The use of force by the US military (or any military) when is it appropriate?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The "Rah, rah" military action thread prompted this thought:

Posted Today, 06:50 AM

Should the use of military force be taken off the table if there is no direct threat of comperable military action against the territory of the US directly? Or should we make it US policy to not use our military against a party, organization, or State that has not attacked the US directly?

I'm curious to see what people think.

My take is that some, well considered forward deployment and actions against potential enemies is not always bad idea. Was Iraq an example, no, I think we created a bigger problem than we had when we intervened there. However, does that mean further intervention is necessarily a bad plan, no. The manner the problem arose does not mean that further action is a priori a bad idea. In fact I worry that being too tenative could cause more problems than it solves.

In any event were is the line in your opinion. When is it proper to use the Military?

[IheartIheartTesla]

We are obligated by treaty, I believe, to defend NATO nations even if there is no direct threat to the US.

I have no idea of the relation between the US and the UN at this point, but being part of a peacekeeping force would be acceptable to me. Basically, anything that has the imprimatur, if that is the correct word, of some international organization. Unfortunately the UN is very slow when it comes to responding to a humanitarian crisis, and generally toothless, so its a hard place to be in (watching genocides go by).

[Fez]

It doesn't need to be a direct threat, just be in our self-interest. If the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, go for it. Which means we pretty much always need to uphold our treaty obligations no matter what, we sometimes need to support friendly regimes, we sometimes need to intervene in other conflicts, etc. There's no hard and fast rule beyond the "Don't do stupid stuff" one, which, honestly, I think is one of the better foreign policy statements Obama has made in a while. Having any sort of doctrine is too stifling and hampers critical thinking and analysis.

[The Marquis de Leech]

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

RBPL,

And that standard is applied equally to all nations?

[Free Northman Reborn]

Roose Bolton's Pet Leech

Unless you are a permanent member of the Security Council, or can get one of them to support you with their veto power, in which case nothing applies to you.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

I don't hold that there are categorically no circumstances when the US or other nations should use force in cases when there is no direct threat to their territory, but I also think there is considerable reason to be skeptical of all proposals to use force in these cases. Historically, the cases where I'd even entertain the idea that it was the right thing to do (and I can think of no cases where I unreservedly think it was), are few and far between. By and large these things have been cynical attempts to support the friendly thug du jour or to help some new thugs to power, with grievous cost on a humanitarian level, and with "successes" manifestly impermanent.

[honeyed chicken]

The "Rah, rah" military action thread prompted this thought:

My take is that some, well considered forward deployment and actions against potential enemies is not always bad idea. Was Iraq an example, no, I think we created a bigger problem than we had when we intervened there. However, does that mean further intervention is necessarily a bad plan, no. The manner the problem arose does not mean that further action is a priori a bad idea. In fact I worry that being too tenative could cause more problems than it solves.

In any event were is the line in your opinion. When is it proper to use the Military?

Excellent question.

My attitude is find anyway possible to avoid using the military. Even using covert ops leads to trouble most of the time. But enough opinion,let's look at some cases.

1942, WW II - we got involved in the European theater to stop Nazi Germany's spread and ended up staying and creating NATO to hold back our one time ally, Russia.

WW II - we got involved in the Pacific theater to stop Imperial Japan and have stayed to be their defacto military.

1950, Korean War- Chinese/No.Korean troops pour into So.Korea and only we can stop them (and of course Japan is scared & see above). 64 years later we are still there.

1955 - '75, Vietnam War - proxy war against "communism". The war we lost. We're pretty much out of there with no ties beyond the diplomatic.

1980ish, Nicaragua - US support of contra rebels leads to 1986 international law case against US, which Nicaragua wins. The end (hopefully) of decades of US meddling in Nicarugan internal affairs going back to the Taft administration in 1912.

1991, Desert Storm - US tells Sadam, "Go into Kuwait, we don't care." Then has a change of heart. At least we left (aside from the no fly zone and various weapons inspector teams) afterward.

2001, Afghanistan - we went in to get Osama, but stayed to mud wrestle the Taliban. The Taliban are still there and we're leaving. Good luck, Karzai.

2003, the Iraq War - we got Sadam, and a massive headache. Seems we are about to get re-entangled.

Obviously, I'm leaving out Beirut, Somalia, Chile, and heaven only knows what else, where we've sent in CIA and weapons and etc.

Every time we get involved militarily, we take on a responsibility to the affected country that does not go away. Not that we aren't in some way responsible for our fellow man all the time, but a military intervention is a completely different fish. Like a 20' shark vs. a minnow.

And I am not saying we should pack our military away and stop doing what we've done (anybody who argues that we have not been the world's policeman is being naive, imo). To do that would create a vacuum that would be filled by???

You can spin that scenario anyway you want.

The benefits to the US are clear. Our economic predominance has followed the military and without it our standard of living would be . . . ?

The benefits to the rest of the world having the US military in control has been a level of economic & social stability and certainty that has allowed for a relatively high level of world prosperity.

The cost to America in blood, taxes and lowered worldwide esteem has been heavy.

In weighing the costs against the benefits, I struggle to come to a conclusion, but I'm certain that we can't continue this way much longer.

To get back to Scot's original question ("When is it proper to use the Military?")

I would say there has to be a clear threat to global stability that no neighbor nation or group of nations can safely address.

[Free Northman Reborn]

The only thing I question about the above post is whether military action truly costs the US money.

All the money spent on bombs, arms, supplies, manpower, logistics etc. comes out of the US fiscus, but largely goes to US companies supplying these goods and services, therefore it still circulates into and stimulates the economy.

So if a war costs $1 trillion, it is not accurate to say the US economy has lost $1 trillion. The money has just been re-allocated from one part of the economy to another.

The only real losses, I would argue, is money spent on military suppliers based outside the US. So if that can be limited, then the financial impact is severely reduced.

[sologdin]

taking responsibility is not a bad thing, compared to letting a pack of pit bulls run wild, such as the low intensity proxy conflicts in angola, mozambique, afghanistan, nicaragua, &c., during which millions of locals die, and then the US rightwing can point to it as an example of how those people just can't get their acts together.

money has just been reallocated

well, yeah, the money stays domestic, but the luxury goods purchased therewith are exported to exotic foreign locales and exploded. it's a complete waste. more economical to build stuff and burn it here, saving the transit cost.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

The only thing I question about the above post is whether military action truly costs the US money.

All the money spent on bombs, arms, supplies, manpower, logistics etc. comes out of the US fiscus, but largely goes to US companies supplying these goods and services, therefore it still circulates into and stimulates the economy.

So if a war costs $1 trillion, it is not accurate to say the US economy has lost $1 trillion. The money has just been re-allocated from one part of the economy to another.

The only real losses, I would argue, is money spent on military suppliers based outside the US. So if that can be limited, then the financial impact is severely reduced.

True, but if the US Government spends a billion dollars building houses, then there are a billion dollars worth of houses for people to live in in addition to the billion dollars paid to the people who built those. If the government spends a billions dollars building bombs, sure the defense contractor gets a billion dollars, but those bombs are gone after they explode. Maybe they save the lives of US servicemen, or maybe they kill people at a wedding party further radicalizing their relatives, but either way, that billion dollars of value is gone.

That's not to mention the whole feeding the military industrial complex thing or that I thought you were, in general, against the government reallocating resources.

[The Undead Martyr]

Excellent question.

My attitude is find anyway possible to avoid using the military. Even using covert ops leads to trouble most of the time. But enough opinion,let's look at some cases.

1942, WW II - we got involved in the European theater to stop Nazi Germany's spread and ended up staying and creating NATO to hold back our one time ally, Russia.

WW II - we got involved in the Pacific theater to stop Imperial Japan and have stayed to be their defacto military.

1950, Korean War- Chinese/No.Korean troops pour into So.Korea and only we can stop them (and of course Japan is scared & see above). 64 years later we are still there.

1955 - '75, Vietnam War - proxy war against "communism". The war we lost. We're pretty much out of there with no ties beyond the diplomatic.

1980ish, Nicaragua - US support of contra rebels leads to 1986 international law case against US, which Nicaragua wins. The end (hopefully) of decades of US meddling in Nicarugan internal affairs going back to the Taft administration in 1912.

1991, Desert Storm - US tells Sadam, "Go into Kuwait, we don't care." Then has a change of heart. At least we left (aside from the no fly zone and various weapons inspector teams) afterward.

2001, Afghanistan - we went in to get Osama, but stayed to mud wrestle the Taliban. The Taliban are still there and we're leaving. Good luck, Karzai.

2003, the Iraq War - we got Sadam, and a massive headache. Seems we are about to get re-entangled.

Obviously, I'm leaving out Beirut, Somalia, Chile, and heaven only knows what else, where we've sent in CIA and weapons and etc.

Every time we get involved militarily, we take on a responsibility to the affected country that does not go away. Not that we aren't in some way responsible for our fellow man all the time, but a military intervention is a completely different fish. Like a 20' shark vs. a minnow.

And I am not saying we should pack our military away and stop doing what we've done (anybody who argues that we have not been the world's policeman is being naive, imo). To do that would create a vacuum that would be filled by???

You can spin that scenario anyway you want.

The benefits to the US are clear. Our economic predominance has followed the military and without it our standard of living would be . . . ?

The benefits to the rest of the world having the US military in control has been a level of economic & social stability and certainty that has allowed for a relatively high level of world prosperity.

The cost to America in blood, taxes and lowered worldwide esteem has been heavy.

In weighing the costs against the benefits, I struggle to come to a conclusion, but I'm certain that we can't continue this way much longer.

To get back to Scot's original question ("When is it proper to use the Military?")

I would say there has to be a clear threat to global stability that no neighbor nation or group of nations can safely address.

An excellent analysis.

The question of military action inevitably touches upon the nature of international politics, namely that as a superpower the US's actions- whether a policy of isolationism or interventionism- will have massive repercussions. Furthermore it is foolish to think that policy is made primarily for ethical concerns.

It all comes down to the ones in charge. I have to accept that they're acting according to amoral political concerns, but the question is then are they competent in their decisions, or thinking only short term? An intervention should have the long-term goal in mind, something which has a terrible track record. I would generally oppose an intervention on the grounds that past interventions have generally created more problems than they solved. I would possibly make exceptions in the case of say the Rwandan Genocide, but that opens up a whole can of worms, namely, where do you draw the line.

[IheartIheartTesla]

We could just keep bombing ourselves and rebuilding so our economy is perpetually sound. Might be against some amendment or the other though.

[Fez]

True, but if the US Government spends a billion dollars building houses, then there are a billion dollars worth of houses for people to live in in addition to the billion dollars paid to the people who built those. If the government spends a billions dollars building bombs, sure the defense contractor gets a billion dollars, but those bombs are gone after they explode. Maybe they save the lives of US servicemen, or maybe they kill people at a wedding party further radicalizing their relatives, but either way, that billion dollars of value is gone.

The money isn't gone though. Because the company now has a billion dollars, and only the end product is gone. The money that went to the employees, to the executives, to the subcontractors, that's all still there; and they will go out and be purchasing goods and services. Its stimulus. Its not the best stimulus, because, as you say, there's not an end product like a house or road that will continue to provide value, but its not all gone. I swear I saw a paper once on this, and the return value on military industrial stuff was quite a bit lower than most other forms of government spending, but it was still greater than 1:1; meaning it overall improved the economy.

Mind you, I'm only talking about the production of military hardware, the money that gets transferred overseas, like during the Iraq War, that doesn't do a thing. And also, its not like the return value is so high that the government gets all the money back in taxes, so money spent on the military is money that can't be spent on other things; but there's still that stimulus value to it.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

The benefits to the US are clear. Our economic predominance has followed the military and without it our standard of living would be . . . ?

Our economic predominance has absolutely not followed the military. Instead, our enormous military power resulted from our pre-existing economic and industrial strength. At best one could argue that American military power has facilitated a wider space of global free markets without which we would be somewhat less wealthy than we are, but America's standard of living was already on par with the highest global standards of living before this.

[Shryke]

The only thing I question about the above post is whether military action truly costs the US money.

All the money spent on bombs, arms, supplies, manpower, logistics etc. comes out of the US fiscus, but largely goes to US companies supplying these goods and services, therefore it still circulates into and stimulates the economy.

So if a war costs $1 trillion, it is not accurate to say the US economy has lost $1 trillion. The money has just been re-allocated from one part of the economy to another.

The only real losses, I would argue, is money spent on military suppliers based outside the US. So if that can be limited, then the financial impact is severely reduced.

This is the broken window "fallacy".

Simply, that money could be better allocated elsewhere.

[Cricix]

Excellent question.

My attitude is find anyway possible to avoid using the military. Even using covert ops leads to trouble most of the time. But enough opinion,let's look at some cases.

1942, WW II - we got involved in the European theater to stop Nazi Germany's spread and ended up staying and creating NATO to hold back our one time ally, Russia.

WW II - we got involved in the Pacific theater to stop Imperial Japan and have stayed to be their defacto military. We got involved in WWII after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We became allies because Japan hates the Chinese more than anyone else, and the agreements after WWII ensure that Japan can not build a military so they rely on the US for major defense and we rely on them for a Pacific staging ground.

1950, Korean War- Chinese/No.Korean troops pour into So.Korea and only we can stop them (and of course Japan is scared & see above). 64 years later we are still there. Fairly accurate as the war ended in a stalemate with Korea remaining divided at 38th as it was before the Korean War.

1955 - '75, Vietnam War - proxy war against "communism". The war we lost. We're pretty much out of there with no ties beyond the diplomatic. This is absolutely false. America won the war. America gained air superiority and began bombing Hanoi with a promise to bomb Hanoi until Vietnam agreed to attend the Paris Peace Talks. Hanoi caved and went back to the peace talks and America stopped the bombings. A PEACE TREATY WAS SIGNED and the war ended. However, Nixon resigned (Watergate) and Ford took over as President with the Democrats winning majority due to the unpopularity of the war. Ford took back US promise to replace South Vietnam military equipment and North Vietnam realized this and started the war again 2.25 years after the signed peace treaty conquering South Vietnam easily. The U.S. decided to stay out and not intervene again.

1980ish, Nicaragua - US support of contra rebels leads to 1986 international law case against US, which Nicaragua wins. The end (hopefully) of decades of US meddling in Nicarugan internal affairs going back to the Taft administration in 1912. Ok.

1991, Desert Storm - US tells Sadam, "Go into Kuwait, we don't care." Then has a change of heart. At least we left (aside from the no fly zone and various weapons inspector teams) afterward. Ok.

2001, Afghanistan - we went in to get Osama, but stayed to mud wrestle the Taliban. The Taliban are still there and we're leaving. Good luck, Karzai. Won the war, but may never win the peace.

2003, the Iraq War - we got Sadam, and a massive headache. Seems we are about to get re-entangled. Yup, another winning the war is easy, but winning the peace is extremely difficult.

Sorry I had to comment mostly because the Vietnam war is probably the most misunderstood war by us younger generations, and what you stated was completely inaccurate.

[The Undead Martyr]

Sorry I had to comment mostly because the Vietnam war is probably the most misunderstood war by us younger generations, and what you stated was completely inaccurate.

We were "involved" with Lend-Lease and the oil embargo contra Japan. Just like with the Lusitania (or even Zimmerman Telegram) Pearl Harbor did not happen out of the blue but as a result o fthe desperation and mind-numbing insanity (get pasted by Russia = attack Britain and US at the same time, despite the fact that the US can outproduce your navy four times over...) of Imperial Japan plus them being too proud to not maintain commitments to China.

America did not "win" Vietnam, in that our objective- halting Communism- was both ill-guided and ultimately failed. We could not see anti-colonial struggles outside of the Cold War Paradigm- this extended also to the Iranian Coup (Operation Ajax IIRC) and dozens of interventions (read- sponsoring "terrorists") in Latin America. Vietnam was an unnecessary blunder, in that Vietnam, even Communist, did not become some staunch enemy, well aside from the whole "dropping more explosives than WWII" thing. The war also started as an anti-French nationalist movement which we then took up because FREEDOM.

You are correct in that the war is misunderstood- IIRC college students as a whole were more in favor of the war than the general public.

2001- Invading Afghanistan is dumber than invading Russia. Seriously, even Alexander the Great just sort of ignored the place. Another case of our liberal nation-state paradigm not fitting the situation on the ground.

2003- this ties into the nature of post Versailles ME- namely that a large number of the states there were carved out following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and largely without regard to the on-the-ground concerns. Even setting aside the idea of whether or not an ethnically based Westphalian nation-state would lead to stable region (I think that it would not, at least in regions with such diversity) Iraq, essentially, with at least three (Kurds, Sunni, Shia) distinct identity markers, held in place (barely) by a despot. Remove the despot and the state flies apart as there's little incentive to hold it together.

But that didn't matter cuz FREEDOM CONQUERS ALL.

I feel like the West should just let the region sort out its own problems. We are not ideologically or materially equipped to recreate our version of ideal societies in the region and attempts to do so inevitably lead to backlashes. Add in the economic imperialism and military "intervention" to the cultural hegemony and you start to appreciate why the US isn't liked in the region.

[Slurms McKenzie]

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

*Arnie voice*: That is for girly men.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Slurms,

It's really not, but if it isn't consitently enforced by the international community (it applies to Russia and the US equally) it is empty words.