Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country (21 page)

The region derived its original strategic significance from the presence of valuable resources (primarily but not exclusively oil) and the crucial transit routes (sea-lanes and pipelines) necessary to transport those resources once extracted. Although competition among great and middle-sized powers first drew in the United States, well before 9/11 Washington had found new grounds for considering the GME important. Resources remained a key consideration, but so did the perception that the region had become an incubator of radicalism and a source of instability. Violence joined oil as the GME’s principal export.

In response, beginning with the Carter administration, the United States embarked on a series of experiments, hoping to devise ways of suppressing violent radicalism while fostering pro-Western stability. The implications of these experiments for the U.S. military have been almost entirely unhappy.

For Americans in uniform, the Greater Middle East now became the primary zone of conflict, both active and prospective. Between 1945 and 1980, U.S. forces suffered virtually no casualties in the GME due to hostile action. During the 1980s, that changed. Since 1990, U.S. forces have suffered virtually no casualties
outside
that region.

For bureaucracies, of course, shifting priorities are a godsend, offering opportunities to expand. The Pentagon welcomed the discovery—or invention—of the Greater Middle East, rife with potential for justifying the creation of new programs, offices, weaponry, and commands. The armed forces wasted little time in seizing those opportunities.

Until the 1980s, in the pecking order of Pentagon regional headquarters, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) had ranked first, with U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) not far behind. As senior American proconsul in Europe, the four-star EUCOM commander general wore a second hat. He was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), as splendid a title as the military world has ever conferred.

In those days, the Pentagon had not even bothered to create a command for the Greater Middle East. The SACEUR attended to the region in his spare moments. Today, to manage its sundry activities in the Islamic world, the Pentagon maintains two regional headquarters: U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Back at his headquarters in Belgium, a U.S. officer still carries the title SACEUR, but he no longer reigns supreme over anything. Indeed, during the past three decades, the U.S. forces at his disposal have shrunk by 80 percent. Many of those that remain rotate back and forth between training bases in Germany or Italy and theaters like Afghanistan where the real action occurs, the SACEUR functioning less as their commander than their landlord.
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As the SACEUR keeps up appearances while presiding over his dwindling domain, the commanders of CENTCOM and AFRICOM increasingly exercise the sort of authority that once was SACEUR’s. Although he may still live in a fancy house, no one much cares what the SACEUR has to say. England’s queen and Japan’s emperor might empathize.

That the Pentagon should divvy up the Greater Middle East, delineating the jurisdiction of adjacent proconsulates, was entirely consistent with standard U.S. military practice. Ever since World War II, the Pentagon has made a habit of overlaying a U.S. military map on the world’s political map. Subdividing the globe into right-sized compartments facilitated the effective projection of U.S. might—so at least the national security establishment came to believe. In Washington, this belief achieved canonical status, no more subject to question than the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility or the Baptist belief in scriptural inerrancy. The emergence of CENTCOM and AFRICOM as important regional commands testified to the persistence of this conviction.

Created in 1983, U.S. Central Command today presides over an “area of responsibility” encompassing twenty nations, as it seeks to “provide a stronger, more lasting solution in the region.” With this goal in mind, CENTCOM—according to its mission statement—“promotes cooperation among nations, responds to crises, and deters or defeats state and nonstate aggression, and supports development and, when necessary, reconstruction in order to establish the conditions for regional security, stability, and prosperity.”
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Progress toward achieving these ambitious goals remains elusive. General James Mattis, CENTCOM commander in 2012, opened his annual “Posture Statement” with this admission: “Change is the only constant and surprise continues to be the dominant force in [a] region [plagued by] poor governance, a large youth demographic bulge and insufficient economic opportunity, and the social construct between governments and their people breaking down in numerous places.” Making matters worse, Mattis conceded that “the lack of a sustainable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a preeminent flame that keeps the pot boiling in the Middle East.” Expressing regret that 612 U.S. troops had been killed under his command, along with another 8,251 wounded, he consoled himself with the thought that combat was producing “a generation of elite leaders,” without, however, venturing to say what exactly such sacrifices had accomplished. Still, the general had no doubt that “persistent military engagement” would enable CENTCOM “to protect vital interests, prevent future conflict, ensure access in the event of a crisis and invest in future regional security.” The key to success lay in trying harder, sending more U.S. troops on more missions to more places. For General Mattis, light eternally glimmered at the end of CENTCOM’s tunnel.

AFRICOM, created in 2007 and encompassing fifty-four countries, emphasizes a similar can-do spirit. According to a “Failed States Index” cited by General Carter Ham, in his 2012 commander’s “Posture Statement,” Africa is home to fourteen of the world’s twenty weakest states. Governments across the continent “lack the capacity or political will to effectively address demographic, political, social, and economic challenges, including population growth, rapid urbanization, persistent internal conflicts, widening income inequality, burgeoning political demands, widespread disease, and increasing demands for essential resources.” But General Ham, like General Mattis, professed optimism. “Through sustained engagement,” AFRICOM was going “to create a security environment that promotes stability, improved governance, and continued development.”
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From the general’s lips to God’s ears, one might respond. In the face of such grandiose statements, a cynic might suggest that
engagement
is a euphemism, properly translated as “preparing for war”—extended reconnaissance operations during which U.S. forces familiarize themselves with trouble spots that may someday become the site of shoot-to-kill “contingency operations.” A cynic might also note that when engagement produces results other than those promised, the Pentagon’s reflexive response is not to rethink the enterprise but to subdivide the world further. Thus do new commands proliferate, providing employment for more generals and admirals managing more engagement programs, while back home the Pentagon creates offices to provide oversight and support. Small wonder that “the Pentagon” has long since outgrown the Pentagon.

In the years ahead, unless the Greater Middle East suddenly becomes a garden of peace and goodwill, we can no doubt look forward to AFRICOM dividing into northern (mostly Muslim) and southern (mostly not) components, with CENTCOM splitting into a Near East Command (centered on the Persian Gulf) and a Southwest Asia Command (centered on the Durand Line separating Afghanistan and Pakistan). What we cannot look forward to is anyone questioning the sense of the basic endeavor. In its quest to control an unruly world, the Pentagon—acting in the name of the American people—slices and dices that world into smaller and smaller segments, while neglecting to assess the actual costs and benefits of the persistent meddling that it terms engagement. In this way, the regionalization of U.S. military policy serves to perpetuate sterile thinking.

OPERATIONAL PURPOSE: MIMICKING ISRAEL

Peace
means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for
dominance
, quiescence defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.

In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation’s reigning definition of peace shapes its proclivity to use force. A government committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ force only as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view—or beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere at least pretended to do so.

A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, it has become America’s as well. As a consequence, U.S. national security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. In employing armed force, decision makers in Washington (regardless of party) claim the sort of prerogatives long exercised by decision makers in Jerusalem (regardless of party). Although this “Israelification” of U.S. policy may have proven beneficial for Israel, it has not been good for the United States, nor will it be.

Credit Israeli statesmen with this much: they express openly views that American statesmen hide behind clouds of obfuscation. Here, for example, is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in June 2009 describing what he called his “vision of peace”: “If we get a guarantee of demilitarization … we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state.”
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Now, the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can annoy Israel, though not destroy it or even do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians could possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu’s perspective, “real peace” becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forgo even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth; that in a nutshell describes the Israeli prime minister’s conception of peace.

Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect long-standing Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute and assured.
Security
thus defined requires not military advantage but military supremacy.

Given the importance that Israel attributes to security, anything that threatens it requires anticipatory action, the earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one example. Israel’s destruction of a putative Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 provides a second; its 2013 attack on a Syrian convoy allegedly delivering weapons to Hezbollah offers a third.

Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because its leader, the blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a big Israeli payoff. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed; their British and French allies caved in the face of pressure imposed by an angry President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Israel had no choice but to follow suit. In 1967, Israelis hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences. Subjugating a substantial and fast-growing Palestinian population that Israel could neither assimilate nor eliminate imposed heavy burdens on the victors.

Adherence to this knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the approach has thus far succeeded in preserving (and even expanding) the Jewish state: more than sixty years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept, nasty as it may be, has succeeded.

What’s hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel’s path. A partial explanation may lie with the rightward tilt of American politics that began in the late 1970s, affecting the way both Republicans and Democrats have approached national security ever since. Among hawks in both parties, Israel’s kick-ass pugnacity struck a chord. As a political posture, it can also win votes, as it did so memorably for Ronald Reagan, campaigning for the presidency back in 1980, in the midst of the Iran hostage crisis. As a presidential candidate, Reagan not only promised unstinting support for Israel but also projected a “take no guff” attitude that came right out of that country’s political playbook. The contrast with Jimmy Carter, who was seemingly taking a lot of guff from abroad, could hardly have seemed starker. That Reagan proceeded to trounce Carter was a lesson not lost on candidates in subsequent elections.

Over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter century, following in Israel’s path describes precisely what Washington has done. A quest for global military dominance, pursued in the name of peace, and a proclivity for preemption, justified as essential to self-defense, pretty much sums up America’s present-day MO.

Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. The United States is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy within several thousand miles of its borders (unless you count the Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Autocrats). Americans have choices that Israelis do not. Yet in disregarding those choices, the United States stumbled willy-nilly into an Israel-style condition of perpetual war—with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic expectations that adversaries and would-be adversaries will comply with Washington’s demands for submission.

Israelification got its kick-start with George H. W. Bush’s Operation Desert Storm, that triumphal Hundred Hour War likened at the time to Israel’s triumphal Six Day War. As we have noted, that victory fostered illusions of the United States exercising perpetually and on a global scale military primacy comparable to what Israel has enjoyed regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that it would settle for nothing less than what it termed
full spectrum dominance.