US foreign policy has failed in recent years mainly because the US relied on military force to address problems that demand development assistance and diplomacy. Young men become fighters in places like Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan because they lack gainful employment. Extreme ideologies influence people when they can’t feed their families, and when lack of access to family planning leads to an unwanted population explosion. US President Barack Obama has raised hopes for a new strategy, but so far the forces of continuity in US policy are dominating the forces of change.
The first rule in assessing a government’s real strategy is to follow the money. The US vastly overspends on the military compared with other areas of government. Obama’s projected budgets do not change that. For the next fiscal year, Obama’s budget calls for US$755 billion in military spending, an amount that exceeds US budget spending in all other areas except so-called “mandatory” spending on social security, health care, interest payments on the national debt and a few other items.
Indeed, US military spending exceeds the sum of federal budgetary outlays for education, agriculture, climate change, environmental protection, ocean protection, energy systems, homeland security, low-income housing, national parks and national land management, the judicial system, international development, diplomatic operations, highways, public transport, veterans affairs, space exploration and science, civilian research and development, civil engineering for waterways, dams, bridges, sewerage and waste treatment, community development and many other areas.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
This preponderance of military spending applies to all 10 years of Obama’s medium-term scenario. By 2019, total military spending is projected to be US$8.2 trillion, exceeding by US$2 trillion the budgeted outlays for all non-mandatory budget spending.
US military spending is equally remarkable when viewed from an international perspective. The Swedish International Peace Research Institute says total military spending in constant 2005 dollars reached roughly US$1.4 trillion in 2007. In other words, the US spends roughly the same amount spent by the rest of the world combined — a pattern that the Obama administration shows no signs of ending.
The policy decisions of recent months offer little more hope for a fundamental change in US foreign policy direction. While the US has signed an agreement with Iraq to leave by the end of 2011, there is talk in the Pentagon that US “non-combat” troops will remain in the country for years or decades to come.
It is easy to see how the persistence of instability in Iraq, Iranian influence, and al-Qaeda’s presence will lead US policymakers to take the “safe” route of continued military involvement. Some opponents of the Iraq War, including me, believe that a fundamental — and deeply misguided — objective of the war from the outset has been to create a long-term military base (or bases) in Iraq, ostensibly to protect oil routes and oil concessions. As the examples of Iran and Saudi Arabia show, however, such a long-term presence sooner or later creates an explosive backlash.
The worries are even worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan. NATO’s war with the Taliban in Afghanistan is going badly, so much so that the commanding US general was sacked this month. The Taliban are also extending their reach into Pakistan.
Both Afghanistan and the neighboring provinces of Pakistan are impoverished regions, with vast unemployment, bulging youth populations, prolonged droughts, widespread hunger and pervasive economic deprivation. It is easy for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to mobilize fighters under such conditions.
The problem is that a US military response is essentially useless under these conditions, and can easily inflame the situation rather than resolve it. Among other problems, the US relies heavily on drones and bombers, leading to a high civilian death toll, which is inflaming public attitudes against the US. After one recent disaster, in which more than 100 civilians died, the Pentagon immediately insisted that such bombing operations would continue. A recent survey showed overwhelming Pakistani opposition to US military incursions into their country.
Obama is doubling down in Afghanistan, by raising the number of US troops from 38,000 to 68,000, and perhaps more later. There are also risks that the US will get involved much more heavily in the fighting in Pakistan. The new US commanding general in Afghanistan is reportedly a specialist in “counter-insurgency,” which could well involve surreptitious engagement by US operatives in Pakistan. If so, the results could prove catastrophic, leading to a spreading war in an unstable country of 180 million people.
What is disconcerting, however, is not only the relentless financing and spread of war, but also the lack of an alternative US strategy. Obama and his top advisers have spoken regularly about the need to address the underlying sources of conflict, including poverty and unemployment. A few billion dollars has been recommended to fund economic aid for Afghanistan and Pakistan. But this remains a small amount compared with military outlays, and an overarching framework to support economic development is missing.
Before investing hundreds of billions of dollars more in failing military operations, the Obama administration should re-think its policy and lay out a viable strategy to US citizens and the world. It’s high time for a strategy of peace through sustainable development — including investments in health, education, livelihoods, water and sanitation, and irrigation — in today’s hotspots, starting with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Such a strategy cannot simply emerge as a byproduct of US military campaigns. Rather, it will have to be developed proactively, with a sense of urgency and in close partnership with the affected countries and the communities within them. A shift in focus to economic development will save a vast number of lives and convert the unthinkably large economic costs of war into economic benefits through development. Obama must act before today’s crisis explodes into an even larger disaster.
Jeffrey Sachs is a professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS