Fighting the last War.(American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security)

• Published in: American Conservative Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 47
• Main Author: Pillar, Paul R
• Format: Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Arlington The American Conservative LLC 01.01.2012; American Conservative LLC
• Subjects: Betts, Richard K; Cold War; National security; Nonfiction; Power; United States > US
• ISSN: 1540-966X

National-security intellectuals of a certain age have had to make their own conceptual journeys from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era. This includes Berts, one of the leading American thinkers on strategic matters for over three decades. In American Force he goes out of his way to locate himself on the intellectual and political map: just to the right of the Democratic Party's center during the Cold War, and just to the left of the party's center now - "barely closer to John Kerry than to Dennis Kucinich." Those scholars whom he sees on the wrong side of the issues he discusses - wrong because they favor the use of armed force to pursue expansive rather than narrowly defined conceptions of security - include neoconservatives, liberal hawks, and "fervent multilateralists." Those who are more on the correct side, as he sees it, are "realist doves, cautious liberals, and paleoconservatives." [Richard K. Betts]'s transition from Cold War hawk to post-Cold-War dove is fodder for accusations of inconsistency, but he is correct that what changed is not his own intellectual posture but the outside world. Political challenges notwithstanding, Betts's outlook toward the use of armed force would have saved the United States much grief if it had guided policy over the past 20 years. He regards military force as a very special and costly instrument, to be reserved for protecting truly vital interests. "It may not always be the last resort," says Betts, "but it should be close to it." This sparing and almost reverential handling of the military instrument is appropriate partly because of the unique suffering and sacrifice of those volunteers who make up that instrument. It is also appropriate because of the high uncertainty about the consequences and costs of using it A big fudge factor has to be added to any estimate of such costs. Large-scale use of military force is a blunt instrument. "Any policymaker who hears a suggestion for 'surgical' military action," advises [Berts], "needs a second opinion." The more immediate applicability of the sagacity in this book concerns the current saber-rattling over Iran. Betts reminds us that Stalin's USSR and Mao's China were once considered more alarming threats than the mullahs in Tehran are now. Here again the Cold War's conclusion merits reflection. "The ultimate evidence against preventive war was the surprisingly peaceful end of the Cold War," says Betts, "which clearly demonstrated the wisdom of waiting the adversary out and relying on containment and deterrence rather than precipitating a showdown that turned out to be unnecessary."