Can American Leadership be Restored?
Excerpts from a lecture by Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS. Ret.)
When our descendants look back on the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of this one, they will be puzzled. The end of the Cold War relieved Americans of almost all international anxieties. It left us free to use our unparalleled economic power, military might, and cultural appeal to craft a world to our liking. We did not rise to the occasion. Still, almost the whole world stood with us after 9/11.
There is still no rival to our power, but almost no one abroad now wants to follow our lead and our ability to shape events has been greatly - perhaps irreparably - enfeebled. In less than a decade, we have managed to discredit our capacity to enlist others in defending our interests and to forfeit our moral authority as the natural leader of the global community. There is no need for me to outline to this expert audience the many respects in which our prestige and influence are now diminished. Historians will surely wonder: how did this happen?
How our global leadership collapsed is, of course, a question our politicians now evade as politically incorrect. It's also a very good question and really deserves an answer. I don't plan to try to give you one.
Why deprive our posterity of all the fun of puzzling one out?
We are engaged in a war, a global war on terror; a long war, we are told. It is somehow more dangerous than the Cold War was, we are warned. So, to preserve our democracy, we must now refrain from exercising it. And, to keep our ancient liberties, we must now curtail them. These propositions may strike some here as slightly illogical, but I beg you not to say so - especially if you have a security clearance and want to keep it or are interested in a job in this or a future administration. To many now in power in Washington and in much of the country, it remains perilously unpatriotic to ask why we were struck on 9/11 or who we're fighting or whether attempting forcibly to pacify various parts of the realm of Islam will reduce the number of our enemies or increase them.
So, we're in a war whose origins it is taboo to examine, as the only presidential candidate of either party to attempt to do so was reminded in a debate with his fellow Republicans just last week. And this is a war whose proponents assert that it must - and will - continue without end. If we accept their premises, they are right. How can a war with no defined ends beyond the avoidance of retreat ever reach a convenient stopping point? How can we win a war with an enemy so ill-understood that we must invent a nonexistent ideology of "Islamofascism" for it? How can we mobilize our people to conduct a long-term struggle with a violent movement once they realize that its objective is not to conquer us but to persuade us to stay home, leaving its part of the world to decide on its own what religious doctrine should govern its societies? And how can a war with no clear objectives ever accomplish its mission and end?
A common concern about the belligerent unilateralism of the world's greatest military power is driving lesser powers to look for political and economic support from countries who are distant, unthreatening, or unlikely to back American agendas. So, for example, Venezuela, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and key Africans are courting China; Europe is flirting with Asia; and all are seeking the affections of the oil and gas producers of the Middle East as well as of Russia and India. In most countries, politicians now see public spats with the United States as the easiest way to rally their people and enhance their prestige. The result is the progressive displacement of our previously indispensable influence and leadership in more and more areas of the world.
Sagging demand for our leadership may be a good thing to the extent it relieves us of the burdens of our much-proclaimed status as the sole remaining superpower. But we're clearly bothered by being seen as less relevant. Our answer to this seems to be to build an even more powerful military. Some of you will recall newspaper reports that our defense spending is only about 3.6 percent of GDP, reflecting a defense budget of only - I emphasize - only $499.4 billion. But a lot of defense-related spending is outside the Defense Department's budget. This fiscal year we will actually spend at least $934.9 billion (or about 6.8 percent of our
GDP) on our military. Outside DoD, the Department of Energy will spend $16.6 billion on nuclear weapons. The State Department will disburse $25.3 billion in foreign military assistance. We will spend $69.1 billion on defense-related homeland security programs and $69.8 billion for treatment of wounded veterans. The Treasury will spend $38.5 billion on unfunded military retirements. We will pay $206.7 billion in interest on war debt.
Other bits and pieces, including satellite launches, will add another $8.5 billion. Altogether, I repeat, that's about $935 billion. But there's no sign that all this military spending - though it is vastly more than the rest of the world combined - and the power projection capabilities it buys are regaining international leadership for us.
In Latin America, Brazil is assuming the mantle of regional leader, even as Hugo Chvez Fras and other defiant nationalists seek to build influence at our expense.
The world before us is both unfamiliar and unanticipated. Our military-industrial complex, securocrats, and pundits keep arguing for more carriers, submarines, and fighter bombers. This is good for the defense industrial base but, in terms of stopping terrorists, it is, I am afraid, an American equivalent of the Maginot Line: the building of an impregnable deterrent to the threat of the past, not the future. Like the French generals, our defense planners are preparing for the return of a familiar enemy - some new version of our sadly vanished Soviet adversary that will rise to compete with us for global hegemony and that we can hold to account for failing to constrain attacks on us by lesser enemies. But it is not what is happening and it must now be doubted that it ever will. In the world of the early 21st Century, the major ideological contest is between those who share our past faith in the rule of law and the new American contempt for the notion that we should, like others, respect the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and other elements of international law.
Our post Cold War global hegemony is being undermined not by a peer competitor but by a combination of our own neocon-induced ineptitude and the emergence of countries with substantial power and influence in their own regions. These regional powers distrust our purposes, fear our militarism, and reject our leadership. Distrust drives them to reaffirm the principles of international law we have now abandoned. Fear drives them to pursue the development or acquisition of weapons with which to deter the policies of preemptive attack and forcible regime change we now espouse. (If the weak think the powerful consider themselves above the law, the only protection for the vulnerable is to arm themselves. So scofflaw behavior in the name of halting or reversing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction actually promotes it.)
To regain both credibility and international respect, we Americans must, of course, restore the vigor of our constitutional democracy and its respect for civil liberties. But that in itself will be far from enough. The willingness of others to follow us in the past did not derive from our ability to intimidate or coerce them. Instead, we inspired the world with our vision and our example. Now, we know what we're against. But what are we for? Whatever happened to American optimism and idealism? To be able to lead the world again we must once again exemplify aspirations for a higher standard of freedom and justice at home and abroad. We cannot compel - but must persuade - others to work with us. And to lead a team, we must rediscover how to be a team player.
Excerpts from a lecture by Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS. Ret.)
When our descendants look back on the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of this one, they will be puzzled. The end of the Cold War relieved Americans of almost all international anxieties. It left us free to use our unparalleled economic power, military might, and cultural appeal to craft a world to our liking. We did not rise to the occasion. Still, almost the whole world stood with us after 9/11.
There is still no rival to our power, but almost no one abroad now wants to follow our lead and our ability to shape events has been greatly - perhaps irreparably - enfeebled. In less than a decade, we have managed to discredit our capacity to enlist others in defending our interests and to forfeit our moral authority as the natural leader of the global community. There is no need for me to outline to this expert audience the many respects in which our prestige and influence are now diminished. Historians will surely wonder: how did this happen?
How our global leadership collapsed is, of course, a question our politicians now evade as politically incorrect. It's also a very good question and really deserves an answer. I don't plan to try to give you one.
Why deprive our posterity of all the fun of puzzling one out?
We are engaged in a war, a global war on terror; a long war, we are told. It is somehow more dangerous than the Cold War was, we are warned. So, to preserve our democracy, we must now refrain from exercising it. And, to keep our ancient liberties, we must now curtail them. These propositions may strike some here as slightly illogical, but I beg you not to say so - especially if you have a security clearance and want to keep it or are interested in a job in this or a future administration. To many now in power in Washington and in much of the country, it remains perilously unpatriotic to ask why we were struck on 9/11 or who we're fighting or whether attempting forcibly to pacify various parts of the realm of Islam will reduce the number of our enemies or increase them.
So, we're in a war whose origins it is taboo to examine, as the only presidential candidate of either party to attempt to do so was reminded in a debate with his fellow Republicans just last week. And this is a war whose proponents assert that it must - and will - continue without end. If we accept their premises, they are right. How can a war with no defined ends beyond the avoidance of retreat ever reach a convenient stopping point? How can we win a war with an enemy so ill-understood that we must invent a nonexistent ideology of "Islamofascism" for it? How can we mobilize our people to conduct a long-term struggle with a violent movement once they realize that its objective is not to conquer us but to persuade us to stay home, leaving its part of the world to decide on its own what religious doctrine should govern its societies? And how can a war with no clear objectives ever accomplish its mission and end?
A common concern about the belligerent unilateralism of the world's greatest military power is driving lesser powers to look for political and economic support from countries who are distant, unthreatening, or unlikely to back American agendas. So, for example, Venezuela, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and key Africans are courting China; Europe is flirting with Asia; and all are seeking the affections of the oil and gas producers of the Middle East as well as of Russia and India. In most countries, politicians now see public spats with the United States as the easiest way to rally their people and enhance their prestige. The result is the progressive displacement of our previously indispensable influence and leadership in more and more areas of the world.
Sagging demand for our leadership may be a good thing to the extent it relieves us of the burdens of our much-proclaimed status as the sole remaining superpower. But we're clearly bothered by being seen as less relevant. Our answer to this seems to be to build an even more powerful military. Some of you will recall newspaper reports that our defense spending is only about 3.6 percent of GDP, reflecting a defense budget of only - I emphasize - only $499.4 billion. But a lot of defense-related spending is outside the Defense Department's budget. This fiscal year we will actually spend at least $934.9 billion (or about 6.8 percent of our
GDP) on our military. Outside DoD, the Department of Energy will spend $16.6 billion on nuclear weapons. The State Department will disburse $25.3 billion in foreign military assistance. We will spend $69.1 billion on defense-related homeland security programs and $69.8 billion for treatment of wounded veterans. The Treasury will spend $38.5 billion on unfunded military retirements. We will pay $206.7 billion in interest on war debt.
Other bits and pieces, including satellite launches, will add another $8.5 billion. Altogether, I repeat, that's about $935 billion. But there's no sign that all this military spending - though it is vastly more than the rest of the world combined - and the power projection capabilities it buys are regaining international leadership for us.
In Latin America, Brazil is assuming the mantle of regional leader, even as Hugo Chvez Fras and other defiant nationalists seek to build influence at our expense.
The world before us is both unfamiliar and unanticipated. Our military-industrial complex, securocrats, and pundits keep arguing for more carriers, submarines, and fighter bombers. This is good for the defense industrial base but, in terms of stopping terrorists, it is, I am afraid, an American equivalent of the Maginot Line: the building of an impregnable deterrent to the threat of the past, not the future. Like the French generals, our defense planners are preparing for the return of a familiar enemy - some new version of our sadly vanished Soviet adversary that will rise to compete with us for global hegemony and that we can hold to account for failing to constrain attacks on us by lesser enemies. But it is not what is happening and it must now be doubted that it ever will. In the world of the early 21st Century, the major ideological contest is between those who share our past faith in the rule of law and the new American contempt for the notion that we should, like others, respect the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and other elements of international law.
Our post Cold War global hegemony is being undermined not by a peer competitor but by a combination of our own neocon-induced ineptitude and the emergence of countries with substantial power and influence in their own regions. These regional powers distrust our purposes, fear our militarism, and reject our leadership. Distrust drives them to reaffirm the principles of international law we have now abandoned. Fear drives them to pursue the development or acquisition of weapons with which to deter the policies of preemptive attack and forcible regime change we now espouse. (If the weak think the powerful consider themselves above the law, the only protection for the vulnerable is to arm themselves. So scofflaw behavior in the name of halting or reversing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction actually promotes it.)
To regain both credibility and international respect, we Americans must, of course, restore the vigor of our constitutional democracy and its respect for civil liberties. But that in itself will be far from enough. The willingness of others to follow us in the past did not derive from our ability to intimidate or coerce them. Instead, we inspired the world with our vision and our example. Now, we know what we're against. But what are we for? Whatever happened to American optimism and idealism? To be able to lead the world again we must once again exemplify aspirations for a higher standard of freedom and justice at home and abroad. We cannot compel - but must persuade - others to work with us. And to lead a team, we must rediscover how to be a team player.
