A Time to Fight by Jim Webb

Author:Jim Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780767930079
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2008-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

HOW NOT TO FIGHT A WAR

It would be impossible to overstate the impact of our country’s having entered the post-9/11 world without a sound national strategy, and thus without a set of clearly articulated priorities that could guide our decision making and define the circumstances under which we would decide to use military force. This lack of a rudder on our national ship of state has affected our relations with many historic friends and allies. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s casual dismissal of the concerns of “old Europe” during the buildup to the Iraq invasion, which meant most of our original NATO allies, comes quickly to mind. It has caused us to become strategically vulnerable to an increasingly powerful China, which has followed a determined national strategy that combines military, diplomatic, and economic policies to increase its influence and leverage around the world. And it has especially affected the manner in which we have approached the actions of a broad spectrum of nations with whom we have some level of disagreement.

The Bush Administration has been characterized by an adoration of the military option on one hand and a lack of adroit diplomacy on the other. In the international arena, its policies toward adversaries, real and potential, has bordered on adolescent behavior, but with grave, adult-world consequences. When it comes to countries with which he disagrees, this President has spent six years blowing things up, or threatening to do so, or attempting to isolate them from the world community when he could have been using the full array of our national assets to bring them into it.

Examples abound. For five years, the Bush Administration largely ignored the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, abandoning a host of constructive efforts that preceded it. It deliberately worsened the possibility of improving relations with North Korea and Iran by labeling them as members of a Saddam Hussein–centered “axis of evil” at a time when more constructive efforts could have paid dividends for American security. It repeatedly raised the specter of war against Syria and Iran, driving these two unnatural allies closer together when a smart application of all our diplomatic tools could have broken them apart and thus brought greater stability to that turbulent region.

Another useful example of this lamentable state of diplomacy, suitably removed from the heightened emotions of discussing the Middle East, involves the military regime in Burma, or, as its military junta has insisted on calling it in recent years, Myanmar. In the summer of 2001, I visited that country at the invitation of an American businessman who had contacted me after reading a piece I had written in the Wall Street Journal about China’s steadily increasing influence in Southeast Asia. I spent time in his factories, where Burmese employees were turning out high-quality outdoor furniture that was being shipped all over the world. I watched him mentor and encourage his Burmese employees, several of whom were advancing into management positions under his tutelage. I traveled, often alone and sometimes with my host, throughout

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