By Andrew Bacevich
As he campaigns for reelection, President Obama periodically reminds audiences
of his success in terminating the deeply unpopular Iraq War. With fingers
crossed for luck, he vows to do the same with the equally unpopular war in
Afghanistan. If not exactly a peacemaker, our Nobel Peace Prize-winning
president can (with some justification) at least claim credit for being a
war-ender.
Yet when it comes to
military policy, the Obama administration’s success in shutting down wars
conducted in plain sight tells only half the story, and the lesser half at
that. More significant has been this president’s enthusiasm for instigating or
expanding secret wars, those conducted out of sight and by commandos.
President Franklin
Roosevelt may not have invented the airplane, but during World War II he
transformed strategic bombing into one of the principal emblems of the reigning
American way of war. General Dwight D. Eisenhower had nothing to do with the Manhattan
Project that developed the atomic bomb. Yet, as president, Ike’s strategy of
Massive Retaliation made nukes the centerpiece of U.S. national security
policy.
So, too, with Barack Obama
and special operations forces. The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)
with its constituent operating forces—Green Berets, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs,
and the like—predated his presidency by decades. Yet it is only on Obama’s
watch that these secret warriors have reached the pinnacle of the U.S.
military’s prestige hierarchy.
John F. Kennedy famously
gave the Green Berets their distinctive headgear. Obama has endowed the whole
special operations “community” with something less decorative but far more
important: privileged status that provides special operators with maximum
autonomy while insulating them from the vagaries of politics, budgetary or
otherwise. Congress may yet require the Pentagon to undertake some (very
modest) belt-tightening, but one thing’s for sure: no one is going to tell
USSOCOM to go on a diet. What the special ops types want, they will get, with
few questions asked—and virtually none of those few posed in public.
Since 9/11, USSOCOM’s
budget has quadrupled. The special operations order of battle has expanded
accordingly. At present, there are an estimated 66,000 uniformed and civilian
personnel on the rolls, a doubling in size since 2001 with further growth
projected. Yet this expansion had already begun under Obama’s predecessor. His
essential contribution has been to broaden the special ops mandate. As one
observer put it, the Obama White House let Special Operations Command “off the
leash.”
As a consequence, USSOCOM
assets today go more places and undertake more missions while enjoying greater
freedom of action than ever before. After a decade in which Iraq and
Afghanistan absorbed the lion’s share of the attention, hitherto neglected
swaths of Africa, Asia, and Latin America are receiving greater scrutiny.
Already operating in dozens of countries around the world—as many as 120 by the
end of this year—special operators engage in activities that range from
reconnaissance and counterterrorism to humanitarian assistance and “direct
action.” The traditional motto of the Army special forces is “De Oppresso
Liber” (“To Free the Oppressed”). A more apt slogan for special operations
forces as a whole might be “Coming soon to a Third World country near you!”
The displacement of
conventional forces by special operations forces as the preferred U.S. military
instrument—the “force of choice” according to the head of USSOCOM, Admiral
William McRaven—marks the completion of a decades-long cultural repositioning
of the American soldier. The G.I., once represented by the likes of cartoonist
Bill Mauldin’s iconic Willie and Joe, is no more, his place taken by today’s
elite warrior professional. Mauldin’s creations were heroes, but not
superheroes. The nameless, lionized SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden are
flesh-and blood Avengers. Willie and Joe were “us.” SEALs
are anything but “us.” They occupy a pedestal well above mere mortals. Couch potato America stands
in awe of their skill and bravery.
This cultural
transformation has important political implications. It represents the ultimate
manifestation of the abyss now separating the military and society. Nominally
bemoaned by some, including former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former
Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, this civilian-military gap has only
grown over the course of decades and is now widely accepted as the norm. As one
consequence, the American people have forfeited owner’s rights over their army,
having less control over the employment of U.S. forces than New Yorkers have
over the management of the Knicks or Yankees.
As admiring spectators, we
may take at face value the testimony of experts (even if such testimony is
seldom disinterested) who assure us that the SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, etc.
are the best of the best, and that they stand ready to deploy at a moment’s
notice so that Americans can sleep soundly in their beds. If the United States
is indeed engaged, as Admiral McRaven has said, in “a generational struggle,”
we will surely want these guys in our corner.
Even so, allowing war in
the shadows to become the new American way of war is not without a downside.
Here are three reasons why we should think twice before turning global security
over to Admiral McRaven and his associates.
Goodbye accountability.
Autonomy and accountability exist in inverse proportion to one another. Indulge
the former and kiss the latter goodbye. In practice, the only thing the public
knows about special ops activities is what the national security apparatus
chooses to reveal. Can you rely on those who speak for that apparatus in
Washington to tell the truth? No more than you can rely on JPMorgan Chase to
manage your money prudently. Granted, out there in the field, most troops will
do the right thing most of the time. On occasion, however, even members of an
elite force will stray off the straight-and-narrow. (Until just a few weeks
ago, most Americans considered White House Secret Service agents part of an
elite force.) Americans have a strong inclination to trust the military. Yet as
a famous Republican once said: trust but verify. There’s no verifying things
that remain secret. Unleashing USSOCOM is a recipe for mischief.
Hello imperial presidency.
From a president’s point of view, one of the appealing things about special
forces is that he can send them wherever he wants to do whatever he directs.
There’s no need to ask permission or to explain. Employing USSOCOM as your own
private military means never having to say you’re sorry. When President Clinton
intervened in Bosnia or Kosovo, when President Bush invaded Afghanistan and
Iraq, they at least went on television to clue the rest of us in. However perfunctory
the consultations may have been, the White House at least talked things over
with the leaders on Capitol Hill. Once in a while, members of Congress even
cast votes to indicate approval or disapproval of some military action. With
special ops, no such notification or consultation is necessary. The president
and his minions have a free hand. Building on the precedents set by Obama,
stupid and reckless presidents will enjoy this prerogative no less than shrewd
and well-intentioned ones.
And then what…? As U.S.
special ops forces roam the world slaying evildoers, the famous question posed
by David Petraeus as the invasion of Iraq began—“Tell me how this ends”—rises
to the level of Talmudic conundrum. There are certainly plenty of evildoers who
wish us ill (primarily but not necessarily in the Greater Middle East). How
many will USSOCOM have to liquidate before the job is done? Answering that
question becomes all the more difficult given that some of the killing has the
effect of adding new recruits to the ranks of the non-well-wishers.
In short, handing war to
the special operators severs an already too tenuous link between war and
politics; it becomes war for its own sake. Remember George W. Bush’s “Global
War on Terror”? Actually, his war was never truly global. War waged in a
special-operations-first world just might become truly global—and never-ending.
In that case, Admiral McRaven’s “generational struggle” is likely to become a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
