A Clear Vision of the Military
Great Fred Kaplan writeup on the Department of Defense now making nation-building activities as "a core U.S. military mission." But as Kaplan notes, it's a commitment about as deep as the peice of paper the directive was issued on. To see why, let's revisit some quotes from the guy sitting in the Oval Office:
The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place....
If we don't have a clear vision of the military, if we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that.
I wouldn't have sent troops to Haiti. I didn't think it was a mission worthwhile. It was a nation building mission, and it was not very successful. It cost us billions, a couple billions of dollars, and I'm not so sure democracy is any better off in Haiti than it was before.
...
I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops.
And what of Bush's more present view on the subject? Let's cut to George's February 2004 interview with Tim Russert:
Russert: You do seem to have changed your mind from the 2000 campaign. In a debate, you said, "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called 'nation-building.'"President Bush: Yeah.
Russert: We clearly are involved in nation-building.
President Bush: Right. And I also said ? let me put it in context. I'm not suggesting you're pulling one of these Washington tricks where you leave half the equation out.
But I did say also that our troops must be trained and prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, make peace more possible. And our troops were trained to fight and win war, and we did, and a second phase of the war is now going on. The first phase, of course, was the Tommy Franks troop movement.
Russert: But this is nation-building.
President Bush: Well, it is. That's right, but we're also fighting a war so that they can build a nation. And [crosstalk] the war is against terrorists and disgruntled Baathists who are saying we had it good in the past, and therefore we don't want this new society to spring up because they have no faith in democracy, and the terrorists who want to stop the advance of freedom.
And if I might, people say to me, ?OK, you made a judgment as to how to secure America for the short term with the Taliban and with Saddam Hussein, and with staying on the hunt for al-Qaida, but what about the long term?? Which is a legitimate question. And the best way to secure America for the long term is to promote freedom and a free society and to encourage democracy.
And we?re doing so in a part of the world where people say it can't happen, but the long-term vision and the long-term hope is ? and I believe it's going to happen ? is that a free Iraq will help change the Middle East. You may have heard me say we have a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. It's because I believe so strongly that freedom is etched in everybody's heart ? I believe that ? and I believe this country must continue to lead.
In short, the President simply doesn't believe in the central mission of the United States Military. He's willing to let the label of nation-building be used, but the image he's painting in his mind is that it's "war." This is the same man who came to Congress, hat in hand, for $87 million to rebuild Iraq with newer and better schools, post offices, and firehouses than you'd ever find in the United States. Yet he still views the activities in Iraq in terms of guns pointed at others. No wonder the "urgent requests" for reconstruction funds have gone unspent in Iraq ... still.
This is the central problem with Bush's current Iraq policy. Michael Crowley has a rather humorous TNR column about the classification of Dems on Iraq (from Rapidus Exitus to Hawkus Withdrawlus to DailyKos Pleaseasaurus). Among those classifications are those more interested in fighting the issue before us in 2002 instead of the one before us now. The problem before us now is that the President isn't in synch with the military on what constitutes a core mission. If it were a matter of where American guns were aimed, or a matter of us winning a good old fashioned shooting war, I'd have far less doubts about this administration (or any other) succeeding.
But asking George Bush to successfully see a nation-building exercise through to conclusion is like asking the Special Ed student to finish your Calculus homework. And I'm starting to wonder if that assessment isn't too harsh on Special Ed students.