What gives us (or any nation) the right to invade a sovereign nation and replace their system of government with one that we find more acceptable? While it may be true that it ‘secures our national interest’, that hardly makes such a thing right. There are many other things that ‘secure our national interest’ that we deplore and refuse to take part in.

Also, in the end, it hurts us. Our interventionist wars have been responsible for much of our deficit spending, as well as loss of civil liberties. And as David said above, our presence as an occupying force only serves to inflame resentment and create opportunity for retaliation.

It is not our place to transform the region into something resembling the developed world, and it would do our nation much good to end the policy of preemptive wars.

I also wish that more photos of injured American soldiers are published so that ‘we the people’ can decide for ourselves.

http://wp.me/paMh2-NB

So, David, do you think that our large, and ever-increasing, commitment to central Asia is justified, particularly from a realist cost-benefit perspective? I think your last paragraph summarizes the bulk of post-WW II and post-Cold War American Foreign policy. Our overseas ventures for dubious reasons seems to be our tendency. Personally, I’m finding such justification very difficult.

One major cost that I haven’t touched on much, but many have, is the time problem. If we honestly want to transform an entire region from pre-modern standards to something resembling the developed world, we will have to be prepared to spend an enormous amount of time there. It will take more time than Obama’s tenure and maybe even the next president. It just seems to me like too ambitious a plan to justify such a huge political, economic, and human cost.

First of all, I agree with most of your analysis.

September 11 caused a shift – temporary, I hope – in the counter-terrorist paradigm from criminal to warfare. In the shadow of those attacks, people lost faith in the ability of law enforcement approaches to prevent future attacks, and looked to aggressive war to preempt future attacks. This only made sense in the irrationality of the period. With emotions cooled, I think we can clearly see that this approach does not make us any safer.

It is utterly impossible to hunt down and kill, incarcerate, incapacitate, or convert anyone who would want to commit a terrorist attack against the US. There are millions of those people who would perpetrate such attacks if given the opportunity. The much more sensible approach is to deny them those opportunities.

What happened in Iraq is a great example of this happening. Thousands (millions?) of Iraqis held enormous resentment for the United States as a result of sanctions, historical US support for Iran, the Gulf War, no fly zone patrols, US troops in Saudi Arabia, and US support for Israel. Weapons and explosives were widely available to those angry people. If given the opportunity, many of those angry people would probably have lashed out against the US. But thousands of miles, security barriers, limited resources, and other factors prevented any Iraqis from attacking the US. When we invaded and occupied the country, though, not only did we inflame already existing resentment, we also provided lots of opportunities.

Before the occupation, the opportunities for an Iraqi-based terrorist attack were extremely limited and well-guarded. During the occupation, every American soldier presented an opportunity for retaliation. Increasing the opportunities increased the instances of attacks against US interests.

Eventually I think we will come back around to focusing on opportunities. We will get over the delusion that preemption makes us safer. The intoxicating thing about that delusion, though, is that it is taking decisive action. It is very Bush and very American. Americans prefer to ride out and meet the threat rather than to play defense.