Following President Richard Nixon’s famous visit to China in 1979 the so called One-China policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: “the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position.” “One China policy – U.S. policy” However, in the Taiwan Relations Act (April 10, 1979), the U.S. stressed its opposition to any effort by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to change conditions in Taiwan by force. Just how that opposition might be expressed has remained ambiguous ever since.
The United States has no treaty obligation to help defend the Republic of China (ROC–Taiwan) against a military attack by the PRC. It is doubtful that the U.S., located thousands of miles from Taiwan, could win an encounter with the PRC only 100 miles away. In recent simulated war games with China the U.S. has lost. “As the US and China continue to posture the key will be Taiwan” A military intervention by the U.S. would create a significant risk of escalation into nuclear war.
China experts such as Chas Freeman have argued that since Washington long ago agreed that ‘there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of it,’ any mainland invasion would simply be a civil war in which America has no right to intervene.” Moreover, risking nuclear war to defend Taiwan would not be in America’s or anyone else’s interest.
Until quite recently, Taiwan’s efforts to build its capacity to defend itself from a mainland attack rested heavily on the presumption that its defense would come from the U.S. “Taiwan’s military has closely mirrored its U.S. counterpart in miniature for years…. The problem with copying the American approach to warfare is that the U.S. military’s doctrine is to project power over great distances and to maximize mobility and networks to take the fight to the enemy with overwhelming superiority. Taiwan, on the other hand, needs the opposite: short-range and defensive systems that can survive an initial bombardment from a larger adversary and that are suitable for deployment close to home in defense of the island should it come under blockade or attack.” “Winning the fight Taiwan cannot afford to lose”
Taiwan’s almost $17 billion-dollar annual defense expenditures keep American weapon’s companies happy but didn’t contribute seriously to Taiwan’s defense. “Taiwanese military analysts have criticized the island for spending too little on defense, and for spending money on eye-catching purchases such as F-16 fighter jets rather than less-flashy weapons systems that would better enable Taiwan to wage asymmetric warfare against the PLA’s superior strength.” “Concerns about Taiwan put focus on islands defensive weakness” This has begun to change in the last few years toward weapons more appropriate to defending Taiwan against a ground assault.
While it is in America’s interest for Taiwan, as well as every other country in the world, to be peaceful, democratic, and prosperous, that interest is not sufficient to risk going to war–not even close. We should hope that the relations between Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of China remain peaceful and consensual whatever form they ultimately take. But should China attempt to “change conditions in Taiwan by force,” how should the U.S. express its opposition. It is a very sad commentary on the state of American international policy that so many American policy makers routinely conceive of expressing American opposition militarily. We have done so too often to the detriment of American interests.
On the other hand, a Chinese military attack on Taiwan would be a violation of its commitment not “to change conditions in Taiwan by force.” In such an event the U.S. should oppose such actions vigorously with coordinated diplomatic measures. A U.S. China war would certainly stop all trade with China. This would badly hurt both of us. But even without war, if a total trade embargo by the U.S. were joined by the EU, Australia, Japan, Korea, Canada, UK, and most other UN members it would be devastating to China. China could be expelled from all the international organizations it has so proudly joined in recent years. Its global ambitions would be destroyed. Such prospects would surely be as powerful a deterrent to China’s invasion of Taiwan as would the prospect of U.S. military intervention in defense of Taiwan.
American interests are better served by being the best that we can be, i.e., by strengthening our own economy and political system (which is in a dangerous mess at the moment). It would also be helpful if Ted Cruz would stop blocking President Biden’s State Department appointments so that we can strengthening our use of diplomacy and return our military from its foreign adventures to the defense of our homeland.
See Jon Schwarz’s interesting review: WE’VE ALL PRETENDED ABOUT TAIWAN FOR 72 YEARS. IT MAY NOT WORK ANY LONGER“Taiwan, China, nuclear weapons”
On this 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on America, many of us are saying “NEVER AGAIN”. What those saying it mean will determine the future of our country.
If “never again” means to you that we will never allow attacks on our homeland again, you are saying that out of your fear you chose safety over liberty. You support the authoritarian, repressive measures of the so-called Patriot Act and the related government intrusions in our privacy and liberties in the name of greater security. This is not the spirit of those Americans who continue to get into their cars to drive to work or wherever despite automobile accidents killing ten times more Americans every year as American soldiers who have died in Afghanistan in the past 20 years.
For me and thankfully for many other Americans, it means that we will never again surrender to the fear that blinded us to the tragic mistakes of American aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Uganda. Lawrence Wilkerson explains our self-destructive behavior in the following interview. COL Wilkerson was a senior official in the Bush administration when it launched the Iraq invasion. Now he calls it a mistake born of rage and fear. https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/09/10/amanpour-wilkerson-9-11.cnn
We have the most powerful military in the world. No military force could protect us at home (to the extent that our safety depends on military force) better. When it comes to its effectiveness in offensive attacks on other countries, its effectiveness is less clear and its effectiveness in efforts to rebuild the countries it has occupied…… well this fantastic three hour discussion reveals it as worse than zero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkjsjBknWfo
We once revered and defended our liberty above all else and we were respected and envied around the world. We prospered. Over the last twenty years we have gradually, year by year, squandered our cherished traditions and our standing and respect in the world has declined as a result. Former President Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban promising to remove all American troops from Afghanistan by May 1 of this year. It was a bad agreement, but our departure was many years overdue. President Biden extended our stay for a few more months but has now honored Trump’s commitment. Why our military was unable to prepare properly for our withdrawal from Afghanistan with this two-year notice is a mystery we need to investigate.
The lesson of Afghanistan is not that the US is washed up as a great power. The lesson is that the US is such a great power, militarily and economically, that it is continually tempted to try hopeless things that nobody else on earth – including China – would ever attempt.David Frum
On July 8, 2021, President Biden said that: “the United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama Bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those objectives. That’s why we went. We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build.” “Remarks by President Biden on the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan”
In fact, except for killing Osama Bin Laden, we had achieved those objectives before I arrived with an IMF team in January 2002 to contribute to building a more effective government. Finding and killing Bin Laden was delayed until May 2, 2011, because of the redirection of American efforts to the ill-advised and illegal war in Iraq. So why were American troops still occupying Afghanistan until August 30, 2021?
In an August 18, 2021, interview with George Stephanopoulos, President Biden explained what happened asking: “Then what happened? Began to morph into the notion that, instead of having a counterterrorism capability to have small forces there in — or in the region to be able to take on al-Qaeda if it tried to reconstitute, we decided to engage in nation-building. In nation-building. That never made any sense to me.”“Biden’s claim that nation building Afghanistan never made any sense”
George W Bush opposed nation building in his 2000 presidential campaign. In his memoir, Decision Points, he states that “After 9/11, I changed my mind.” Already by April 2002, he stated that “We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations. Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government.” He was right. However, as he noted: “Our government was not prepared for nation building.” He was right about that as well. “Bush on nation building and Afghanistan”
The U.S. officials responsible for “nation building” in Afghanistan knew little about its history and culture. They foolishly imposed an alien Western style government dropped on a diverse people as if from a drone. The US military is an excellent machinery of war. The best in the world. However, it does not have the skills required for “nation building.” Our military couldn’t even recruit the right solders or provide the training they needed to fight on their own, much less build a proper military organization. “Afghanistan combat interpreter Baktash Ahadi: U.S. cultural illiteracy” And attempting nation building at the point of a gun is bound to fail.
And why did the Afghan soldiers that Americans trained for decades not fight to defend the existing government? “Afghan forces were demoralized by neglect, corruption and ethnic bias among their superiors. Often they went without pay and ammunition, and sometimes without rations…. ‘The why is corruption, the why is poor leadership,’ John Sopko, told The Washington Post in 2017, ‘If leadership is poor, the people below don’t care, and they wonder why they have to die.’” “Afghanistan U.S. troop withdrawal”
On Sunday August 15, 2021, Taliban forces walked into Kabul and took over the government without a shot. “The Band of Brothers and Afghanistan” But what did they take over or replace? And did 20 years of so-called nation building make any difference. “Nation building” is often given a bad name because it has too often been associated with the imposition of a “government” by an occupying military force as with imperialism. Afghanistan is a very different place than it was 20 years ago. Both the nation and its government and its institutions have changed considerably. We can hope that the Taliban has changed as well.
Governments consist of ruler/decision makers, and the institutions that administer whatever it is that the government does. A nation extends beyond its government to include civil society, and social and cultural norms. The Taliban have displaced Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani, who fled to Uzbekistan then to the UAE rather than step aside for a transition period as had been agreed. Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Officer, Abdullah Abdullah, remained and with former President Karzai is discussing the composition of a new government with Taliban leaders.
“Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar will lead a new Afghan government…. Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme religious leader, will focus on religious matters and governance within the framework of Islam.
“While the Taliban have spoken of their desire to form a consensus government, a source close to the Islamist militant movement said the interim government now being formed would consist solely of Taliban members. It would comprise 25 ministries, with a consultative council, or shura, of 12 Muslim scholars, the source added.
“Also being planned within six to eight months is a loya jirga, or grand assembly, bringing together elders and representatives across Afghan society to discuss a constitution and the structure of the future government, the source said.” “Taliban co-founder Baradar will lead new Afghanistan govt”
Prior to the fall of Kabul, the government of Afghanistan consisted of the cabinet of ministers, provincial governors and the national assembly, with a democratically elected president serving as the head of state, head of government and commander-in-chief of the Afghan Armed Forces. It appears that the new government will retain the same administrative units. In addition to the central bank (DAB), which I advised, these would include functions such as Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Finance, Economy, Agriculture, Energy and Water, Justice, Information and Culture, Education, Industry and Commerce, Transportation, Women’s Affairs, Public Health, Mines, and of course, National Defense. Though the U.S. did a poor job developing Afghanistan’s National Defense institutions, more experienced international agencies made considerable progress in developing more efficient and effective agencies in many other areas. Of at least equal importance, a generation of Afghan men and women have grown up expecting their place in the world to reflect their skills and accomplishments (merit) rather than who they knew.
I have written earlier about the dramatic progress in modernizing the central bank’s operations. It was achieved in the proper, traditional way of “nation” and institution building. We explained best practice for central banks derived from the experiences of established central bank and the approaches we thought would fit best with Afghanistan’s existing central bank and economy. But DAB’s management and staff made the decisions of what to embrace and how to move forward and we offered guidance on designing and implementing those decisions. “BearingPoint Afghans”
But one institution can’t develop independently of what is happening in the rest of the country. In particular, developing the rule of law is critical and difficult. An example was provided by DAB’s (the banking supervisor) confrontation with a corrupt President and Attorney General over the resolution of the insolvent and criminal Kabulbank in 2010-12. The founders and owners of Kabulbank (President Karzai’s brother Mahmood was the third largest shareholder) had rapidly grown this newly licensed local bank into the country’s largest depository and had lent almost all of its deposits to themselves. During the global financial crisis of 2008, many of Kabulbank’s owners’ investments failed and they were unable to repay their depositors. DAB’s banking supervisors were blamed for weak supervision and even arrested and jailed in disregard of the provisions of the central bank law. The scandal revealed considerable corruption, but the supervisory resolution of the bank somewhat strengthened (modestly) the rule of law in the process. “Afghan President Ghani’s attack on corruption”“The Kabul Bank Scandal”
Another huge set back to the impressive development of DAB resulted from President Ghani appointing an unqualified friend, Ajmal Ahmady, as Acting Governor of the central bank. He fired many of the best of the BearingPoint Afghans and brought in his own small group of cronies. Mr. Ahmady’s appointment was rejected by the Parliament, but he illegally remained in his post. The Taliban (???) have now appointed Haji Mohammad Idris as the Acting Governor of the central bank. “Mr. Idris was head of the Tabliban‘s finance section, but he has no formal financial training or higher education.” “Haji Mohammad Idris”
These examples are meant to illustrate the distinction between a government’s leaders and its administrators. Time will tell whether our “nation building” efforts with DAB survive the attacks on it from Afghanistan’s leaders (current and past). But as a result of the nation building efforts of many international bodies, Afghanistan is a very different and better place, and its young population has very different expectations, than twenty years ago. I hope that the Taliban leaders that have taken over the government are also very different than their repressive and brutal forebearers of twenty years ago.
While the new government will no doubt leave many of the institutional structures in place that have been developed over the last two decades, from which they and the country have benefitted, the big question is what policies and rules they will establish under the name of Sharia law, especially with regard to the rights of women. The Taliban have their own internal factions that need to be sorted out and their earlier version of Sharia was an extremely harsh interpretation not shared by most Muslims. The Taliban has pledged to treat women and others fairly, within the dictates of Sharia Law. Other Muslims will need to convince the Taliban to moderate their earlier interpretations of what that means. The United States, the EU “EU sets five conditions for future operational engagement with Taliban”, China, Russia, and the international organizations, have enormous financial and diplomatic leverage with which to encourage the Taliban government’s better behavior. They should be used vigorously to help build a better Afghanistan. Early signs are not encouraging, but these are early days. One Afghan friend changes locations every night in the hopes of not being found. Other friends are afraid to leave their homes at all.
The idea that we should refuse to cooperate with the new government and should oppose it at every turn from the outset is bone headed. Just ponder the alternatives for a second. Do not think that it is easy for me to sit here in my comfortable Bethesda home and urge us to give the Taliban a try. My days begin with heart wrenching pleas for help from Afghan friends and strangers. I challenge you to read the following account of dashed hopes without weeping: “After a university falls in Afghanistan a DC organization scrambles to keep students safe and still learning”
Efforts to achieve a better Taliban government this time around may be a long shot, but the alternatives of a return to civil war and worse yet the return of American and NATO troops are not pretty either. The U.S. intention to cooperate with the new government in countering ISIS-K is encouraging, but, like anything else in life, not without risks. “US may coordinate with Taliban to take on ISIS-K” Nation building by everyone but the U.S. government over the last 20 years has not been a waste of time. Now is not the time to give it up.
Nation building is unlikely to be successful when coerced, i.e., when it is part of a military intervention. It does not follow that nation building–sharing best practice in the design and operation of institutions public and private–is an unworthy objective and undertaking.
Sometime around 2004 or 2005, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) contracted BearingPoint (now part of Deloitte Consulting) to recruit and mentor approximately 80 young Afghan college graduates into Afghanistan’s central bank (DAB) and Finance Ministry. These young Afghans worked in DAB and the Finance Ministry for two years while being trained and mentored by BearingPoint experts. Following these two years they were offered regular jobs in these two institutions. While some moved on to higher paying jobs elsewhere most of them stayed with DAB and the MOF. Over the years that followed they rose within these institutions, and in DAB headed many of the departments including the position of Second Deputy Governor. Working with and watching the progress of these young Afghans was one of the most enjoyable and gratifying assignments in my career with the International Monetary Fund. They were smart, honest, and dedicated to improving life in their country (including their own). They were, and I hope still are, the hope for a better future for Afghanistan.
The elected Afghan government under which these BearingPoint Afghans worked has now been toppled by the Taliban, a group that harshly ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until displaced by an American-British invasion in November 2001. Back in 1996: “Gaining control over most of the country, the Taliban impose their rule, forbidding most women from working, banning girls from education, and carrying out punishments including beatings, amputations and public executions. Only three countries officially recognize the Taliban regime: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.” “Afghanistan conflict timeline”
The Taliban in 1996 claimed to impose Sharia Law on Afghanistan. “Sharia” translates to ‘the way’ in Arabic and refers to a wide-ranging body of moral and ethical principles drawn from the Quran and from the sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad. The principles vary according to the interpretation of various scholars who established schools of thought followed by Muslims who use them to guide their day-to-day lives. Many Muslim-majority countries base their laws on their interpretation of the principles of Islamic law but, despite this, no two have identical laws.” “Taliban and Sharia Law in Afghanistan”
The Taliban imposed a very severe version of Sharia that has not been embraced by very many Muslims. It was particularly restrictive on the activities and rights of women. Twenty years later Afghanistan is a different place, and the Taliban sounds like a different organization.
“KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban vowed Tuesday to respect women’s rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists as part of a publicity blitz aimed at reassuring world powers and a fearful population.
“Following a lightning offensive across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a strict form of Islamic rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical — and thousands have raced to the airport, desperate to flee the country.
“Older generations remember the Taliban’s previous rule, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, and held public executions. A U.S.-led invasion drove them from power months after the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida had orchestrated from Afghanistan while being sheltered by the Taliban.” “Afghanistan Taliban Kabul”
So, what should American policy be toward the forthcoming Taliban or Taliban lead government? What does the Taliban pledge to “respect women’s rights consistent with their version of Sharia Law actually mean? We should deploy every diplomatic tool possible to encourage/pressure the new government to live up to its promises. Former President Karzai, current CEO Abdullah Abdullah and others are currently in discussions with the Taliban leadership over terms for an inclusive government.
The alternative of nonrecognition, once there is a government to recognize, is to encourage and even support civil war. Or, God forbid, to send our troops back (there is not much chance that our NATO allies would be conned a second time into join us there again). And how did that work out for us last time? Our over used weapon of economic sanctions harms the public we should be trying to help. Our inhuman sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela are imposing horrible pain on the their citizens with little impact on their governments. “Evidence-costs and benefits of economic sanctions”
In a recent Washington Post oped Nikki Haley argued that we should not recognize the Taliban government no matter what. “Nikki Haley-America must not recognize Taliban” I respected Ms. Haley when she was Governor of South Carolina but I eventually got over her when she embarrassed us while Ambassador to the UN. “The future of Israel and Palestine” Her unqualified attack on the Taliban firmly ties her to those who were responsible for our Afghan disaster in the first place. The new Afghan government may turn out to be as bad as the previous Taliban government, but we should do everything possible to prevent that.
The U.S. has suspended currency shipments purchased by Afghanistan’s central bank. Afghan assets (foreign exchange reserves, etc.) deposited abroad have been frozen including “its” access to reserves at the IMF. These may appear to be rejections of a new government, but they are not. There is no new government yet and those holding Afghan assets must keep them safe until their new owners are clearly and properly identified. The situation is much like the bank in which you have deposited money, freezing your deposits when you die until the new lawful owner is determined. There is an unavoidable, awkward period of uncertainty. It is not too late to reverse our mistake in closing our Embassy and running out while at the same time accusing the Afghan Army of behaving the same way.
It is also not true that nothing was accomplished these past 20 years. Our military leaders may have failed in their task of building a reliable Afghan Army, but many others, myself included, did not waste our time by helping Afghans build better institutions (see the story of the BearingPoint Afghans I started this article with above). See the discussion of this issue by Jonathan Rauch: “The Afghanistan war was a partial success”
No one knows what the Afghan government will look like or which way it will go, but we all (except for the war mongers) have an interest in promoting its success, especially the hopeful, new generation of Afghans. “Can US work with Taliban”“What do Taliban’s really want?”
And we must resist the siren calls of those who think that we can and should impose our vision and institutions on the rest of the world. We must keep our Army home to defend our homeland rather than messing with other people’s business. Our defense industries have profited enough.
Sunday night Ito and I finished the tenth and final episode of the WWII story of Easy Company of the 101 airborne division of the U.S. Army–The Band of Brothers. It is a moving and masterful depiction of the horrors of war, and its impact on those (often) brave men who fight them. How, I asked myself, can good people do such terrible things to each other? And why? Who benefits (that is too obvious to answer explicitly)?
I woke up that morning to the fact that the government in Afghanistan that I had been working with for the past 20 years had been replaced by the Taliban who intends to form a new government. Fingers are being pointed all over the place in the search for fault. I am afraid that this American question is of little interest to my Afghan friends. Those who have not already left the country are holed up in their homes afraid to go to work. Their question is what the new Taliban regime will look like.
Our objective now should be to join with all other nations to exert diplomatic pressure on the new government (which potentially will have the cooperation of at least former President Hamid Karzai, CEO Abdullah Abdullah, and Islamic Party leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) to adhere to UN standards of humanitarian treatment of its citizens and to help them administer an efficient and honest government. America’s leadership in this regard will be critical for Afghanistan’s future.
But who should we blame for, and what lessons should we learn from, Afghans fleeing the country by climbing onto the outside of planes leaving the Kabul Airport (something I have done many times but more comfortably seated)? Working backward, President Trump gave our military leaders a May 1 deadline for leaving. It rather looks like they ignored him (tempting but not appropriate).
The speed with which the Taliban took over the country with barely a shot fired surprised most of us. We had dinner at the home of Edward and Dalya Luttwak Saturday. During the conversation I passed on the statement by an Afghan friend emailed to me that afternoon that the Taliban could take Kabul by the next day or week. We all thought that would be impossible, thinking it might be as fast as a few months. In fact, they peaceably took over the city the next day (Sunday Aug 15). In fact, our Embassy and Military leaders should not have been surprised. My work in Afghanistan with its central bank did not require that I be thoroughly versed on Afghan history and customs, but that is not true for our foreign policy establishment working in and on Afghanistan.
Rather than arm, train, and support Afghan fighters in regions they cared about, we pulled together a national Army with the incentive of money. In addition, the broader Afghan public did not strongly support its corrupt government and could fairly easily change sides. “Afghanistan military collapse-Taliban” Moreover, waring tribes and political groups such as the Taliban have a long tradition of negotiating peaceful surrenders when the outcome seems clear. “Afghanistan history-Taliban collapse”
The initial blame for our failure to “build” a strong government in Afghanistan falls on George W Bush who gave in to the Cheney/Rumsfeld fantasies of American Imperialism, and abandoned the original and sensible approach of American support of the Northern Alliance war against the Taliban. “Its plan was for small teams of CIA officers, along with Green Berets and U.S. air power, to assist the indigenous Afghan resistance—the Northern Alliance.” “Afghanistan withdrawal-CIA-bin Laden-al Qaeda-Bush-Biden-Northern Alliance” Instead we took over and occupied the country.
Rather than work with and build from Afghanistan’s traditional tribal structures, we imposed an alien, centralized government that was not understood and was generally resented outside of Kabul. Rather than elevating village chiefs to govern provinces, for example, Kabul sent strangers to oversee areas they knew nothing about. Our ignorance and arrogance were mind boggling, but sadly typical. And our military—the best in the world for waging wars— is incompetent at nation building, which should be the job of others. We couldn’t even build an Afghan Army in 20 years. “How America failed Afghanistan”
Trust is a critically important feature of successful relationships and of flourishing societies. Enduring trust builds on honestly and truth. I have just finished reading Jonathan Rauch’s exposition of these truths in The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth and his enlightening exploration of how to find and defend truth in today’s challenging environment.
How can we determine what is true and what is not? Rauch’s book explores this question. In sorting out fact from fiction we must recognize the personal and social biases through which we evaluate claims and the factors that motivate them. The task is made even more difficult by the fact that there are some who deliberately propagate falsehoods for their own purposes. Whatever else might motivate them, political and other leaders act to gain or retain their power. They often have an incentive to misrepresent facts, i.e., to lie. Former President Trump and his Big Lie (and his many, many other lies) is by no means the only President to have lied to the American public. Many other Presidents have also lied.
Ken Burn’s documentary, The Vietnam War, is a brilliant expose of such lies and yesterday I watched for the first time the 2010 Goldsmith and Ehrlich directed documentary The Most Dangerous Man in American: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon almost give Trump a run for his money as liars, though I think that they thought they were lying for the benefit of our country along with their reelection (which by no means excuses it).
Our constitution provides limited, enumerated powers to our government and checks and balances of the powers between its branches and its citizens. But the power of free speech and a free press to expose lies is an indispensable check on the lies of public officials. Our republic has been defended from foreign attacks by many brave solders. But we should also be grateful for the self-sacrifices of a few brave whistleblowers for exposing government lies and thus defending our republic and the individual liberty in which we have flourished.
Wednesday, I watched Daniel Ellsberg receive the Committee for the Republic’s Defender of Liberty award. We are still meeting virtually, but the event was a fascinating discussion of the Vietnam war decision making. The discussion included the Pentagon Papers movie directors, Goldsmith and Ehrlich; the official head of the Pentagon project that wrote the Pentagon Papers history of the war, Morton Halperin; the New York Times reporter who wrote the first article on the Papers given to him by Ellsberg; and Ellsberg himself who went on at great length. It was a riveting two-hour discussion. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/l7L3DOhakNU
I hope that we can present this award to Edward Snowden in the future.
Holding our government officials accountable for speaking the truth and for abiding by the law are critically important in preserving (or restoring) trust and in determining “the truth.” Each one of us contribute to (or detract from) those goals. But I am in awe at the personal sacrifices of Ellsberg and Snowden in the service of truth, which so badly needs defending. If there is hope of saving our fractured and disbelieving Republic, it will be because of the bravery of such people and the embrace by the rest of us of the wisdom expressed by writers like Rauch. It requires our individual commitment to truth and the institutions and norms that facilitate and incentivize finding it (filtering falsehood from truth). It requires an effective Constitution of Knowledge.
In his meeting with President Putin, President Biden is thought to have proposed red lines against the use of cyber weapons such as ransomware. The idea of shutting down something like Colonial Pipeline with a computer hack is surely repugnant. I seem to remember that many of us cheered when the U.S. (and Israel?) damaged the Iranian uranium enrichment facility at Natanz with a malicious computer worm called Stuxnet. Nor were many of us much bothered when U.S. financed coups topped unfriendly governments, or when we attacked Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Haiti, Nigeria, Syria, to name but a few.
“The supreme international crime according to 2017 U.S. media reporting is interfering nonviolently in a democratic election — at least if Russia does it. William Blum, in his book Rogue State, lists over 30 times that the United States has done that. Another study, however, says 81 elections in 47 countries.” https://davidswanson.org/warlist/
While this is hard to swallow, our bad behavior differs from that of Russia’s or of other autocrats. I will not go to jail for writing this. Most Americans (I like to believe) condemn such behavior contrary to our founding principles when they learn of it. Our press is happy to expose such breaches when they discover them. In short, while our government often violates our principles of individual rights and the rule of law and lies regularly about it, public scrutiny and outrage tend to check bad behavior and move us back toward conformity with our principles. We never get there but it is very important that we keep trying.
In May 1967, The New Guard magazine published an article by Milton Friedman on “The Case for a Voluntary Army.” It was a compelling case and was adopted when the U.S. suspended its military draft in January 1972. But was it correct? “45 years later Nixon-Gates commission”
In the 1960s, the drafting of 18 year old’s to fight in Vietnam was avoided by those able to go to college. This was rightly challenged as discriminatory against the poor and college deferments were replaced with a lottery system that started in 1970, which picked the birthdates at random that would then be first in line to be drafted each year. I was granted the last of the college deferments. “Draft lottery (1969)”
While a student of Friedman’s at the University of Chicago from 1965-70, I joined with several other libertarian classmates to form the Council for a Volunteer Military to promote Friedman’s call for an end to the draft. The Directors of the Council were: James Powell, National Director; Henry Regnery, Treasurer; myself, Executive Secretary; Danny Boggs, national Filed Secretary; and David Levy, Publications Editor. Our sponsors were: Yale Brozen, Bruce K. Chapman, Richard C. Cornuelle, James Farmer, David Franke, Milton Friedman, Sanford Gottlieb, Eugene Groves, Karl Hess, and Norman Thomas: an impressively diverse group.
In 1969 President Richard Nixon establish the Gates Commission to advise him on established an all-volunteer military and appointed Friedman to the commission. Based on the Commission’s recommendations, President Nixon signed a law in 1971 that ended the draft in January 1973.
A Rand Corporation report on the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) by Bernard D. Rostker stated that: “Although the country had conscripted its armed forces for only 35 of its 228 years — nearly all in the 20th century — the American people were generally willing to accept this practice when service was perceived as universal. However, in the 1960s, that acceptance began to erode. There were five major reasons:
Demographics. The size of the eligible population of young men reaching draft age each year was so large and the needs of the military so small in comparison that, in practice, the draft was no longer universal.
Cost. Obtaining enough volunteers was possible at acceptable budget levels.
Moral and economic rationale. Conservatives and libertarians argued that the state had no right to impose military service on young men without their consent. Liberals asserted that the draft placed unfair burdens on the underprivileged members of society, who were less likely to get deferments.
Opposition to the war in Vietnam. The growing unpopularity of the Vietnam war meant the country was ripe for a change to a volunteer force.
The U.S. Army’s desire for change. The Army had lost confidence in the draft as discipline problems among draftees mounted in Vietnam.”
At the time Crawford H. Greenewalt, another member of the Commission, wrote to Gates that “while there is a reasonable possibility that a peacetime armed force could be entirely voluntary, I am certain that an armed force involved in a major conflict could not be voluntary.”
The AVF matched or exceeding the high expectations for it. The professionalism of our Army improved. We fought 13 wars with our volunteer force: Lebanon (1982-4), Grenada (1983), Panama (1089-90), Gulf War (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel 1990-91), Somalia (1992-5), Bosnian War (1992-95), Haiti (1994-5), Kosovo War (1998-99), Afghanistan War (2001-21), Iraq War (2003-11, 2014-2020), Somali Civil War (2007-21), Libya intervention (2011, 2015-20), and Syria (2014-present). Each was limited enough not to exhaust the supply of volunteers needed.
But a different criticism of our all-volunteer force was raised that gave me pause. Our costly and futile war in Vietnam from 1955-75 was finally ended (without admitting the defeat it surely was) in response to the growing protests in the U.S. No such protests were raised for our imperial adventures since then. Some observers began to point their fingers at the absence of a draft and thus a military/industrial complex better sheltered from public criticism. When we campaigned for the end of the draft and an all-volunteer military, we assumed that we needed to maintain an Army for our defense. Instead, our military was deployed all over the planet (800 bases around the world) with sufficient restraint (generally) to avoid strong public push back. “National defense” If the average middle class family’s children were not being drafted to fight unnecessary wars in far off places, they were not as likely to complain about the billions of their taxpayer’s money being pumped into the military/industrial complex. This was an unanticipated side effect of ending the draft that we had not anticipated.
Both former President Trump and President Biden expressed their intentions to end our forever wars and, at least in the case of Biden, to strengthen our capacity to deal with the world with diplomacy. We should wish him well. And we should urge Congress to reinstate the Weinberger Doctrine, which limited the use of U.S. forces to when vital U.S. interests were at stake, and only as a last resort. “A Biden doctrine starts to take shape”
American military strength (an important aspect of our national security) depends on the size, training, and equipment (weapons) of our military, which is very much dependent on the size and efficiency of our economy, which pays for it. Devoting more of our productive capacity to the military reduces our economic capacity. Getting the balance right between military and nonmilitary uses of our resources is very important. Knowing what military capacity we need to insure our defense requires assessing the sources of threats to our national security and what motivates their deployment.
The cold war was a confrontation with international communism, most heavily concentrated in the Soviet Union. This was an ideological enemy of free market, capitalist countries, whose goal was to spread its ideology to the entire world. There is no such ideological enemy today. The Chinese government wants to be strong and prosperous and doesn’t care whether anyone else follows their model or not. They do want the rules for global trade and interactions to permit their own domestic model. We need to engage China fairly in establishing international rules that serve everone.
Historically wars were generally about territory and political control, usually about moving boarders a bit this way or that. The Mogul, Roman, Persian, British, Ottoman and other empires existed largely to extract economic gain from the territories they ruled, something more peacefully enjoyed today via free (or freer) trade. The mere threat of war and the creation and maintenance of potential enemies is also a useful device for rallying countries around their leaders and for keeping the money flowing to their “defense” industries–think of Mr. Putin, Xi Jinping and the U.S. military/industrial complex.
American defense today requires military strength sufficient to deter any country from successfully attacking the United States. It does not require the 800 military bases that we maintain around the world. It did not require and was not enhanced by our many wars that followed the infamous and very damaging Viet Nam war (Lebanon 1982-4, Grenada 1983, Panama 1989-90, Gulf War 1990-91, Somali 1992-5, Bosnia 1992-5, Haiti 1994-5, Kosovo 1998-9, Afghanistan 2001-date, Iraq 2003-11, 2014-date, Somali 2007-21, Libya 2011, 2015-20, Syria 2014-date, War on Terror in various places). War with China would be quite a different matter. “The delusions of high tech warfare”
Fareed Zakaria unloaded on our war industry last month: “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlined his key concern. ‘China is our pacing threat,’ he said. He explained that for the past 20 years, the United States had been focused on the Middle East while China had been modernizing its military. ‘We still maintain the edge,’ he noted, ‘and we’re going to increase the edge going forward.’ Welcome to the new age of bloated Pentagon budgets, all to be justified by the great Chinese threat.
“What Austin calls America’s ‘edge’ over China is more like a chasm. The United States has about 20 times the number of nuclear warheads as China. It has twice the tonnage of warships at sea, including 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers compared with China’s two carriers (which are much less advanced). Washington has more than 2,000 modern fighter jets compared with Beijing’s roughly 600, according to national security analyst Sebastien Roblin. And the United States deploys this power using a vast network of some 800 overseas bases. China has three. China spends around $250 billion on its military, a third as much as the United States.” “The Pentagon is using China as an excuse for huge new budgets” As noted above, over-investing in the military results in a smaller economy overall.
The latest debate is whether we should make our commitment to go to war with China to defend the independence of Taiwan explicit or leave it implied and ambiguous. In 1979 the U.S. recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China and acknowledged that Taiwan was part of China (slightly fuzzy diplomatic language). So would American national security be enhanced by an explicit credible commitment to go to war with China, if necessary, to preserve the independence of Taiwan? China is a nuclear power. Going to war with China (World War III if we could get anyone else to join us) would inflect enormous damage on the U.S. whether it became nuclear or not, even if we won. In my opinion it would be simply insane to take such risks.
Would the U.S. deter China by being tough enough? As Doug Bandow put it: “America’s antagonists saw something very different than weakness…. Stupidity and arrogance. Poor judgment. Refusal to admit mistakes. An almost demented willingness to sacrifice America’s future in a desperate attempt to redeem the nation’s tragic past. A better way not to show weakness would be to stop doing ‘stupid shit,’ as Obama suggested.
“China’s Xi Jinping and his colleagues in Zhongnanhai likely have a far more objective and practical take on U.S. policy: Endless wars by Washington are good for Beijing. The Chinese would love to see the US pour trillions more dollars and thousands more lives into new conflicts. Invade Iran? Please! Maybe occupy Syria too? Lebanon also needs fixing. Don’t forget the need to redeem Afghanistan. Then there is the problem of Russia in Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere: go for it!” https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2021/03/23/the-failure-of-huff-and-puff-foreign-policy/
But China (and Russia in Ukraine) has been behaving badly–claiming this little island in the China Sea and that one as its own, not to mention the ever-present risk of invading Taiwan. Even if the forced takeover of Taiwan by the PRC would not threaten our national defense, shouldn’t we care? Shouldn’t we care about the abhorrent genocide by the Chinese government against its Uighur Muslim minority in its western province of Xinjiang? Of course, we should, but we should reject the presumption of our neocon friends and the military/industrial complex we keep fat and rich that these and other interests can only be addressed militarily. See my experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan: “My Travels to Baghdad”
The creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions and other international cooperative agreements and institutions after World War II were meant to provide dispute resolution mechanisms other than wars. President Biden is committed to rebuilding these neglected institutions and strengthening and reenergizing our diplomatic institutions and initiatives. We can confront China more effectively and more realistically together with most of the rest of the world using the tools of diplomacy rather than of war. If the people of Taiwan chose to integrate their governance more fully with that of the PRC, that is their choice and their business. But if China invades Taiwan or otherwise forces such an integration, China should know the economic and political price they would pay. In my opinion, such a declaration would be far more effective in deterring such behavior by China than a fuzzy uncertain threat of war. It is encouraging that Congress seems on the verge of reclaiming its War Powers provided by the Constitution.
It is worth remembering the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. against our war in Vietnam delivered April 4, 1967. https://kingandbreakingsilence.org/
From the corkscrew landing at Saddam International Airport (now the Baghdad International Airport) to adventures in the Green Zone and beyond, this recounting of my experiences helping the Central Bank of Iraq develop modern market tools of monetary policy exposes the disfunction of the U.S. lead Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in its attempt to govern and rebuild post Saddam Iraq, following one of America’s more foolish and damaging military adventures. The existence of weapons of mass destruction was a lie. American skill at imperial rule–from disbanding the Iraqi Army to De-Ba’athification of the Iraqi bureaucracy– was a myth.
Regime changes usually don’t involve changes in the monetary system. However, the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s government and the occupation of Iraq and the takeover of its government by the United States and a few allies in the name of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was accompanied by the replacement of the so-called Saddam dinar and modernization of Iraq’s monetary and financial system. The Iraq war was launched with “shock and awe” on March 20, 2003 and President George W Bush declared “mission accomplished” on May 1 a month and a half later. But when I retired from the International Monetary Fund and took up residence in Baghdad to advise the Central Bank of Iraq on developing Iraq’s financial markets and managing its new currency, the fighting was not over on many fronts. I lived in Baghdad the last two months of the CPA (May-June 2004) and made four two-week visits between then and December 2005
In this book, much of it written in diary form at the time, I share the challenges of advising the staff and management of the Central Bank of Iraq from my office in the central bank and of navigating the U.S. interagency rivalry from my office in Saddam’s Republican Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Security was always a challenge, producing many adventures. But the wisest advice I received was from a colleague in the CPA, who told me to “be careful who you talk to here (CPA headquarters in the Republican Palace), your worst enemies are in this building.” Over my 26 years in the International Monetary Fund and the technical assistance missions I lead to some 20 countries, many of them post conflict countries, I have never encountered the disfunction and resulting ineptitude of the U.S. led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
Previous Books
One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Warren's space 