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Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1992 10:17:38 -0500
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      "On American Intervention into ...," (#776)
Comments: To: val-l@ucf1vm.bitnet, jwales@iubvm.bitnet, olsenj@stolaf.edu,
              shlyakhter@huhepl.harvard.edu, kousen@rayleigh.res.utc.com,
              klur@maristb.bitnet, christic@igc.org, blank@physics.ucla.edu,
              76701.103@compuserve.com

"On American Intervention into ..."

Americans today appear to feel, in large part, that because the
Russians "lost" the Cold War, because now, from at least a nuclear
arms point of view, we are the most powerful nation in the world
militarily, and therefore we ought to be the world's policemen. (Not
QUITE as simple as that, but for the purposes of discussion, the
simplification will do).

Since the Spanish-American War, the US has been flexing its muscles
in Central America, China, Europe, even South America and the
Caribbean via the CIA and client surrogates, such as in Chile in the
Seventies. There was even a brief intervention onto Russian soil in
1919-20, during the Civil War. Might's use has been an American
practice, combined with an increasingly more sophisticated arms
business, for at least ninety years.

So, we have "claimed" the right to use force historically, for most
of those ninety years, and before. We also invaded Canada prior to
being the United States, and on at least two other occasions, fought
a war with Mexico, and fought two defensive wars against the British,
honing our skills by fighting on our own soil the dragged out
Revolutionary War and the bitter and bloody Civil War seventy years
after that, a scant 130 years ago. We have always had a rationale,
though it may have been whipped up, such as the Maine incident and
the Gulf of Tonkin "incident," and often we have fought in
coalitions, such as the Six Weeks War, Korea, the two World wars,
because we thought or stated that our interests were at stake.

This is the bottom line to me as an analyst for why the US WILL use
intervention if it believes it should - the position taken by others
in this debate, national interest. My curiosity remains glued to the
question, "what is that interest?" THAT seems to depend on whose ox
being gored, what interests are we talking about?

Well, one is that of jobs at home, and keeping certain industries
alive - at least TODAY, that is a perceived need for the United
States, hence the two large airplane deals for F-15s and F-16s for
Saudi Arabia and Taiwan. Our interests should NOT be arming the Arabs
to the teeth, more, so we say, "ahh... but we've created 15,000 jobs
with these two contracts (though they carefully don't tell us how
long our "interests" are engaged in this - and do those workers get
cast aside when we finally come to our sesnses and stop arming the
world?) and Saudi Arabia will be safe from Iraq (or the Israelis?)
and Taiwan will be safe from the evil PRC - and this AFTER having an
agreement for TEN YEARS that we'd not sell planes to Taiwan with the
PRC.

Our word is NOT our bond, but what we think we have to say to further
our interests. A big houha in the press this week about "lies," (one
news magazine, I forget which, has a cover story on this theme this
week) but I contend lying is a natural process of using one's might
and armaments to further one's interests. It is also natural to
periodically fight wars, or engagements, to keep the troops ready,
and to keep the world reminded of your ongoing might - despite the
slippery slopes the actions represent. Lebanon, Nicaragua, Panama,
Granada, and Kuwait appear to be examples of "overkill"
demonstrations of might to sell the goods, for we ARE the largest
arms-sellers on the planet.

So, our military buildup is also advertising "these are the kinds of
weapons we can make," and we create clients and customers all over
the place, and have since at least the 1890s. It ebbs and flows, but
the arms business has been most lucrative, and it flourishes today,
not abated but growing. Arms procurememt is still a murky issue,
sales to whatever nation are in the hands of the VERY few, and we
know little about the details of these mega-billion-dollar deals for
planes, ships, light arms, whatever that flows out of the US every
month, headed somewhere besides here.

So, I think it is a part of the national interest to keep people
fighting and arming, this is a primary purpose that we exist for! And
those segments of our society are protected, cosseted, treated with
great respect as they rob the treasury in cost overruns and
overcharging. But, a B-2 that was to cost 325 million in 1982 now is
going to cost about $1.1 billion each, we have ordered 17, and we
still don't know if the damned thing works. But, it's in the
"national interest" to build it. Ditto SDI, the Osprey, more subs and
ships, all manners of airplane, and everything else in ordnance you
might "need," from tanks to pistols. No one objects to the
consequences, because buildimg whatever will provide x jobs for y
years, and THAT is the national interest for many.

My point is that "national interest" is a very elusive term,
primarily agreed upon by the arms industry and the government in the
armament and use of force areas. This engages the nilitary, which
ALWAYS has an interest in fighting, that is why we have them.

Should we intervene in (you fill in the blank)? Now, I contend, this
becomes a case-by-case analysis, one cannot devise a general rule,
and say, "we will invade x, y or z if THIS happens always." Kuwait
versus Bosnia destroys that rule being a prevailing one. Both nations
suffered aggression from a larger one, and both were "sovereign" when
they were invaded. The difference - maybe oil, maybe keeping our
alliance with the fickle Saudis in line, maybe to get concessions
from Kuwait if we restored the Emir, maybe to pull Syria out of one
Arab camp to another, to reassure Israel, maybe all these, probably
most of them anyway.

Our interest was probably oil, and firming alliances, but it bought
us the albatross of having sided with one faction of Arabs against
another, and hooked us into a long-term committment. Two years later,
we're still partially engaged in the Iraqi area, and with troops near
or in Saudi Arabia. We probably will be there most of the rest of
this century, and into the next.

Are our long-term interests served by this whole engagement? Maybe.
Probably not, save for the groups I identified above. But there we
are. We may be getting ready to take on an "air role" in Bosnia. If a
CIS state goes up, will it be in our interest to get involved?
Probably not, practicality might actually prevail in that kind of
case.

We will intervene if we think our interests are "at stake," a very
loose and wide-ranging definition. The rightness of doing so will a
matter for us who worry about force's use to battle with the would-be
wielders over. Contrary to popular belief, the use of force CAN be
justified, in limited circumstances, or perhaps in a case like
Hitler's. (The politicians might have contained this one, but HIS
national interest was to continue on the course he took, apparently).
But, we are quick to summon it, overtly or covertly, and we continue
to arm the world, thereby always having a ready-made "excuse" to use
force, "... but that's my client! I must help them!"

I'm not an isolationist. I'm more internationalist than anything
else. Somehow, this dizzy spiral of interests, arms and force has to
yield to cooperation, SOME long-range global planning, and keeping
pride in nationality, having that identity not suppressed but without
the necessity of nationalist nation states to affirm nationality or
ethnicity, in a reasonable way. But, that's utopian, I get screamed
at every time I talk about cooperation for being a dreamer or living
behind rose-colored glasses, but that's the hope of humankind -
cooperation, communication, cherishment of the planet (it's the only
one we have, and humanity isn't doing very well at cleaning up the
mess!), and creating different kinds of government/citizen/military
decision-making so that the use of force is only engaged in as the
people (remember them, from whom the US Constitution is empowered?)
can consenually ageee is necessary.

Long after I'm gone, I'm sure. But, we could learn to cooperate, and
we don't have to sell everybody on the planet a gun, tank or plane.
What ARE our national interests? Is there REALLY a rationalization
for interfering in another sovereign nation's affairs? (Ask Eduard
Shevardnadze about that!) But, as it is now, and I use the Panama
Canal Treaty as an example, we can say, and would, if the need arose,
"The Panama Canal Treaty is null and void because our national
interest demands its immediate takeover," and that would be that. I
suspect that's the kind of thinker most of our potential leaders are,
so expect more of the same "rationalized intervening" to occur, while
the boys at McDonnell Douglas thank their lucky stars that their
government looks out for them so well.

When we as a people decide that it has to be different, it will be,
eventually. We aren't upset about it, so interventions (carefully
rationalized) will continue. VMS