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Don’t get me wrong – I very pleased that Glick has such confidence in the US’s capacity to get other countries to govern as we wish they would through a policy of military aggression. The problem is that I find it really hard to believe that the world would be a safer place if the US provoked more instability in the Middle East. Perhaps in a future column Glick will outline why she thinks the US military would be more successful in Iran, Lebanon, and Syria than it has been in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Until that day comes, I hope that our joint chiefs of staff don’t read her work and think, “hmm…she’s got a point. Lemme run it by Obama.”

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The start of a new year is a good time to reflect the past, and at the moment the ongoing military conflicts in the Middle East provide a focal point where US foreign relations are concerned.  Just a few days ago on Democracy Now! Amy Goodman spoke with investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn, about just this subject.  The pair discussed the role the US is taking on a global stage in the 21^st century, in light of our continued military pursuits and the nation’s economic floundering.

In his past works, Nairn has earned infamy and awards for exposition on some of the worst applications of US military and economic power.  Thus it should come as little surprise that Nairn’s discussions with Goodman on drone attacks and other such fierce ethical dilemmas are strikingly critical of the US.  Though in our current political climate it’s easy to take comments like Nairn’s as “anti-American”, dissenting voices like his are necessary to the exchange of ideas and the democratic process.

In a nation as wealthy as the United States, complacency is always a threat.  We don’t live under constant fear of violence (however frightful the war on terror might be) and most of our daily concerns are over degrees of comfort rather than basic survival.   Though they interrupt our comfortable lives, dissenting voices serve a valuable role in questioning the current state of our society.  As disheartening as Democracy Now! and programs like it might be at times, it’d be a shame to remain unaware of the consequences of our daily actions domestically and abroad.

It’s worrisome to think that as our economic woes continue, our military efforts increasingly become the centerpiece of United States influence abroad.  Particularly in light of recent calls to cut our investment in foreign aid, it might be worth it for all Americans (not just those in Congress) to consider just what role we intend the country to take in shaping the world throughout future years.  If nothing else, perhaps this is one more way in which the recovery of the US economy is relevant to everyone.

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You gotta know that a guy who helps you steal – even if you take care of him real well – he’s gonna steal a little extra for himself. Makes sense, don’t it?

Nicky was referring to casino workers who were stealing from the casino owners. How does this relate to Afghanistan? Karzai has been wearing an “Open for Business” sign around his neck since George W. Bush & Co.”persuaded” him to become Afghanistan’s president. That he would take bribes from pretty much anyone who offers them is exactly what Nicky would expect.

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I don’t disagree with Elizabeth’s logic. I  disagree with her premise that the budget deficit is a bad thing at the moment. Rather, I think this is a good thing because the only way out of our slump at the moment is through government spending. The logic is straightforward. Consumers aren’t going to start spending more until they have paid down their debts. As a result, private sector demand – and hence employment – is stagnant. One way to create jobs and thus help consumers to pay down their debts is through government spending. As a result, budget deficits are a good thing given the current state of the economy. (For the wonks who care about rising debt levels, what would be worse is for the government to do nothing. This would cause deflation and hence rising debts in real terms. Within reasonable limits, more government spending would not make us worse off compared to allowing deflation.)

Now my preference would be for the government to spend on infrastructure, education, and innovation, but Congress doesn’t want to do that. Thus, we need to find spending that Congress would support. I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve come up with an answer: war. I’m not advocating that we invade anyone new, but I think that the Obama administration could wage a PR campaign that says DoD needs more money. To those who would fight the administration on more defense spending, the response is simple: Don’t you support the troops? Why do you hate America?

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Over the weekend, the Times reported that the war in Afghanistan is nearly nonexistent on voters’ radars for the upcoming midterm elections. The dismal economy, healthcare, and jobs obviously take precedence. Not a big shock. The thing is, the war and the economy are inextricably linked. I wonder what the people polled for this report would say if they knew that U.S. defense spending comes out to be about $700 billion every year, with the FY 2011 DoD budget request tallying up to a $708.3B. That accounts for about half of security spending worldwide. So if the economy is on voters’ minds this November, the war should be as well because it’s costing taxpayers way more than they might realize.

Ample Congressional hearings and testimonies have demonstrated that the economy is in itself a matter of national security because the more the American dollar devalues and the economy stays stuck in the mud, the less traction we have worldwide. It’s not rocket science. Similarly, continuing to spend, spend, and spend on defense does not do the economy any favors. It’s a tricky situation, to be fair–DoD is the largest single employer the U.S.  and I get that. But it concerns me that the narrative in our country seems to divorce these two interrelated things from one another. In my ideal world (in which The West Wing never ended, but that’s another story) we would realize that we’re basically hemorrhaging money in Afghanistan. I’m not an economist, but that’s probably not good for, well, the economy–so perhaps the war ought to rank a little higher on voters’ tunnel-visioned priority list of issues that matter at the ballot box. Just saying.

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There’s definite value in being able to express the importance of nation building through a lens that isn’t strictly humanitarian.  Some simply aren’t interested in humanitarian efforts abroad or see the process as not worth the cost to the US populace in time or capital.  Typically when dealing with people of this mindset, I find the realist and structural realist arguments of security, economic interests and stability an effective alternative.  Yet as I read Mr. Miller’s article I grew increasingly skeptical and concerned with the approach taken and some of the conclusions drawn.

1) Nation building is an investment in future allies and a means of balancing against potential rivals. Part of U.S. grand strategy is (or ought to be) the effort to prevent rival powers, like Russia, China, or Iran, from amassing enough power to seriously threaten our way of life. We work to keep their power in check — to balance against them — by increasing our own power or changing how it is deployed. Forming alliances with other, well-positioned states is a common way of increasing our power relative to our competitors’. We allied with Europe against Russia. We invest in alliances with Japan and Taiwan against China.

Nation building is an effort to build up allies, or potential allies, so they can help us against our rivals in the long-run. The Marshall Plan — nation building on a continental scale — was a crucial instrument to contain Soviet power in the early days of the Cold War. NATO would have been toothless if Europe remained poor and broken after World War II. Only after the United States dedicated an enormous amount of aid — some $120 billion in today’s dollars — was Europe able to field modern armies capable of deterring the Soviets. Nation building helped win the Cold War.

On the issue of Mr. Miller’s comparison of Afghanistan to post-WWII Europe, I would hardly be the first person to raise disagreement.  Plenty of my troubles with said comparison were raised by his readers in their comments on his post, politely by some, less than politely by others.  One of the great things about the internet as a source of news is the level of feedback between writers and their audiences.  It’s hard to imagine a world where television reporters had to deal with the same sort of responses bloggers do, but if nothing else such a world would likely have a more informative mainstream news media.

Specific issues of the Afghanistan/Marshall Plan contrast aside, I do think that Mr. Miller’s comparison speaks to a recurring problem in the fields of development and democracy building.  Very regularly flawed comparisons are made between past and present nation building efforts and often it seems hard to believe that these errors are made unintentionally.  Whether applying neo-classical models of growth in developing economies of Sub-Saharan Africa, or applying the models of post-WWII Germany and Japan as an argument for nation building through warfare, it’s difficult to accept that people don’t know better.

It’s one thing for arguments like this to be presented amid a sea of anecdotes over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer, but I think it’s another entirely for these sorts of ideas to be presented by people involved in policy making.  I have a terribly hard time believing people so closely involved in these issues could be uneducated on their history, but in a way I’d prefer to think the argument is based on ignorance rather than the alternative.

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The U.S. military has only minimal knowledge of – and exercises virtually no control over – the thousands of Afghans it indirectly pays to guard its installations, including “warlords and strongmen linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery” and to the Taliban…

The Captain sums this up better than I can:

You know there aren’t enough troops when you hire foreign spies to perform your force protection.

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