Playing by America’s Rules

By WANG YOUFEN

Playing by America’s Rules

U.S. author explores the ideology behind the United States’need to maintain its dominant global position

By WANG YOUFEN

Facing off against U.S. political and military players may not bode well for one’s future, but criticizing and writing about powerful forces sometimes does. Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University,has published several books critical of U.S.foreign and defense policies that have captivated readers around the world in recent years. For his latest book,Washington Rules∶America’s Path to Permanent War, CNN hailed Bacevich as a leading voice among anti-war critics. A Chinese language version of the book was released earlier this year.

As the book points out, U.S. national security policy since the 1950s boils down to what Bacevich calls the Washington rules, a consensus in Washington consisting of two components: the American credo and the sacred trinity. The American credo, Bacevich says, “summons the United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.” To ensure world peace and order, the sacred trinity “requires the United States to maintain a global military presence, to con fi gure its armed forces for global power projection,and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism.” The two are mutually supplementary,one de fi ning purpose and the other de fi ning practice.

Origins

In analyzing the evolution of the Washington rules, Bacevich writes, “Prior to World War II, Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism... In the wake of World War II,that changed. An af fi nity for military might emerge as central to the American identity.”

Bacevich singles out publishing magnate Henry R. Luce for initiating this change and introducing the concept of an American century. Writing inLifemagazine in 1941, Luce exhorted his countrymen to “accept wholeheartedly our duty to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence for such purposes as we see fi t and by such means as we see fi t.” His manifesto has exerted a profound in fl uence—and more importantly, his conception of an America Age found strong support in Washington.

Among the creators of the sacred trinity,two men stand out—Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961; and Curtis LeMay, the four-star general in charge of the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 1948 to 1957. The CIA and SAC wielded power beyond their mandates. Besides conducting espionage, the CIA stationed operatives worldwide engaged in disseminating misinformation, bribery, sabotage and assassinations to influence politics in other countries. LeMay transformed the SAC into a global nuclear strike force capable of destroying not only the Soviet Union, but the entire Communist world many times over.

Every U.S. president since Harry Truman in 1945, Republicans and Democrats alike,has flaunted the policy differences they’ve shared with their domestic political rivals or predecessors, but none has attempted to depart from the Washington rules. Bacevich writes, “to cast doubts on the principles of global presence, power projection, and interventionism, as Republican Congressman Ron Paul (who advocates limited government and opposes intervention abroad) and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich(who opposes using force as a tool for foreign policy) did during the 2008 presidential primaries, is to mark oneself as an oddball or eccentric...certainly not someone suitable for holding national office.” Both Paul and Kucinich are among the few U.S. politicians against U.S. armed intervention in Libya.

Unchallenged and outdated

With the exception of the Viet Nam War,the Washington rules have been met with little resistance at the grass-roots level. Only 15 years after that war, which shook the rules to their foundation, the American credo and sacred trinity were fully restored. This was achieved, Bacevich says, by identifying a scapegoat, with liberals, academics and“biased media” bearing much of the blame.Then a plan was hatched to look for suitable persons to reverse the war’s apparent verdict.The result was the publication ofThe Viet Nam Legacy∶ The War, American Society,and the Future of American Foreign Policy.This book was conceived under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations, a highly influential research institution, think tank and publisher that provides a forum for the discussion of world issues and foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. The 24 contributors were all-white,all-male, and all except two were Americans.They included, Bacevich observes, namebrand politicians, once-and-future highranking of fi cials, well-known academics and prominent journalists. All being “respectable and eminently reliable” persons, they could be counted on to con fi ne their disagreements to matters where disagreement was deemed permissible.

The demise of the Soviet Union and the uni fi cation of Europe in the early 1990s would have logically made the Washington rules obsolete. But there has been little change—troops still occupy bases in Europe,Japan and many other parts of the world with military operations ongoing in territories far beyond America’s borders. “So the Pentagon devised a new rationale,” Bacevich writes,“U.S. forces abroad were now needed to facilitate the emergence of a new world order.”

Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, then-President George W. Bush declared war on terrorism and claimed essentially unlimited power by putting forward the doctrine of preventive war. Anything he and his advisers judged necessary to keep America safe became a legitimate cause for military action.

The author enumerates many facts and figures to show that the implementation of Washington rules, besides in fl icting the loss of numerous American lives, have landed the United States in a fi nancial quagmire. A half century ago, the United States was a creditor nation—now it is a debtor nation. During the eight years under the Bush administration,U.S. national debt almost doubled, reaching$10.6 trillion. Based on of fi cial analysis, by 2019 this figure may surpass $21 trillion,an amount substantially greater than the nation’s GDP.

A matter of civic culture

Bacevich’s discussion of the interaction between the Washington rules and American civic culture may be the most intriguing and insightful part of the book. In a considerable measure, the author attributes the long life of the Washington rules to the fact that these rules conform and enforce certain “problem-atic” aspects of American civic culture. The present-day conception of citizenship, for example, requires simply that “you pay your taxes and avoid flagrant violations of the law.” Bacevich characterizes the conception as “impoverished and attenuated,” stressing that it “privileges individual choice above collective responsibility and immediate gratifi cation over long-term well-being.”

Two examples, Bacevich says, show how policymakers have taken advantage of this weakness to facilitate the implementation of the Washington rules. One of them was, and still is, increasing national debt to defray military expenditure overseas, with responsibility for repaying that debt off-loaded onto future generations. Public outrage at excessive taxation that would otherwise have been imposed can thus be averted. Therefore,the author notes, if the Washington rules go unhindered, ordinary Americans cannot escape their part of the blame.

To replace the Washington rules,Bacevich calls on the ideas of the nation’s founding fathers. In his celebrated farewell address to the nation in 1796, George Washington urged his countrymen to chart an independent course, enabling the United States “to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.”

Twenty-five years later, John Quincy Adams, a secretary of state who afterwards became the sixth president of the United States, further elaborated on Washington’s idea. “[The United States] is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all,”Adams said. “She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” He warned against going abroad “in search of monsters to kill”or enlisting under others’ banners to avert being involved in “dirty” wars.

Valid argument

Quoting copiously from various sources,Bacevich argues his case in a convincing and matter-of-fact way. Although he focuses on issues of his own country, his approach sometimes reveals a way of thinking not uninfluenced by oriental philosophies. He usesyinandyangto describe the relationship between Dulles’ CIA and LeMay’s SAC,which he observes was one of competition and interdependence. The discussion about the author’s own hypothetical program for Chinese military expansion abroad, which looks threatening but pales before the reality of the global military posture of the United States, could be interpreted as a veiled suggestion for Washington to think in some else’s perspective. Obviously, the Boston professor fully understands the political wisdom of the famous Confucian adage, “Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.”

In Bacevich’s scenario, he puts forward the following ideas:

In light of China’s status as a rising power, the minister of defense of the People’s Republic of China announces plans to: increase Chinese annual military spending to an amount that will exceed the combined defense budgets of Japan, South Korea, Russia,India, Germany, France and Britain; create a constellation of forward-deployed Chinese garrisons in strategically sensitive areas around the world, including Latin America;negotiate access agreements and fly-over rights with dozens of nations for the purpose of facilitating humanitarian intervention and maintaining global stability; partition the Plant Earth into sprawling territorial commands, with one four-star Chinese general assigned responsibility for the Asia-Paci fi c,another for Africa, a third for the Middle East,… Also included are a Chinese North America Command and a Chinese Space Command.

Bacevich adds the Chinese defense minister would certainly caution other nations not to view this program as posing any threat,assuring them that China is a vigorous, rising nation-state with a long civilization, and that she is committed to living in harmony with others. Few observers in the United States or elsewhere, Bacevich concludes, would take comfort in such assurances.

Military experience

The unique background of the author lends additional credibility to his arguments.Bacevich graduated from U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served in the U.S. armed forces for 23 years, including two years in Viet Nam. After retiring as a colonel, he devoted himself to academic research and now holds a PhD in American diplomatic history from Princeton University. Before coming to Boston University, he taught at West Point and John Hopkins University.

In the book’s introduction, Bacevich calls himself a “slow learner.” He recounts how, as a young man, he always took comfort in orthodoxy and subjected himself to authority. His real education did not begin until middle age when he often found reality at odds with what he had been taught to believe. He wrote this book in the hope that more people could share his experience.

But the lack of discussion from an economic and geopolitical approach may be a major weakness of the book. For the Beijingbased Xinhua Publishing House, bringing out a Chinese edition less than six months after its U.S. debut was certainly an achievement. But Chinese translations are not always faithful to the original text. It doesn’t take a meticulous reader to detect errors here and there.

Nevertheless, many Chinese will read Bacevich’s book with great interest. Most will join the American general public in saluting this “fierce and smart peacemonger,” an epithet given him in a book review of theNew York Times. Not only does he give us a concise, incisive historical review of U.S. national security policy,his insightful observations in many passages also provide food for thought. When he criticizes today’s Americans for lack of interest in cultivating virtue while frantically pursuing happiness, defined often in terms of wealth and celebrity status, he actually puts a fi nger on an illness common in many societies, the Chinese included.Again, his discussion of Luce’s conception of an American Age as the source of the Washington rules reminds us, the enthusiasm of some Chinese in talking about the “rise of China as a major power,” the“Chinese model” or a “Chinese century”may not be good for the nation’s health.

The author is former Editor in Chief ofBeijing Review