[ A reckoning with America’s failed national security policy is
long overdue. America’s current vision of security has been ruinous
both to the world and to the American people. A different future is
possible.] [[link removed]]

ON 9/11, IT’S TIME FOR A RECKONING AND REFLECTION OF DECADES OF
FAILED U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY  
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
September 9, 2021
Globbetrotter [[link removed]]

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_ A reckoning with America’s failed national security policy is
long overdue. America’s current vision of security has been ruinous
both to the world and to the American people. A different future is
possible. _

Image credit: Cong. Juan Vargas (CA-51),

 

Our calamitous misadventures in the Middle East and the global
financial collapse of 2008 dramatically exposed the bankruptcy and
failures of the bipartisan establishment consensus. Yet while citizen
movements have begun to transform domestic politics, they have been
virtually invisible when it comes to foreign policy. It is time, as we
mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, to challenge what has been a
remarkably narrow debate in this arena.

One widely touted hope was that, after Trump, the United States might
return to its previous role as “the indispensable nation.”
[[link removed]] We should
not fall for it. Our national security policies failed Americans long
before Trump. The failures are particularly manifest in our wars
without end, exemplified by the debacle in Afghanistan, which
President Biden was right to finally exit from, albeit in the war’s
20th year. The global war on terror, however, continues and generates
more terrorists than it kills. The official National Security Strategy
(NSS) statements of the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations all
committed the United States to maintaining a military so powerful that
it cannot be challenged anywhere. The last NSS statement
[[link removed]] from the Trump administration declared
that “revisionist powers” (Russia and China), not terrorists,
were the major threat to our national security
[[link removed]]. The United States
has also embarked on a renewed nuclear arms
[[link removed]] race—mostly
with ourselves. While President Biden has been seen as an antidote to
Trump’s America First foreign policy by immediately rejoining
[[link removed]] the
Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization,
analysts’ doubts
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his commitment to internationalism remain.

The steady militarization of U.S. foreign policy has hampered our
ability to address real security concerns that are threatening
[[link removed]] not
just our own people but the entire planet, from catastrophic climate
change
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global economy rigged to foster extreme inequality, which corrupts
democracy here and abroad. Our bloated military budget already
constitutes 39 percent
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the entire world’s military spending, even as vital domestic
imperatives are starved for funds. President Biden has rightly
been criticized
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liberal Democrats in Congress for proposing to increase the defense
budget (and myopically criticized by their Republican and centrist
Democrat colleagues for not increasing it enough). Seldom has the need
for a new course been more apparent.

An alternative, commonsense security policy first requires a rejection
of the notion that the United States is faced with a choice between
isolationism and the old elite consensus. Progressive reform would
begin by discarding the notion that America is uniquely permitted to
use force. We would do well to recognize that, while we are a global
superpower, it is in the U.S. interest to defend international law. We
can best bolster our security by respecting the law, not holding
ourselves above it.

Once these principles
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widely established, U.S. leadership can take action to roll back our
failed interventions. Limiting the U.S. military role will require
more, not less, international cooperation as well as far more active
diplomacy. New regional balances of power will inevitably be forged,
and they should be welcomed rather than reflexively considered a
threat to American interests. Biden has made strides with his foreign
policy, but the bar was set awfully low by his predecessor. It will
take the American people to hold leaders accountable to a higher
standard.

It would be wise also to ground our policy on a more realistic
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of the challenges we face. So far, there is limited hope that Biden
has the opportunity
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better cooperate
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Russia. The widespread campaign to portray Russia as a menacing global
threat is deeply wrongheaded
[[link removed]].
For all Vladimir Putin’s bluster, in 2018, he cut the Russian
military budget
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His policies, no doubt, express Russian resentments fed by provocative
U.S. actions after the end of the Cold War, which included extending
NATO to Russia’s borders, in violation of promises made
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the administration of President George H.W. Bush; ignoring Russian
warnings against trying to incorporate Georgia and Ukraine into NATO;
and helping to inflict on Russia
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shock therapy economic policy of the 1990s, which created and enriched
the Russian oligarchs, impoverished millions, and looted the
country’s treasury. It would benefit us to seek to reengage Russia,
a necessary partner in key areas, and revive efforts to limit the
nuclear arms race and reduce tensions on Russia’s borders. Moreover,
a renewed Cold War narrows the space for democratic forces and
strengthens the hand of a repressive state and the influence of
nationalist voices—on both sides.

China, on the other hand, is an emerging global power, a mercantilist
dictatorship that has had remarkable success in lifting its people out
of poverty
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Its leaders seek to extend their economic influence as they
consolidate China’s leadership position in emerging technologies and
markets. Trump abandoned the strategic neoliberalism of his
predecessors, replacing the Trans-Pacific Partnership with threats of
an ill-advised
[[link removed]] trade
war
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China, while gearing up the U.S. military presence
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the South China Sea. Biden has predictably
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trade war against China.

But it is not in the U.S. interest—nor do we have the resources—to
dominate a modern Chinese military on that country’s borders. Our
allies and the other nations in Asia have reasons of their own to
counter growing Chinese power, and they would be better equipped to do
so if they could rely on consistent U.S. diplomatic support rather
than militarism and bluster. While China’s growth has been
impressive, there are serious questions about its structural
imbalances and its strength moving forward. Washington should prepare
for the problems
[[link removed]] posed
by China’s weakness rather than those potentially caused by its
growing assertiveness.

The transformation of America’s global economic strategy is
essential to any effective security project. The neoliberal
approach—the so-called Washington Consensus—has generated rising
inequality and faces increasing resistance, both domestic and
international. To create an economy that works for working people
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there is work to be done to transform that model here and abroad.

If we were to free ourselves from endless war, the United States would
be better able to focus on real security imperatives, chief among them
the growing destructiveness of climate change
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There is growing awareness and support for the belief that working
with other nations will enable a much faster transition to an economy
free of fossil fuels. Business as usual is not just a threat to
our national security
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it’s a threat to our very existence
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America’s security would be far better served if, instead of acting
as the military cop on the global beat, we helped to mobilize and
partner with allies in humanitarian operations. Globalization
and climate change
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generating severe dislocations and the spread of more diseases such as
COVID-19. International cooperation has brought remarkable successes
in this area, and when the United States has been involved, our
efforts have not only strengthened our alliances, but protected
Americans from the disruptions posed by massive refugee movements and
deadly plagues.

Our security is best served when we provide a model for the values we
champion. It is time, therefore, to focus on strengthening our
democracy and economy at home. The greatest threat comes not from
interventions by Russia
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other foreign actors, but rather from the flood of dark money
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our elections, the cynical efforts to suppress votes
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the gerrymandering
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electoral districts. China’s mercantilist policies have run
up record trade deficits
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surely undermined U.S. wages. Yet it was not their policies, but
ours—engineered by multinational corporations and banks that rigged
the economy for their own profit—that allowed this to happen.

Sensible reforms like these already enjoy broad support among the
American people. Americans have no desire to police the world. The
country elected Biden’s predecessors—one Democratic and one
Republican—in part because they promised to focus on rebuilding
America at home. Their failure to live up to those promises reflects
the influence of the military-industrial-academic complex and an elite
national security establishment, both of which remain wedded to
permanent war and global surveillance.

Leaders who lay out a foreign policy of restraint and progressive
realism will find a receptive public, but we can’t afford to wait.
This country desperately needs a fierce and energetic citizen
intervention—a movement that demands both a reckoning and a change
in course. Our democracy may be corrupted, but the American people can
still call our leaders to account and challenge entrenched interests.

_[KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL is the editorial director and publisher of
the Nation
[[link removed]] and is
president of the American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord (ACURA)
[[link removed]]. She writes a weekly column at
the Washington Post
[[link removed]] and is
a frequent commentator on U.S. and international politics for
Democracy Now, PBS, ABC, MSNBC and CNN. Find her on
Twitter @KatrinaNation [[link removed]]. This
article was produced by Globetrotter
[[link removed]] in partnership with ACURA
[[link removed]].]_

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