Are we following in the footsteps of Athens? Let’s leave the path before we come to the same end.

Summary:  America can develop a sound grand strategy, if only we clearly see the path we’re now on.  Perhaps an analogy from history can help.

‘What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?
— Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Colin Powell (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) in the 1990s, about Bosnia, from Madam Secretary: A Memoir (2003), p. 182

At an early intergovernmental meeting on the importance of psychological warfare, one of {General} Harkins’ key staffmen, Brigadier General Gerald Kelleher, quickly dismissed that theory. His job, he said, was to kill Vietcong.  But the French, responded a political officer named Donald Pike, had killed a lot of Vietcong and they had not won. “Didn’t kill enough Vietcong,” answered Kelleher.
— From The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam (1972)

Content

1. America following in Athens’ footsteps
2. A cogent summary of our strategy from a disturbing expert
3. A primer about Grand Strategy
4. For more information

(1)  America following in Athens’ footsteps

The Founders modeled America on Rome, but we might be following in the footsteps of Athens.  A people attain great power through their daring and vigor.  They use this power unwisely, making enemies while dissipating their resources.  And eventually the rising stress leads to internal conflict and foreign defeats.  The details differ, but on a broad level the story might be the same.

See this summary of the past four years, from “Warrior in Chief” by Peter L. Bergen (Director at the New American Foundation), an op-ed in the April 28 New York Times.

He {Obama} ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He became the first president to authorize the assassination of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and played an operational role in Al Qaeda, and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. … During the Bush administration, there was an American drone attack in Pakistan every 43 days; during the first 2 years of the Obama administration, there was a drone strike there every 4 days. And 2 years into his presidency, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president was engaged in conflicts in 6 Muslim countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya.

This aptly describes America’s grand strategy:

1. Bipartisan, with little difference between the Bush Jr and Obama administrations
2. Bellicose, with force the primary tool of statecraft when dealing with conflict.
3. Based on uncritical acceptance of government claims and indifference to publicly available data (“effective covert wars”, “played an operational role in Al Qaeda”).
4. Indiscriminate, using force in a wide range of situations — most of which do not affect America’s national interests (unlike 9-11, planned in Europe and trained in Florida).
5. Indifferent to the deaths of uninvolved bystanders, even women and children.
6. Multiplying enemies, alienating friends.

{For more analysis of this remarkable op-ed see “Celebrating our ‘Warrior President’”, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 29 April 2012 — “The Democratic case for Obama’s foreign policy greatness is most significant for what it blissfully ignores”.}

(2)  A cogent summary of our strategy from a disturbing expert

These attitudes spreading out from our leaders to the wider society.  Such as this statement, which could be by any DoD official describing our drone attacks.

I understand what they felt in Oklahoma City. I have no sympathy for them … I recognized beforehand that someone might be … bringing their kid to work. … However, if I had known there was an entire day care center, it might have given me pause to switch targets. That’s a large amount of collateral damage. … To these people in Oklahoma who have lost a loved one, I’m sorry but it happens every day. You’re not the first mother to lose a kid, or the first grandparent to lose a grandson or a granddaughter. It happens every day, somewhere in the world.

— Timothy McVeigh, quoted in American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck (2001)

We’re waging ever-widening war on nations with large Muslim populations, often to support pro-American governments widely disliked by their people (eg, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and the Philippines (we had troops there; now using drones).  Allied with Israel, almost universally hated by its neighbors for its aggressive land acquisitions and horrific treatment of Palestinians.  Force and killing as primary foreign policy tools, supporting a mad and unprofitable America Imperium.

We’ve betrayed the ideals for which we fought WWII, and trashed in its infancy the resulting international order which was our nation’s greatest accomplishment.  As with Athens, our great accomplishments as a civilization will not help as our enemies proliferate — and the newly emerging great powers (eg, Turkey, Brazil, China) regard us as an unpredictable and potentially hostile nation.

“Hegel says somewhere that all great historic facts and personages occur twice, so to speak. He forgot to add: “Once as tragedy, and again as farce.”
— Opening line to Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1869)

(3)  A primer about Grand Strategy

“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War, circa 500 B.C.

To understand the nature of grand strategy is to see that we’re doing it badly.  The late American strategist Col. John Boyd (USAF) said that a grand strategy focused our nation’s actions — political, economic, and military — so as to:

• Increase our solidarity, our internal cohesion.
• Weaken our opponents’ resolve and internal cohesion.
• Strengthen our allies’ relationships to us.
• Attract uncommitted states to our cause.End conflicts on favorable terms, without sowing the seeds for future conflicts.

— From Patterns of Conflict, slide 139

In his essay on grand strategy, DNI editor Chet Richards quoted Boyd as recommending a “unifying vision” (killing every potential enemy is such a vision, albeit a mad one):

A grand ideal, overarching theme, or noble philosophy that represents a coherent paradigm within which individuals as well as societies can shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances — yet offers a way to expose flaws of competing or adversary systems. Such a unifying vision should be so compelling that it acts as a catalyst or beacon around which to evolve those qualities that permit a collective entity or organic whole to improve its stature in the scheme of things.
— ”Patterns of Conflict”, Chart 143)

As one of Boyd’s closest associates, Chuck Spinney, summarized Boyd’s concept:

… grand strategy is the art of pursuing national goals in a way that improves our nation’s fitness to shape and cope with the conditions of an ever-changing international environment. A nation’s grand strategy is about its organic vitality and growth … or in Sun Tzu’s words, it is the “road to survival or ruin” over the long term.

For more information

(a)  About the meaninglessness of terrorism as a label used by our government:

1. “The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of ‘Terrorism’”, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 23 July 2009 — “The news reaction to the Oslo events clarifies the real meaning of ‘terrorism'”
2. “Iran and the Terrorism game“, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 12 January 2012 — “When Iran allegedly engages in targeted assassination, that’s terrorism; when it’s the victim of that, it isn’t”
3. “Washington’s high-powered terrorist supporters“, Glenn Greenwald, 12 March 2012 — “As investigations begin into paid D.C. advocates of a dissident Iranian group, their self-defenses are revealing”
4. “Report: U.S. trained terror group“, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 6 April 2012 — “The New Yorker documents ample material support from the U.S. to MEK: A clear felony if true”
5. “America’s drone sickness“, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 19 April 2012 — “The U.S. slaughters at will, then shields its actions from all forms of judicial and democratic accountability”

(b)  Posts about grand strategy:

1. The Myth of Grand Strategy , 31 January 2006
2. America’s Most Dangerous Enemy , 1 March 2006
3. The Fate of Israel , 28 July 2006
4. America takes another step towards the “Long War” , 24 July 2007
5. One step beyond Lind: What is America’s geopolitical strategy? , 28 October 2007
6. America’s grand strategy: lessons from our past , 30 June 2008  – chapter 1 in a series of notes
7. President Grant warns us about the dangers of national hubris , 1 July 2008 – chapter 2
8. America’s grand strategy, now in shambles , 2 July 2008 — chapter 3
9. America’s grand strategy, insanity at work , 7 July 2008 — chapter 4
10. The King of Brobdingnag comments on America’s grand strategy, 18 November 2008
11. Is America a destabilizing force in the world?, 23 January 2009
12. The US Army brings us back to the future, returning to WWI’s “cult of the offense”, 13 February 2009