue, they both make the dire mistake of overemphasizing the military’s role in national security. The United States and other great powers face existential threats to basic security that military commitments do almost nothing to combat. They include a changing global climate that is already producing extreme disruptions to the climate norms that have allowed humans to flourish with reliable food and water.
Two decades after the cold war ended, we have also failed to secure the greatest weaponized threat to civilization: the enormous and costly stockpiles of nuclear weapons and explosive material.
If New York City is struck by nuclear terror or submerged by rising seas, Americans will rightly ask: Where were the leadership and investment in long-term security when the United States was busy fighting wars of choice and drilling for more climate-altering fossil fuels?
LUKAS HAYNES
New York, March 28, 2012
The writer, a former State Department speechwriter, is an adviser to the Center for Climate and Security.
John Quincy Adams was right in 1821 when he said of America: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” And he is still right today.
It is long past time that we paid attention to our own defense and ceased playing at world policeman and behavior dictator. We have saved Kuwait and freed Iraq, neither of which benefited us one bit. What should have been a quick and limited cleansing of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan became an overlong, costly and muddled mixture of revenge and a failed attempt to nation build. Iran threatens us not a bit. Let it and Israel work out their problems.
Drawing back into self-defense and self-interest need not mean a regression to helplessness.
We must stop inventing monsters to destroy and settle back down to being an America that speaks softly and carries a really big stick only in defense of its own territory and vital interests. Mr. Keller provided a very good outline for doing just that. Mr. Gottlieb would rather continue to create nonexistent monsters for future destruction by dwelling on false historical comparisons and predictions.
BILL BARRY
Huntsville, Ala., March 28, 2012
In this age of expanded presidential powers, a factor that often goes overlooked is our constitutionally mandated process for making decisions about war. Article I of our Constitution is clear: Congress “shall have the power ... to declare war.”
The founders understood the implications of such a decision and sought to decentralize it and tie the process to the will of the people as expressed through their representatives.
It seems that the only way Mr. Keller’s five questions on whether to go to war can be answered is through the process of Congressional debate. We saw the failure of that process with President Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam and President George W. Bush in Iraq. In the former, Congress was simply lied to, and in the latter, a military timetable for invasion was established by the president and Congress was bullied into meeting it. Both proceeded to entangle our nation in lengthy wars based on Congressional resolutions that fell short of a full declaration of war while having the same dire implications. We deserve better than that.
As our conflicts with Iran continue to fester, Congress must uphold its constitutional mandate to defend the country and take the nation to war only after full and open debate. All members of Congress must be prepared to be accountable to their constituents and to the country as a whole for their vote on a declaration of war.
VICTOR M. GOODE
Flushing, Queens, March 28, 2012
The writer is an associate professor at City University School of Law.
What Mr. Gottlieb omits in his letter is that the “fear” he associates with the public’s willingness to support military intervention is largely manufactured. In many of America’s military interventions since the Spanish-American War, elites have fanned, manufactured and exploited public fears to shore up support for interventions that are utterly unrelated to any national security interests but have everything to do with American corporate interests.
Indeed, the foreign policy makers are very often once and future officers of the very corporate interests that the military is deployed to protect. Confusing economic interests with national security interests is nothing new, but as long as corporate interests dominate the policy-making apparatus, we will witness the discovery of endless enemies in need of policing.
DANA WARD
Claremont, Calif., March 28, 2012
The writer is a professor of political studies at Pitzer College.
Every few years, the American foreign policy establishment solemnly warns of the return of isolationism. Although public opinion polls have certainly shown that the American public is weary after a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, the specter of American disengagement from the world remains severely overstated.
Since the American National Election Studies first asked Americans in 1956 whether they thought the country would be better off if it didn’t concern itself with problems in other parts of the world, isolationists have always been outnumbered by at least 2 to 1, and among Americans with at least a high school diploma, the gap is even starker, with isolationists being outnumbered on average by 4 to 1.
To be sure, when economic conditions sour, or when foreign policy misadventures mount, public support for an outward-looking foreign policy dips, but the public’s foreign policy mood has been remarkably stable.
Indeed, my own research done with colleagues has found that isolationism is still very much a dirty word in American politics. When we present Americans with their scores from the standard questions political scientists use to measure foreign policy attitudes, many of our isolationists dispute the results, taking pains to protest that they are, as one participant put it, “in no way, shape or form an isolationist.”
JOSHUA KERTZER
Columbus, Ohio, March 28, 2012
The writer is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Ohio State University.
Mr. Gottlieb writes, “America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risk of overseas military entanglements.” I submit it is time for a different calculation.
As Leo Tolstoy made clear in “War and Peace,” wars invariably lead to unintended consequences. United States forces ousted Saddam Hussein only to leave behind an autocratic ruler and a society fractured by religious and ethnic violence. In Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s dictatorship has been replaced by continuing tribal rivalries and revenge killings. We rid Afghanistan of Al Qaeda but it is flourishing elsewhere, and the Afghan people show increasing anger at our presence. Meanwhile the number of dead, injured and displaced people resulting from our military interventions can hardly be estimated.
It is time to ask whether any objective is worth the enormous human suffering that modern warfare involves and to seek a more rational method of dealing with our adversaries before it is too late.
RACHELLE MARSHALL
Mill Valley, Calif., March 28, 2012
The Writer Responds
I would like to thank the responders for their engaging insights. The letters may be placed into two categories: those that expect too much of America’s foreign policy decision-making system, and those that expect too little of America’s role in the world.
In the first category, Mr. Feldman and Mr. Goode assert that smarter foreign policy can be found through improved policy making — presidential deference to Congress; acting “when, and only when,” certain metrics are met; and so on.
This all sounds reasonable in the calm light of day, but in moments of strategic uncertainty decision making becomes far less cohesive, and presidential power (for better or worse) assumes the mantle of leadership.
On the broader question of America’s global role, Mr. Haynes accurately points out that nonmilitary initiatives are sorely needed. But threats do exist, such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, that cannot be solved by soft power alone.
Lastly, Mr. Barry’s invocation of John Quincy Adams is most welcome, as he is the standard-bearer of America’s prudent unilateralism. But do his words hold true as much today, in an age of American global power, as they did in 1821?
Winston Churchill cautioned, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” And for more than a century, each of America’s attempts to return to a more modest role in the world has been interrupted by gathering global dangers.
It is precisely the tension between the embedded wisdom of John Quincy Adams and the practical realities of global leadership that makes America’s role in the world so unique — troubling, inconsistent and invaluable.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 30, 2012
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