The
United States of Permanent War
By Edward Hunt
February
25, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- As the foreign policy establishment continues
to grapple with the consequences of Trump’s
election, U.S. officials can still agree on one
thing. The United States is a nation that is
waging a permanent war.
In December 2016, President Obama reflected on
the development in a
speech that he
delivered to U.S. soldiers at MacDill Air Force
Base in Tampa, Florida. “By the time I took
office, the United States had been at war for
seven years,” Obama said. By continuing that
war, “I will become the first president of the
United States to serve two full terms during a
time of war.”
Notably, Obama did not issue his remarks to
criticize the United States. He only made his
point to note that Congress had never provided
him with authority to perpetuate the wars of the
Bush administration. “Right now, we are waging
war under authorities provided by Congress over
15 years ago—15 years ago,” Obama said.
Consequently, he wanted Congress to craft new
legislation that made it appear as if it had not
permitted the United States to remain at war
forever. “Democracies should not operate in a
state of permanently authorized war,” Obama
said.
The Bush
Plan
Regardless of what Obama really felt about the
matter, the Bush administration had always
intended for the United States to wage a
permanent war. In the days after 9/11, President
Bush provided the guiding vision when he
announced in a
speech to the
nation that the United States would be fighting
an indefinite global war on terror. “Our
response involves far more than instant
retaliation and isolated strikes,” Bush
explained. “Americans should not expect one
battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other
we have ever seen.”
The following year, Director of Policy Planning
Richard Haass
provided
additional confirmation of the administration’s
intentions. “There can be no exit strategy in
the war against terrorism,” Haass declared. “It
is a war that will persist.” In other words,
Haass announced that the United States would
remain at war against terrorism forever. “There
is unlikely to be an Antietam, a decisive battle
in this war,” Haass stated. “An exit strategy,
therefore, will do us no good. What we need is
an endurance strategy.”
As U.S. officials developed their endurance
strategy, they also settled on a few guiding
principles. For starters, U.S. officials
determined that they would have to maintain some
kind of permanent presence in Afghanistan.
“We’re not leaving Afghanistan prematurely,”
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
remarked during
the early years of the Obama administration. “In
fact, we’re not ever leaving at all.”
More recently, a number of officials in the
Obama administration articulated a similar
principle for the Middle East. In October 2016,
for example, Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper
noted that the
United States would remain in the region well
into the future. Even if the Islamic State is
defeated, “it is probably not going to go away,
and it’ll morph into something else or other
similar extremist groups will be spawned,”
Clapper said. “And I believe we’re going to be
in the business of suppressing these extremist
movements for a long time to come.”
This past December, Secretary of Defense Ashton
Carter
made a similar
point, arguing that coalition forces “must be
ready for anything” and “must remain engaged
militarily even after the inevitable expulsion
of ISIL from Mosul and Raqqa.”
In
essence, U.S. officials agree that the war
against terrorism must remain permanent.
The Trump
Turn
Officials in the Trump administration, who are
now taking over the endurance strategy, have
also remained determined to keep the nation at
war. Although Trump
promised during
his campaign that “war and aggression will not
be my first instinct,” both he and his cabinet
members have displayed a clear preference for
war.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who is
perhaps most well known for once
commenting that
it was “a hell of a hoot” and “a hell of a lot
of fun” to shoot enemy forces in Afghanistan,
argued during his
confirmation hearing
that the United States should take advantage of
its “power of intimidation.” In fact, Mattis
pledged to increase the lethality of U.S.
military forces. “Our armed forces in this world
must remain the best led, the best equipped, and
the most lethal in the world,” Mattis insisted.
Furthermore, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
has positioned himself as an even stronger
advocate of war. For example, Tillerson insisted
during his
confirmation hearing
that the Obama administration should have helped
Ukrainian military forces fight Russia after
Putin had seized Crimea in early 2014. “My
opinion is there should have been a show of
force, a military response, in defensive
posture,” Tillerson said. In addition, Tillerson
insisted that the Trump administration will not
permit China to continue building islands in the
South China Sea. “We’re going to have to send
China a clear signal that first, the
island-building stops, and second, your access
to those islands also not going to be allowed,”
Tillerson said.
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Altogether, Tillerson argued that the United
States must display a greater willingness to go
to war. In the years ahead, the United States
will follow “the old tenet of Teddy Roosevelt,
walk softly and carry a big stick,” he promised.
Finally, Trump has displayed an even stronger
preference for war. In his many public
statements, Trump has essentially branded
himself as the new face of the permanent war
against terrorism. “Radical Islamic terrorism”
is something that “we will eradicate completely
from the face of the Earth,” Trump promised
during his
inaugural address.
In
short, officials in Washington are committed to
perpetual war. Although they regularly promise
to end war and support peace, they have spent
the past 16 years transforming the United States
into a nation that is permanently at war.
In fact, “the fighting is wonderful,” Trump has
said.
Edward Hunt writes
about war and empire. He has a PhD in American
Studies from the College of William & Mary.
Photo of James Mattis and Donald Trump from Jim
Mattis via Flickr. Originally published in
Lobelog.
