The merits of discretion: containment vs war

THIS WAS WRITTEN A LONG TIME AGO, FEBRUARY of 2003. I THINK I DID A DECENT JOB OF PREDICTING THE IRAQ DEBACLE.

It is my response to an email from another FUSN member "Pete". It is not a dialog, it is rather my commenting on parts of what he had written earlier.

Pete: I've noticed in the press and elsewhere articles promoting containment of Iraq as a viable and preferable alternative to war. In these articles I notice what seems to be the assumption that somehow containment will be inexpensive (relative to war) in terms of cash and lives. I think the assumption is false.

Bart: And your evidence for that is what follows in your email? The summary of my rebuttal is that you have looked at examples of containment that had costs (without adequately considering the alternatives in those cases), and that you have not looked at examples where war was chosen instead of containment to show that those cases turned out better. What you have successfully supported, I believe, is the unremarkable conclusion that containment is not free in cash or in risk. OK, on to the specifics.


Pete: The so-called "Cold" War is often presented as a successful containment ofthe USSR and China.

Bart: I wonder what theory you have as to the alternatives we had to containment of the USSR and China. You mentioned in an earlier email appeasement of Stalin at the end of WWII. Without the massive use of nuclear weapons (which we didn't have in quantity in 1946-47), I don't see how the western Allies could have liberated eastern Europe from the USSR. The USSR at the end of WWII had a huge battle-hardened army with more battlefield experience than the west did. The eastern front of WWII was the main show, with some 80% of Germany's army committed there for most of the war. The US/UK invasion and liberation of France was small potatoes in comparison. As for China, I don't think there was any remotely feasible military plan to invade and occupy that huge nation in 1949 when the Communists took over. Once again, nuclear weapons might have worked, but would you really say that communist China was so bad that we needed to engage in nuclear annihilation to prevent it? I hope not!


Pete: Perhaps we went about it wrong, but 100,000 Americans died in the "Cold"War (Vietnam and Korea), and millions of non-Americans died in proxy wars which took place mostly in the Third World (including Vietnam & Korea). The"Cold" War should really be called World War III.
Bart: You have the wrong yardstick here. You shouldn't be evaluating the deaths in the cold war relative to an ideal value of zero, but against deaths in other recent periods of history of similar length. And by that measure the Cold War was pretty good -- exceptionally good for the industrialized countries. Most of those proxy wars were bound to happen anyway, as they were local conflicts that the superpowers got involved with (though admittedly made more deadly as a result). Sometimes Third World nations could get some good things as the US and USSR competed to woo their allegiance. With no counterbalancing power to the US, such deals are not available today.


Pete: The Vietnam War was settled by our defeat, but the Korean war has never been settled and the Gulf War has not been settled. Both are cease-fires and both remain dangerous flash-points. North Korea has been a dangerous flash-point for 50 years.

Bart: Well, a dangerous flash point that flashes is called a war. If it doesn't flash (as it hasn't yet) it's not a war. How is an actual war better than a potential war? How do you think we should have solved theNorth Korea situation? A huge conventional effort, or nuclear weapons against the Chinese army? If it worked, we would have been left with a non-communist united Korea facing China across a border farther north, resulting in a different flash point. Or perhaps nuclear conquest/annihilation of China?


Pete: Iraq and North Korea, while currently contained, are active in the support of terrorism, something which certainly reduces the effectiveness of their containment.

Bart: I hate to offend anyone's sensibilities, but terrorism (as practiced so far, i.e. without nuclear explosions) is trivial compared to war. That we consider 9/11 such a big deal is due to the luxury of an America that has known no war on its soil for 130-odd years, and seems to think the lives of swarthy foreigners are worth virtually nothing. Terrorism is a battle fought more in hearts and minds than anywhere else, and while the conquest of Iraq may remove one small and tentative means of support for terrorism, the effect on hearts and minds of the world's Muslims will be far worse. If we want to keep nuclear bombs out of the hands of terrorists, we could do that directly (offer a million dollars for every ounce of fissile material we can buy covertly? :-)) much more effectively than by conquering a nation that doesn't have nuclear material but is trying to get some and (conceivably) might give it to terrorists.


Pete: Our containment of the USSR, and the way in which we outspent them and drove them to collapse, has had one of those unintended side effects: knowledge and materiel for the world's worst weapons showed up almost immediately on, so to speak, e-Bay.

Bart: I know conservatives argue that the US outspending of the USSR led to its collapse, but I believe the much stronger argument is that the collapse was inevitable and already in motion before the Reagan buildup, which served no useful purpose whatsoever and made our national debt soar. Aside from incredibly flimsy theories of nuclear "escalation dominance", there was no additional military threat that the Reagan buildup posed to the USSR.


Pete: Our support for Afghanistan in its fight against the USSR invasion culminated in the Taliban and Osama. That's an unintended consequence if Iever saw one.

Bart: Well, which side are you arguing? You generally seem to be saying that military action to resolve a situation is better than containment. So in the case of Aghanistan, we used military action (through proxies) to drive the Soviets out. And we got a very bad result. That's an argument that containment would have been better.


Pete: Based on the modern history of containment, containment of Iraq won't be cheap in lives or cash. In some of the Middle East newspapers that I read, it has been pointed out that the constant presence in the Middle East of those who have contained Iraq up to now is used as a rallying point by the same Arab regimes who sponsor terrorism and preach (from their state supported Islamic pulpits) death to America and death to Israel.

Bart: The alternative is the US occupation of all of Iraq, followed by what will be widely perceived as a puppet regime of the US. That sounds like a far more dangerous rallying point than forces limited to bases who have been invited there by the local governments. What sort of consequences do we foresee when the US army is given the task of suppressing fundamentalist Islamic movements that spring up across conquered Iraq?


Pete: Containment is not only not a silver bullet, it could be a death warrant for millions.

Bart: Could be, could be, could be. Odds favor the opposite conclusion. I'm trying to imagine the world you would like to create with our military intervention. It sounds like one where countries that oppose the US (perhaps by allowing terrorists to operate from their soil) must be conquered by military force. That sounds like a world-wide American empire to me. Such an empire engenders hostility and resentment, leading to large expenditures for suppression of rebellion, and ultimately the impoverishment of the empire. Most of us on moral grounds also prefer self-determination to conquest.