To be at war or not to be at war

It is time for a reality check for both Democrats and Republicans alike. Humans are a specie that makes war on its own kind and while we live in relative safety and with a standard of ethics that distains killing, we live in a world that does not. The defining measure for the future isn’t just addressing the fact that we are overpopulating the planet and despoiling the landscape — we have not learned how to live in peace either at home or abroad. The question is: Can we — and whether or not we believe we can — how are we to proceed in foreign affairs?

When writing about the social contract in the 17th century, the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes had some rather brutish things to say about human nature. Man, he postulated, when found in a state of nature, sees himself as having a right to everything in the world and as such is in a perpetual “war of all against all.” To avoid this, Hobbes felt each individual needed to make a contract with a protector (the state); in Hobbes’s case, a monarch. The individual would agree not to kill his neighbor and the monarch would protect them both.

{mosads}Modern bioethicists have documented the brutality of one class, tribe, village, ethnic group, race, nation against another. Citations are made indicating how this war of “all against all” has not abated. Without even addressing the atrocities of Nazi Germany or the repression of the Stalinist Soviet Union, millions were killed in genocidal wars in Cambodia during the 1970s, in Bangladesh in 1971 and the over 2.5 million were killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1998, to mention only a few.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, when President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated a settlement between the Russians and Japanese and declared the U.S. a world power, the United States has put its political and economic system forward as a “beacon of light,” as an open society where access to power was based on popular support and merit and the economy was freely competitive.

Since no one has changed human nature, control of that system has been shifting one way or the other as the political and economic forces within it vied for “their right to have everything.” The leadership role that the U.S. has claimed for itself is unfortunately impacted by the shifting forces within our own system at a time when other brutish nations and movements have emerged in the post-Cold War era. There is no question that militant Islamists, Russian autocrats or Chinese Imperialists pose a threat to our system of government. The questions iare how much, and when are those threats actionable?

We are currently faced with the dichotomy in the aftermath of having overrreacted to an act of terror in 2001 and being primarily responsible for creating the political chaos in an important part of the world. The U.S. leadership change in 2008 brought hope and expectation that we could withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, while the world leadership role required that we fix or “stabilize” the mess we had created. You can hate President George W. Bush for what he did and how he did it, but you can’t disavow the fact that he represented our country’s government. It likens itself to the old cliche: “You broke it, you bought it.”

Few, if any, would argue that the Islamists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) variety are not brutish and despicable. Those charged with homeland security are convinced that some of them might find their way back to Europe or America. There are even reports that they can transport weapons of mass destruction (mostly in the form of biological weapons) or simply bring the software instructions for local assembly with accessible materials.

Faced with a collapsing government and military in Iraq, President Obama was trapped by an unacceptable outcome. The excuse of humanitarian action to secure Americans in the western part of Iraq gave sufficient cover to intercede. There may well be an exit strategy that forces all of the Arab stakeholders to craft a solution. Nothing the U.S. comes up with has made sense and Obama’s extending warfare into Syria is simply proof positive that both Democrats and Republicans can make misjudgments.

The fundamental problem is the imbalance within our government with those desiring to have it all and see military solutions as the answer to all world leadership issues; those who are not inclined militarily but have no answers or solutions for the U.S. leadership role; and those outside the decision-making process who simply want to turn their backs on a bad chapter in our history. The myopia, ignorance or naivete on all sides has deprived the country of thinking broadly with imagination and creativity.

Ironically, if it should happen that the Iranians do settle with the U.S. and its allies over its nuclear ambitions, the threat of a Shiite juggernaut in the region may just be the exogenous event that crystallizes Sunni nations into supporting a more stable and sane status in the great expanse from Pakistan to Tunisia that encompasses their worshippers. Then Sunni and Shiites can all set about warring with one another without us. In the meanwhile, if U.S. policymakers possess anything that represents a long view, they will set about making the U.S. a leader in renewable energy and finding a cure for the specie’s propensity to overpopulate and despoil its surroundings.

Russell is managing director of Cove Hill Advisory Services.