[Peace-discuss] A conservative (but accurate) view of the war

[C. G. Estabrook]

	American Military Policy and the War on Terrorism
	by Karen Kwiatkowski

{This speech was part of a panel sponsored by the Future of Freedom Foundation, 
Campaign for Liberty and the Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA) held on February 
20th at the 2010 CPAC. The panel presentation was titled "Why Real Conservatives 
Are Against the War on Terror."}

The phrase "war on terror" has been used to justify trillions of dollars in 
spending, hundreds of thousands of new government positions, and thousands of 
new government contracts. At the same time, the "war on terror" has produced 
very little in terms of new technology or enhanced security, has vastly 
increased the degree of national centralization, and has created many new 
permanent trees and branches in the gnarled world of federal and state institutions.

The Congressional Research Service reported in September 2009 the cost of the 
"War on Terror" since 9/11 at almost one trillion dollars. But they looked only 
at the cost of the three military operations launched in response to 9/11. They 
counted only the war in Afghanistan (9 years running), the war in Iraq (7 years 
running), and the overall effort to secure US military installations around the 
world – not our borders at home, but our forward deployed empire.

While it is very costly, in both dollars and in terms of rule of law, the war on 
terror is not a real war, in the sense that conservatives understand it. Yes, 
our nation was assaulted, and on 9/11, our nation was undefended and vulnerable. 
Our very expensive armed forces and our very expensive intelligence apparatus 
failed to prevent or to predict what happened on 9/11. A conservative reaction 
would have been to assess the situation from the perspective of what we had done 
or not done, as much as to seek to avenge the attack. A wise and thoughtful 
response would have been to unleash a criminal investigation, at home and 
internationally, and to pursue the perpetrators, as we examine the institutional 
failures and policies that made our country vulnerable.

Instead, even though we had a so-called conservative president, we did not 
proceed as conservatives. We did not hold accountable or fire anyone in our 
government, or our defense and intelligence institutions. We did not closely 
examine our own foreign policy or our extensive intelligence and military 
activities overseas, particularly the Middle East. We did not even devote 
sufficient time and energy to investigating the crimes committed and the people 
behind those crimes. Instead, our so-called conservative president, with the 
backing of so-called conservative people, reacted pretty much as that other 
party we have been rightfully criticizing here at this conference.

What we are talking about today is our reaction to 9/11 – because that is really 
what the war on terror has been – a reaction, not a strategy.

This reaction, like most poorly thought-out reactions, has been anything but 
conservative.

Furthermore, it has led to conditions and changes in this country that are 
anything but those a true conservative would desire or hope for: Massive growth 
in spending, new permanent and centralized government institutions, and worst of 
all, an incredibly stupid militarization of the pursuit of terror.

It is the stupidity in the strategy that I want to briefly review. And to do 
this, no one here needs to understand the least bit about military history, 
tactics and strategy. You do not need to know about the Chinese general Sun Tzu, 
because apparently no one leading the Pentagon is reading him.

Sun Tzu understood that understatement and deception is necessary in war.

He said, "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely 
mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director 
of the opponent's fate."

Instead, our approach has been to almost randomly identify countries and 
governments and very publicly, go after them. The only mystery of our military 
and foreign policy since 2001 is in the minds of the American people, who do not 
understand why the war isn’t won yet, and why the enemy seems to be expanding, 
getting smarter, and hating us more.

Sun Tzu said, "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to 
be in peril." He was right about that – but in fact you wouldn’t know it from 
the obscene confidence and outright idiocy put out by the Pentagon, and eagerly 
embraced by two presidents, one a so-called conservative, the other, a left-wing 
socialist.

We – as conservatives – ought to care about getting back to an old kind of 
normal – not creating a new normal of unconstitutional government, unsupportable 
debt, and endless war. We should want victory in the "War on Terror" but 
understand that victory must include a return to small government republicanism. 
Sun Tzu wrote, "He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be 
victorious."

But as I said, those creating, pursuing, advertising and selling the so-called 
War on Terror have not read Sun Tzu, and cannot be bothered.

Von Clausewitz is another strategist we study in the military finishing schools. 
One thing Clausewitz knew, that conservatives also know – is that, "The first, 
the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and 
commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are 
embarking." But instead, we are still debating the question of "What is this war 
on terror?" More and more we are asking, why isn’t it working, and when will it end.

Instead of Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz our strategy has been more theatrics than 
tactics, and running on a script written by those who stand to benefit from more 
government, and more government spending, than those Americans who are 
fundamentally conservative and who in their hearts, do value the Constitution – 
which is to say – the majority of Americans.

 From a Pentagon standpoint, it was fortunate that the Pentagon was one of the 
9/11 targets. Had the Pentagon not been targeted, and had it emerged unscathed 
on 9/11, it is likely that serious questions would have been asked about why the 
premier and best-funded military, with the best and most highly funded 
intelligence agencies in the world, was a blind paralyzed sitting duck on 9/11.

Instead, no serious or probing questions were asked about the appropriateness of 
our massive military-industrial complex. After 9/11 the so-called conservatives 
in charge – instead of taking wise counsel – did what any decent Democrat would 
do. They threw unlimited piles of money at a largely undefined and misunderstood 
problem.

Some in the GOP are still wondering why the Tea Party movement evolved. Didn’t 
people already have a conservative political party representing their interests? 
Well, the GOP promotion of the war on terror using big contracts and bigger 
government, trampling the constitution, all in the name of fear and empire – 
none of this approach was conservative.

Beyond being anything but conservative, the war on terror as we have conducted 
it since 2001 is simply not succeeding. In many of our overseas battlefields, we 
are creating and growing new terrorists, and smarter terrorists. We are 
increasingly exposing our own weaknesses in terms of occupation and 
counterinsurgency, and even as we institutionally learn from our mistakes, it is 
always too slow, always after the fact.

We – as conservatives, no less – seem to be supporting a vague and extremely 
Clintonesque policy of global nation building. We keep hoping that putting 
another one of our crooked guys in charge of a country will work, and we keep 
hoping that military and economic blackmail can keep the locals in line. That’s 
just idiotic.

It may be that our military policy is not designed to reduce terror at all, but 
is instead simply designed to evolve hand-in-hand with the so-called "war on 
terror," in order to maximize the opportunity for growth of American 
intelligence and security institutions. Permanent institutional growth.

Many predictions about the next decade have been made in the past weeks. One 
thing not predicted for 2010 is a reduction of American forces, or fewer 
American interferences and entanglements overseas. No one is predicting the 
ending of America’s illegal wars, or even the ending of a front in just one of 
the illegal wars.

Curiously, government spokesmen are aware that this is exactly what Americans 
want, and are beginning to pander. Case in point is JCS Chairman Admiral Mullen 
on The Daily Show last month discussing how we are coming out of Iraq in 18 
months, and how the US military is 40% smaller than it was at the end of the 
Cold War.

Mullen represents his case well, but unfortunately he was lying. He is lying 
about leaving Iraq – even Obama has stated that a minimum of 50,000 American 
troops will permanently remain in that foreign country. He is also lying about 
the size of the military.

In 1988, about a year before the end of the Cold War, a Congressional Research 
Service chronology of military spending put the DoD take at $451 billion (in 
2005 dollars). In 2009, DoD got $10 billion more, with a budget of $460.5 
billion (in 2005 dollars). The real military budget in 2009 was larger, not 
smaller, than at the end of the Cold War. But there’s more, namely the modern 
habit of funding any actual wars the DoD may be fighting through separate 
supplemental Congressional appropriations and authorizations.

Admiral Mullen also mentioned on the Daily Show that our uniformed military was 
smaller today than at the end of the Cold War. It’s true, we do have about 750 
thousand fewer troops than we did at the end of the Cold War. However, for the 
past 20 years, we have been outsourcing all kinds of formerly uniformed 
specialties and subspecialities. As one conservative economist correctly wonders,

"…was [the outsourcing] really about saving money? Or was it a way to ramp up 
the effective size of the fighting force without having to institute a draft or 
some other means of increase the size of the military (e.g. increasing pay 
substantially)? And perhaps sending a few, more than a few actually, bucks in 
certain directions?"

The future – especially the future for people who love and value American 
liberty – is in danger. It is in danger in part because we did not pursue, and 
are not today pursuing, a conservative approach to reducing anti-American 
terrorism and ensuring the guilty were indeed punished for their acts.

After 9/11 – a ruthless, tragic, terrible event, burned into our minds and our 
hearts – the United States had alternatives. We could have, as we had done in so 
many other cases of terrorism, pursued the criminals through the system of law 
enforcement. This would have meant a slower process, a process that would have 
been less emotional and less political, and would have required international 
police and intelligence cooperation. After 9/11, we had the sympathy of the 
world, and strong offers and guarantees of their support. It would have taken 
time – although in retrospect, this approach would have taken far less time, 
less money and destroyed fewer lives and livelihoods than what we really did. A 
conservative approach would have saved trillions of dollars. It would have 
educated Americans on the rule of law and the Constitution, rather than blinding 
them to it. And a conservative approach, because it cares about history and 
culture and community, would have ensured that Americans more deeply understood 
terrorism, and how to prevent it. Instead, we are repeatedly lied to by our 
government, on everything, but particularly on the real lack of success, the 
real cost and the extreme risk of our ongoing and endless "War on Terror."

Rahm Emmanuel has famously said, "you never want to let a crisis go to waste," 
and he is right, from a government’s standpoint. I hope that from a 
conservative’s perspective, Rahm’s words are an abomination. But in fact, 
looking at the policies of the Bush and Cheney administration regarding 
terrorism, with Obama continuing them enthusiastically, I am beginning to have 
doubts as to whether conservatives in this country really understand what it 
means to be conservative.

Had our government not seized the opportunity that the 9/11 crisis presented, 
and had the Bush Administration spent that political capital on a serious legal 
and criminal approach to catching and punishing the 9/11 terrorists – by now, 
almost nine years later – in the very worst case scenario, we would be in the 
same place we are today. Lots of bad guys picked up, some convicted in trials, 
others held with trials pending. Certainly, many people would have been 
released, as we have done with a good number of those who had been held without 
charge or evidence in Guantanamo. Best case, this whole episode would be behind 
us, and the money not spent on security might have gone to reduce the deficit or 
support tax cuts.

Had we taken the conservative fork in the road back in 2001, we would not have 
enraged other nations, insulted entire cultures, violated our own Constitution 
and sacrificed on a bloody altar what we like to put forth as American honor. We 
would be living in a world where our 1.4 trillion-dollar debt ceiling could be 
reduced, not raised. We would be living in a world without an overgrown defense 
and intelligence structure, with no blurring of lines between civilian law 
enforcement and the military. We would be living in a world where, having not 
killed women and children, not having interfered with the domestic politics and 
trade policies of third-world countries in far away places, and having not 
destroyed our onetime reputation as a free nation – we would be clearly safer 
from terror aimed against us.

But the United States is led by a media and power elite that is, in fact, not 
conservative. It is instead vested in doing exactly what it has been doing, 
growing in power and increasing its take from the national till. For these 
agencies, the war on terror is working just fine.

How might we, as conservatives today, really begin to fight terrorism? First, 
get a Secretary of State who speaks for the founding father’s preferred policy 
of free trade with all and entangling alliances with none.

Second, if a secretary of war is required, appoint one who will make his sole 
mission the security of the United States, rather than the security and 
continued expansion of the defense industrial establishment.

Third, conservatives, of all people, have the responsibility to understand both 
rule of law, and to understand our own American history, both the good and the 
bad – and keep the light of freedom burning at home. This means we have to be 
leading the charge at home to reduce our illegal empire abroad for reasons both 
financial and constitutional.

Instead, of course, the Republican Party has become identified with big 
government, empire, excess spending, and overpriced and counterproductive 
defense strategy. As the American people wake up to this reality, they will 
naturally reject the philosophy that is behind the modern GOP approach.

If the GOP intends to remain relevant, it must deliver. The nearly decade-long 
experiment in government growth called "the war on terror" has been a cruel joke 
that history will rightfully blame on the Republican Party. It’s not working, 
and conservatives – as well as libertarians and independents and democrats – can 
all see that. But only old-style conservatives and libertarians are truly in a 
position to offer a reasonable alternative. And that alternative is to energize 
real conservatism in our defensive strategy and foreign affairs, and to 
rediscover the sound advice of Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, and more than ever, our 
founding fathers.

February 23, 2010

{LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF 
lieutenant colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective 
for MilitaryWeek.com, hosts the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs 
occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com and Liberty and Power ... Copyright © 2010 
Karen Kwiatkowski}


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