[ After half a century studying the issue, heres lesson number
one: Wars are bad and empire is folly.] [[link removed]]

LESSONS FROM 50 YEARS COVERING FOREIGN POLICY  
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Conn Hallinan
September 22, 2021
Foreign Policy In Focus
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_ After half a century studying the issue, here's lesson number one:
Wars are bad and empire is folly. _

, Shutterstock

 

For over 50 years I have been writing about foreign policy — mostly
America’s, but those of other nations as well. I think I have a
pretty good grasp of places like Turkey, China, India, Russia, and the
European Union. I regret that I am less than sure-footed in Africa and
Latin America.

During this time I have also learned a fair amount about military
matters and various weapons systems, because they cost enormous
amounts of money that could be put to much better use than killing and
maiming people. But also because it’s hard to resist the absurd: the
high performance US F-35 fighter jet — at $1.7 trillion
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the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history — that costs
$36,000 an hour to fly
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shoots itself
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and can decapitate
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who attempt to bail out. There are, as well, the $640 toilet seats,
the $7,622 coffee maker, and the fact that the Department of Defense
cannot account for $6.5 trillion in spending.

I have also become fairly conversant with the major nuclear arms
agreements, and I know what Article VI of the 1968 Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty says (more on this later).

This is a farewell column, so I ask for your indulgence.

Having (hopefully) beaten back cancer, I have decided to spend more
time with my grandkids and maybe return to my three novels
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in my head). But I would like a last hurrah about what I have learned
about the world and politics over that last half century, so bear with
me.

WARS ARE BAD AND EMPIRE IS DELUSIONAL

[U.S. Marines mourn the deaths of U.S. troops in Kajai, Afghanistan.]

U.S. Marines mourn the deaths of U.S. troops in Kajaki, Afghanistan.
(Shutterstock)

First, wars are really a bad idea, and not just for the obvious reason
that they cause enormous misery and pain. They don’t work, at least
in the sense that they accomplish some political end.

The United States is finally withdrawing from Afghanistan and
contemplating getting out of Iraq. Both were disasters of the
catastrophic variety. If anyone in the Oval Office or the Pentagon had
bothered to read Ruyard Kipling on Afghanistan (_Arithmetic on the
Frontier_ [[link removed]] comes to
mind) and DH Lawrence on Iraq (the _Algebra of Occupation_
[[link removed]] is
worthwhile) they would have known better.

But the illusions of empire are stubborn. The U.S. still thinks it can
control the world, when every experience of the past 50 years or more
— Vietnam, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq — suggests it
can’t. Indeed, the last war we “won” was Grenada, where the
competition was not exactly world class.

Americans are not alone in the delusion of confusing the present for
the past. The British
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sending the aircraft carrier _HMS_ _Queen Elizabeth_ and a
destroyer to the South China Sea — to do what? The days when Charles
“Chinese” Gordon could scatter the locals with a few gun boats is
long gone. What the People’s Republic will make of Prime Minister
Boris Johnson’s nostalgia for Lord Nelson and Trafalgar is
anyone’s guess, but Beijing is more likely to be amused than
intimidated by a mid-size flat top and a tin can.

SAME GOES FOR COLD WARS

[berlin-wall-east-germany-cold-war]

Sections of the Berlin Wall (Shutterstock)

China
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out to conquer the world. It wants to be the planet’s biggest
economy and to sell everyone lots of stuff. In short, exactly what
Britain wanted in the 19th century and the U.S. wanted in the 20th.
The Chinese do insist on military control of their local seas, in much
the same way that the U.S. controls its east, west, and southern
coasts. Imagine how Washington would react to Chinese warships
regularly exercising off Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Newport News, or the
Gulf of Mexico.

Are the Chinese heavy handed about this? Yes, indeed, and they have
unnecessarily alienated a number of nations in the region, including
Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Japan. Demilitarizing
the East and South China seas would reduce tensions and remove the
rationale for Beijing’s illegal seizure of small islands, reefs and
shoals in the area. China will have to realize that it can’t
unilaterally violate international law through its claims over most of
the South China Sea, and the U.S. will have to accept that the Pacific
Ocean is no longer an American lake.

Meanwhile, the Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Actually,
no they are not, and it is time to stop the silliness about Russian
hordes massing
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the border ready to overrun the Ukraine or the Baltic states. What
those troops were doing late last spring was responding to a plan by
NATO for a huge military exercise, “Steadfast Defender.”
[[link removed]] Russia
is not trying to recreate the Soviet Union. Its economy is about the
size of Italy’s, and the current problems stem from the profoundly
stupid decision to move NATO eastwards. The Russians are sensitive
about their borders, with good reason.

We can thank presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for
disinterring this particular aspect of the Cold War. Both presidents
expanded NATO, and Bush unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty (ABM) and began deploying anti-missile systems in
Poland and Romania. NATO claims the ABMs are aimed at Iran, but Iran
doesn’t have missiles that can reach Europe and it doesn’t possess
nuclear weapons. The Russians would be foolish to draw any other
conclusion but that those ABMs are targeting Moscow’s missiles.

NATO
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become a zombie alliance, staggering from one disaster to another:
first Afghanistan, then Libya, and now the U.S. is pressing NATO to
confront China in Asia (which is unlikely — Europeans view China as
an invaluable market, not a threat).

NATO should go the way of the Warsaw Pact, and the U.S. should rejoin
the anti-ballistic missile agreement. Removing the ABM missiles might,
in turn, lead to re-establishing the Intermediate Nuclear Force
Agreement
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an extremely important treaty from which the U..S also unilaterally
withdrew.

APARTHEID CAN’T LAST FOREVER

[segregation-apartheid-wall]

Israel’s separation barrier (Photo: Ars Electronica / Flickr)

Elsewhere, Israel needs to study some Irish history. In 1609, the
native population of what became Northern Ireland was forcibly removed
to Connaught in the island’s west, and replaced by 20,000 Protestant
tenants. Yet now, centuries later, the upcoming census is almost
certain to show that Catholics once again constitute a majority in
Northern Ireland.

The moral? Walls and fences and apartheid policies will not make the
Palestinians go away or cause them to forget that much of their land
was stolen.

In the short run, the right-wing settlers may get their way, just as
the Protestant settlers did more than 400 years ago. But history is
long, and the Palestinains are no more likely to disappear than the
native Irish did. It would save a lot of bloodshed and communal hate
if the Israelis removed the West Bank and Golan settlers, shared
Jerusalem, and let the Palestinians have their own viable state. The
alternative? A one-state, one-person, one-vote democracy.

The U.S. should also end Israel’s “special status.” Why are we
not as outraged with apartheid in Israel as we were with apartheid in
South Africa? Why do we ignore the fact that Israel has nuclear
weapons?
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Americans lecture other countries about maintaining a “rules
based” world, can you blame them if they roll their eyes? Why is it
“illegal” for Iran to acquire nukes when Tel Aviv gets a pass?

WE SHOULD REALLY DEAL WITH EXISTENTIAL THREATS MORE OFTEN

[nuclear-weapons-nukes-INF-START]

Shutterstock

The Biden administration is fond of using the term “existential”
in reference to climate change, and the term is not an exaggeration.

Our species is at a crossroads, and the time for action is
distressingly short. By 2050, some 600 million Indians will have
inadequate access to water. Vanishing glaciers are systematically
draining the water reserves of the Himalayasians, the Hindu Kush, the
Andes, and the Rockies. While much of the world will face water
shortages, some will experience the opposite, as Germans and Chinese
recently discovered. Water is a worldwide crisis and there are few
blueprints about how to deal with it, although the 1960 Indus Valley
water treaty between India and Pakistan could serve as a template.

There is simply no way that the world can tackle climate change and
still continue to spend — according to the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute — almost $2 trillion a year on weapons
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Nor can the U.S. afford to support its empire of bases
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some 800 worldwide, the same number as Britain had in 1885.

However, climate change is not the only “existential” threat to
our species. Somehow nuclear weapons have dropped off the radar as a
global threat, but currently there are major nuclear arms races 
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involving China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, and NATO. The
U.S. is spending upwards of $1 trillion modernizing
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nuclear triad of aircraft, ships, and missiles.

SANCTIONS DON’T WORK

[syria-civil-war-peace-talks-sanctions-diplomacy]

Shutterstock

Sanctions, as journalist Patrick Cockburn argues, are war crimes, and
no country in the world applies them as widely and with such vigor as
the United States.

Our sanctions
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impoverished North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Syria, and
inflict unnecessary pain on Cuba. They raise tensions with Russia and
China. And why do we apply them? Because countries do things we
don’t like or insist on economic and political systems that we
don’t agree with.

Washington can do it because we control the de facto world currency,
the dollar, and countries that cross us can lose their ability to
engage in international banking. The French bank BNP Paribas was
forced to pay $9 billion in fines for bypassing sanctions on Iran.

Yet sanctions have almost always failed to achieve their political
objectives.

SELF-DETERMINATION IS GOOD

[spain-catalonia-catalan-independence]

Catalans march for independence from Spain (Photo: SBA73 / Flickr)

Dear Spanish government: Let the Catalans vote in peace and accept the
results if they decide they want to go their own way. Ditto for the
Scots, the people of Kashmir, and, sometime in the future, the
Northern Irish. You can’t force people to be part of your country if
they don’t want to be, and trying to make them is like teaching a
pig to whistle: It can’t be done and annoys the pig.

IF YOU DISPLACE PEOPLE, OFFER THEM REFUGE (THEN STOP DISPLACING
PEOPLE)

Syrian war refugees in Turkey (Shutterstock)

The U.S. and NATO cannot destabilize countries like Afghanistan,
Syria, and Libya and then pull up the drawbridge
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people flee the chaos those wars have generated.

Similarly, the colonial countries that exploited and held back the
development of countries in Africa and Latin America cannot wash their
hands of the problems of post-colonialism. And the industrial
countries that destabilized the climate can’t avoid their
responsibility for tens of millions of global warming refugees.

In any case, the U.S., Europe, and Japan need those immigrants,
because the depressed birth rates in developed countries mean they are
heading for serious demographic trouble.

HYPOCRISY IS BAD 

[Demonstrators in Lahore, Pakistan protest the U.S. assassination of
Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.]

Demonstrators in Lahore, Pakistan protest the U.S. assassination of
Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. (Shutterstock)

The world rightfully condemns the assassination of political opponents
by Russia and Saudi Arabia, but it should be equally outraged when the
Israelis systematically kill Iranian scientists, or when the U.S.
takes out Iranian leaders with a drone attack.

You don’t have the right to kill someone just because you don’t
like what they stand for. How do you think Americans would react to
Iran assassinating U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, the head of the US Joint
Chiefs of Staff?

LESS EXCEPTIONALISM. MORE DIPLOMACY.

Shutterstock

The world desperately needs an international health treaty
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confront future pandemics and must guarantee that it includes the
poorest countries on the globe. This is not mere altruism. If
countries can’t provide healthcare for their residents, that should
be a responsibility for the international community, because untreated
populations give rise to mutations like the Delta variant. Ask not for
whom the bells tolls. It tolls for us all.

American exceptionalism
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an albatross around our necks, blocking us from seeing that other
countries and other systems may do things better than we do. No other
country accepts that Americans are superior, especially after four
years of Donald Trump, the pandemic debacle and the Jan. 6
insurrection in Washington. Who would want the level of economic
inequality in this country, or our prison population, the highest in
the world? Is being 44th on the World Press Freedom Index, or 18th on
the Social Progress Index something we should take pride in?
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we can take pride in is our diversity. Therein lies the country’s
real potential.

Finally, to Article VI 
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the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: “Each of the Parties to the
Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiation in good faith on effective
measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early
date and to nuclear disarmament and on a Treaty on general and
complete disarmament under strict and effective international
control.” Amen.

TWO AND TWO AND 50 MAKE A MILLION

Shutterstock

Pie in the sky? An old man’s wish list?

Well, the one thing I have learned in these past 50-plus years is that
things happen if enough people decide they should. So to quote that
rather clunky line from Pete Seeger’s “One Man’s Hands,” sung
widely during the ‘60s peace movement: “If two and two and 50 make
a million, we’ll see that day come ‘round.”

And that’s all folks (for now).

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