Time for a Peace Dividend

One reason why the 1990s were a period of great prosperity was the peace dividend, the reduction in government spending resulting from the end of the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. was able to greatly reduce military spending. Freeing up billions of dollars for private sector investment and spending allowed the civilian economy to prosper.

A major reason why the U.S. now burdens under enormous deficits is the ill-conceived war in Iraq, which caused the federal budget's surplus at the end of the Clinton Presidency to go negative to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars during the George W. Bush Presidency. The war in Iraq is winding down. But military spending hasn't abated significantly because of the war in Afghanistan.

The President is wrestling with the problem of increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. While much has been leaked to the press about this supposedly secret issue, not enough has been leaked to justify stepping up the war. There has been no articulation of an achievable goal. Lasting military victory is essentially impossible. Whatever Allied troops may accomplish at any location where they are concentrated, the Taliban can always retreat into Pakistan (our ally, as it were), where they will receive sanctuary and succor. Then, when rested, resupplied and reinforced, they can probe the endlessly snarled and remote Pakistan-Afghanistan border until they find a weak spot and return to fight another day. A similar strategy of fighting and then retreating into safehavens was used by Afghan mujahideen guerillas in the 1980s to fight and eventually defeat a Soviet force much larger and nastier than the current Allied force. How could an even enlarged Allied force, with its current rules of engagement, inflict lasting defeat on the Taliban?

Politically, the Bush II administration's guy in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, is rapidly losing any legitimacy as a result of rampant voting fraud in the recent Afghan elections. If even half of the allegations about Karzai's camp are accurate, one would have to conclude that, in a head-to-head election, Karzai could have beaten Richard Daley the elder by a landslide. Nation building in Iraq had a degree of success only because the Shiite majority was able to participate in largely fair elections. We now have a morass in Afghanistan that brings to mind the Diem brothers, whose corrupt rule of Vietnam was brought to an end by their U.S.-approved assassination in 1963.

The Taliban are primarily Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. In essence, the U.S. and its allies are very close to fighting a 19th century colonial war, trying to suppress the local populace and install a friendly government that would be perceived as a puppet regime. The experience of the erstwhile European colonial powers teaches that this isn't a winning strategy.

The U.S. has no vital national interest in conquering the Pashtun or the Taliban. We should work toward a negotiated resolution with Taliban leaders in which they are made to understand that harboring Al Queda will bring a robust U.S. military response, and ejecting Al Queda from its Pakistani sanctuaries will bring a meaningful flow of dollars. That wouldn't be pretty, but it's how we attained--rather, bought--peace in Iraq. A number of Sunni and Shiite leaders in Iraq were the beneficiaries of U.S. payments. They called off the young men from their tribes and assisted Allied intelligence in identifying Al Queda personnel. Al Queda was suppressed to a large degree, and the ensuing drop in violence gave the U.S. political cover to withdraw its troops from combat operations.

Going back in time, we did the same thing in the 1970s. For the last 30 or so years, Egypt has been the recipient of billions of dollars of U.S. aid. The sole--repeat, sole--reason for this aid was Egypt's willingness to sign a peace treaty with Israel. We're paying the Egyptians to refrain from burning off ammo in Israel's direction. Why not pay the Taliban to stop shooting at American personnel?

America needs a peace dividend. The costs of economic stimulus, health care reform, Social Security and Medicare loom more than ever before. There are many good reasons aside from financial cost to wind down the Afghan war. But in a time of economic distress and uncertain prospects for the future, ending an increasingly unpopular war would not only be the right thing to do, it would probably be a fiscally smart thing to do.

Presidents haven't suffered politically for taking America out of military morasses. Ronald Reagan's standing was hardly damaged at all by his 1983 decision to withdraw U.S. troops from hopeless entanglement in Lebanon. Bill Clinton's legacy suffered no lasting tarnish from his decision to pull U.S. forces out of the chaos in Somalia. Richard Nixon's tarnished legacy was probably improved by his decision to sign a peace treaty with North Vietnam, even though doing so made an eventual North Vietnamese victory in the South predictable. Dwight Eisenhower was elected on his promise to negotiate an end to the stalemated fighting in Korea. Barack Obama doesn't yet bear the blame for America's mistakes in Afghanistan and could look presidential by folding a bad hand.

Putin's March Through Georgia: There Goes the Peace Dividend

The more Russia promises to cease firing and stand down, the farther Soviet forces advance into Georgia. Those forces bear the markings of the Russian Federation. But there's no doubt they represent an attempt to revive the Soviet Union, a confederation consisting of Russia as the Sun and surrounding "nations" as satellites.

It's difficult to predict when Soviet forces might pull back. They continue aggressive operations, destroying Georgian munitions, transportation facilities and military equipment. This, by any reasonable definition, constitutes the prosecution of war. Sure, Russian President Medvedev signed a truce agreement today (8/16/08). But is an agreement truly binding when the butler signs it? The Big Cheese (that Putin fellow) doesn't seem to think so.

Officials in Washington and Paris sputter their outrage. Putin is probably snickering into his sleeve. The Poles are somewhat more pragmatic, coincidentally signing up for some missile defense right after Soviet tanks again roll across a sovereign border. Poland seems to have learned from hard experience what works and what doesn't.

In the fading light of his lame-duckness, President George W. Bush has been exquisitely hoisted on his own petard. He chose Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili as an ally. That choice was, to say the least, a misjudgment. It would probably pay off handsomely to play poker with Saakashvili. He allowed himself to be snooked by South Ossetian separatists firing off a few artillery rounds into launching the Georgian military at Ossetian territory occupied by Soviet troops. What on Earth was Saakashvili thinking? Did he expect the Soviets to apologetically retreat? Even loonier, did he think the U.S. would send in military support? Never in the 45-year Cold War were U.S. troops ordered to make a direct attack on Soviet troops. What did Saakashvili think was so golden about his rear end that U.S. military personnel would be called upon to protect it?

But President George W. Bush's miscalculations didn't stop with a bad bet on Saakashvili. His little adventure in Iraq burned out U.S. military strength and U.S. goodwill in Europe. Both are badly needed in the current confrontation with the Soviets, who really do have weapons of mass destruction. But our military can't fight another war right now. And today's Western European leaders make Neville Chamberlain look like the picture of fortitude. At least Chamberlain understood that the little man with the funny moustache was a serious threat and authorized faster rearmament of Britain's military, including the construction of the Spitfire (a fighter plane that became the darling of the Royal Air Force during WWII).

That takes us to the point of this blog. The resurgence of the Soviet Union will lead to increased U.S. military spending. It doesn't matter who wins the Presidential election in the fall. John McCain won't back down from a Soviet threat. Barack Obama can't afford to let himself appear weak in foreign affairs, lest he prove the Republican charge and lest he weaken America's ties with energy producing former Soviet satellite states in Central Asia and with newly democratized nations in Eastern Europe (who are our best friends in Europe). The next president will have to deal with the central tenet of Soviet foreign policy: might makes right. W is very weak right now, and Putin feels like he has a free hand to march through Georgia. The U.S. won the first Cold War without having a face-to-face shootout with the Soviets because American military capabilities were always enough to prevail. To hold the Soviets in check now, the U.S. will have to have comparable capabilities. That will be expensive.

From an economic standpoint, that means greater U.S. military spending, higher taxes and a larger federal deficit. Other needs--universal health insurance, fixing Social Security and Medicare, investment in alternative energy, protection of the environment--are likely to diminish in importance. Perversely, the dollar may strengthen. After all, who wants invest in a Europe threatened by thousands of Soviet tanks--or even just the cutoff of Soviet natural gas? But the peace dividend--that sharp drop off in military spending that allowed President Clinton to reduce federal spending and balance the budget--is gone, gone, gone. Even if U.S. military involvement in Iraq decreases, dollars saved from that misadventure will be needed to corral the Soviet bear. And those savings won't be enough to pay for the hardware and technology needed to counter the Soviet ability to project strength almost anywhere on the globe.

Obviously, America and Americans don't want a confrontation with the Soviets. We have enough problems. But this problem has been brewing for a long time and will be with us for a long time. Vladimir Putin ain't going anywhere any time soon, whatever democratic processes Russia may have. Russia has become increasingly defensive and even paranoid as the U.S. has co-opted many of the former Soviet satellite nations into becoming U.S. allies. If Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and all of Central America signed up to become Russian allies, the U.S. would feel defensive too. The wounded Russian bear is snarling and lashing back. It would be inconceivable for the U.S. to try to kill the bear, but it cannot let it run loose either. It must contain the bear, and that will cost a pretty penny for a long time to come.