Post No. 44: Peace and War

Yesterday, May 4, was fifty-five years since the killings of student protesters against the Vietnam war at Kent State University in Ohio. The iconic photo from that day of the lifeless Kent State student lying on the pavement reminds me of the many foreign policy mistakes the United States has made over the last several decades.  With that in mind I feel compelled to write this short blog, Peace and War.

U.S. foreign policy matters because of our nations unique power - its geography, wealth, history and above all its patriotic citizens.  When the government calls for its men and women to fight for their country, they respond with competence and bravery.  I personally witnessed this during the Vietnam war by both enlisted and drafted soldiers.  I also saw the children of my friends bravely volunteer to fight for their country in post-9/11 wars.  This willingness on the part of American citizens to fight and sacrifice for their country is a critical strength of the United States.

Perhaps I am being generous to call our foreign policy, “mistakes”, because those policies resulted in several MILLION civilian deaths in countries far from our shores.  Our over decade-long excursion into Vietnam was arguably the most violent against the civilian population.  The public was acutely aware of this carnage because of the overwhelming press coverage of the war.  The historian Nick Turse, in his book “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam” (2013) estimates civilian deaths from 1 to 2 million.  Another historian Guenter Lewy in “America in Vietnam” estimates about 1.2 million civilian deaths.

The lack of similar press coverage than during Vietnam may be one reason why our post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did not receive as much opposition from the public.  These post-9/11 invasions and occupations over a 20+ year period resulted in “only” under a half million direct civilian deaths, but several million more died indirectly as a result. (A 2023 report by the Institute for International and Public Affairs of Brown University estimates about 4.5 - 4.7 million total deaths - https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/)  Millions of combatants from all warring sides died violent deaths during our wars over two decades in Asia and the Middle East.

THERE’S GOTTA BE A BETTER WAY.

Countries go to war when their leaders are able to convince much of the public about the reasons for the war.  As described in post Numbers 13 -15 on Great Power Relations (martinsblogs.com), these reasons usually involve fear and nationalism.  War requires fear and nationalism, but peace requires strength, diplomacy, restraint and honest risk assessment.  This is not what the U.S. did.  In October 2001, under the Bush Administration, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan because the Afghan government at the time (Taliban) would not tell us where Osama bin Laden was hiding.  It was our national duty to eradicate him and his followers although he posed no immediate threat.  Osama bin Laden’s horrific damage on 9/11, planned out over many years and executed with considerable luck, was already done.  Even so, we proceeded to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.  Then in 2003 the Bush Administration convinced the public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was sheltering some Al-Qaeda members.  We now know the evidence was grossly exaggerated  by the CIA pressured by the Bush administration, and that neither assertions were accurate.  In February 2003, Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, presented this flimsy, inaccurate evidence to the United Nations, as the CIA director, George Tenet, looked on directly behind him.  Colin Powell would later call his United Nations presentation a “blot” on his record of service.  With bipartisan support, we then launched our invasion of Iraq.  I think most readers know the result in Iraq: death, destruction and instability.

Fear and nationalism: this is what drives some in Congress even today regarding Russia and China.  When is the United States going to change and lead the world in a more practical, peaceful direction.  We did have a brief shining moment for a decade or two after World War II, pushing peace and economic security (e.g. Marshall Plan), but that ended with Vietnam.

I’m grateful that neo-conservatives pushing interventionist policies at the State Department, Congress and military appear to have lost considerable influence.  But one still hears militant talk by some Democrats and Republicans in Congress about Ukraine.  The fear factor is that Putin will attempt to takeover other European countries if we don’t stop him there.  Already the United States has allocated a little less than 200 billion dollars to the Ukraine war effort (U.S. Department of State, 2024 Foreign Assistance Report).  In all these wars the biggest benefactor has been U.S. arms manufacturers.  Even the expansion of NATO into virtually all the Eastern European countries was a policy actively lobbied by these arms makers, who then supplied new arms  for these newly-minted NATO countries to deter the imagined Russian aggression into their countries.  Companies such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and others spent over 31 million dollars in campaign contributions and over 51 million dollars in lobbying for NATO expansion into Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic (March 30, 1998 New York Times article, “Arms Contractors Spend to Promote an Expanded NATO).   

I am grateful that the United States has set a goal to promote peace and is actively leading peace negotiations regarding Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Gaza and even Iran.  We are attempting to negotiate through strength, with the threat of U.S. economic and military might behind us.  There are some who say that our military strength is a direct result of the powerful and deadly weapons manufactured by our arms industry.  This is true, but we can’t let them have an oversized influence on foreign policy if we are more interested in peace.  President Eisenhower long ago warned us of the growing influence of what he termed the “military industrial complex”.

There are many who actively oppose the current U.S. administration, but I hope they support the efforts, despite their flaws, toward peaceful resolutions of these conflicts. I am disappointed that the Administration has not yet collaborated with China to convince them to join with us in efforts to create peace in these conflict areas.  As the two undisputed superpowers on the planet, together we could do incredible things.  See martinsblogs.com blog post number 40: China and the U.S.: A Way Forward: Pervasive Peace and Prosperity.

It is easy for any government to generate fear in the public, a fear about an evil enemy that has evil designs and must be stopped.  It is much harder to generate hope for a peaceful world based on a practical, common sense and more accurate assessment of risks.  Some people have more risk tolerance than others; perhaps this is the reason why there are diverse responses when the government attempts to coalesce its citizens through fear.  There is no easy answer, but there is a better way.  As for me I choose to advocate for a U.S. foreign policy rooted in hope, diplomacy, strength, common sense and focused on peace and prosperity.  I suggest we all support these values and the leaders who advocate them.  I encourage you to explore martinsblogs.com for more about these issues.  So, where do you stand?

APPENDIX: A Poem to End this Post

Sometimes my heart aches

When I gaze across the sea

At death and destruction

That doesn’t need to be

You say it can’t be helped?

We should stay in our lane

How can we ensure peace

To get involved is insane

I want to light a candle

That dispels the gloom

Where darkness ends

Hope has room to bloom

Let’s plant a garden in the storm

Nurture it with our patient power

Persist against orthodoxy

When it’s cynical and sour

We’re involved when war erupts

And it’s destructive waves

Engulf countries far and wide

Let’s not flounder helplessly

We have the power to decide

There are options to bring peace

If will and power exists

To stop destruction in Ukraine

In Gaza let’s stop the pain

If you are like me

It is peace you thirst

Benefiting everyone

Even America First