Washington Rules Part 6

Dwight D. Eisenhower for one would have been appalled. Early in his first term as president, Ike contemplated the awful predicament wrought by the Cold War during its first decade. "What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for," he asked, "if no turning is found on this dread road?" The president proceeded to answer his own question. The worst to be feared would be a ruinous nuclear war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

The president ill.u.s.trated his point with specifics: The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.1 Eisenhower urged Soviet leaders to join him in lifting humankind from its iron gibbet. His speech had little practical effect. Perhaps inevitably, the Cold War and its a.s.sociated arms race continued. Worth recalling, however, is this soldier-statesman's acute discomfort with the progressive militarization of U.S. policy.

Today, for most Americans, the Cold War has become a distant memory. Yet the "life of perpetual fear and tension" that Eisenhower described in 1953, the "burden of arms" that he decried, and "the wasting of strength" that undercuts the prospect of Americans achieving "true abundance and happiness" all persist. In Washington, the pattern of behavior that Eisenhower lamented has become deeply entrenched. Practices that Eisenhower viewed as temporary expedients are now etched in stone.

Contemplate these three examples: the size of the Pentagon budget, the dimensions of the nuclear a.r.s.enal, and the extent of its overseas military presence. If, rather than exceeding the military spending of the rest of the planet, Pentagon outlays merely equaled the combined defense budgets of, say, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba, would the United States face great peril? If the U.S. nuclear stockpile consisted of several hundred weapons rather than several thousand, would the United States find itself appreciably more vulnerable to nuclear blackmail or attack? Were the United States, sixty-plus years after the end of World War II, finally to withdraw its forces from Germany, Italy, and the rest of Europe, would Americans sleep less easily in their beds at night? exceeding the military spending of the rest of the planet, Pentagon outlays merely equaled the combined defense budgets of, say, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba, would the United States face great peril? If the U.S. nuclear stockpile consisted of several hundred weapons rather than several thousand, would the United States find itself appreciably more vulnerable to nuclear blackmail or attack? Were the United States, sixty-plus years after the end of World War II, finally to withdraw its forces from Germany, Italy, and the rest of Europe, would Americans sleep less easily in their beds at night?

Consider these questions pragmatically and the answer to each is self-evidently no no. Consider them from a vantage point within the Washington consensus and you'll reach a different conclusion.

Adherents of that consensus categorically reject the notion that the defense spending of would-be adversaries could provide a gauge for our own military budget. They argue instead that America's unique responsibilities require extraordinary capabilities, rendering external constraints unacceptable. Even as U.S. officials condemn others for merely contemplating the acquisition of nuclear weapons, they reject unilateral action to reduce America's own a.r.s.enal-the fancied risks of doing so being too great to contemplate. As for withdrawing U.S. troops from Europe, doing so might-so the argument goes-call into question America's commitment to its allies and could therefore send the wrong "signal" to unnamed potential enemies. Thus do the Washington rules enforce discipline, precluding the intrusion of aberrant thinking that might engender an actual policy debate in our nation's capital.

Cui bono? Who benefits from the perpetuation of the Washington rules? The answer to that question helps explain why the national security consensus persists.

The answer, needless to say, is that Washington itself benefits. The Washington rules deliver profit, power, and privilege to a long list of beneficiaries: elected and appointed officials, corporate executives and corporate lobbyists, admirals and generals, functionaries staffing the national security apparatus, media personalities, and policy intellectuals from universities and research organizations. Each year the Pentagon expends hundreds of billions of dollars to raise and support U.S. military forces. This money lubricates American politics, filling campaign coffers and providing a source of largesse-jobs and contracts-for distribution to const.i.tuents. It provides lucrative "second careers" for retired U.S. military officers hired by weapons manufacturers or by consulting firms appropriately known as "Beltway Bandits." It funds the activities of think tanks that relentlessly advocate for policies guaranteed to fend off challenges to established conventions. "Military-industrial complex" no longer suffices to describe the congeries of interests profiting from and committed to preserving the national security status quo.

Nor are the benefits simply measurable in cold cash or political influence. The appeal of the Washington rules is psychic as well as substantive. For many, the payoff includes the added, if largely illusory, attraction of occupying a seat within or near what is imagined to be the very c.o.c.kpit of contemporary history. Before power corrupts it attracts and then seduces. The claims implicit in the American credo and the opportunities inherent in the sacred trinity combine to make the imperial city on the Potomac one of the most captivating, corrupt, and corrupting places on the face of the earth. most captivating, corrupt, and corrupting places on the face of the earth.

COMING HOME.

For these very reasons, the Washington rules are likely to remain securely in place for the foreseeable future. Or they will until the strain laid on a military that is perpetually at war and on an economy propped up by perpetual borrowing causes one or both to collapse.

Yet even that eventuality, should it occur, is less likely to nudge Americans onto a path of sobriety and good sense than to produce a panicky rush to a.s.sign blame-a steady supply of McNamaras and Rumsfelds guarantees the availability of suitable scapegoats-and announce "reforms" while further sweetening the Pentagon's budget. President Obama's response to the economic crisis that began in 2008 ill.u.s.trates this tendency: His administration's vow to reduce federal deficits in "the long term" served to justify increased spending in the near term, with anything even remotely related to national security explicitly exempted from even the slightest belt tightening.

So proposing to replace the American credo and the sacred trinity might seem a fanciful exercise, unlikely to yield anything of immediate practical value. Still, the effort is worth attempting, if only to lay down a marker. Before the movement comes the conviction-an awareness of things amiss combined with a broad vision of how to make them right. Challenging the Washington consensus requires first establishing the proposition that viable alternatives to permanent war do do exist-that a different credo and trinity might offer a better way of ensuring the exist-that a different credo and trinity might offer a better way of ensuring the safety and well-being of the American people and even perhaps of fulfilling the mission that Americans persist in believing G.o.d or Providence has bestowed upon the United States. safety and well-being of the American people and even perhaps of fulfilling the mission that Americans persist in believing G.o.d or Providence has bestowed upon the United States.

The existing American credo a.s.sumes that the world is plastic, that American leaders are uniquely capable of divining whatever G.o.d or Providence intends, and that with its unequaled reserves of power the United States is uniquely positioned to fulfill those intentions. Experience since the dawn of the American Century in 1941, and especially over the course of the last decade, offers little support for these propositions.

The record of American statecraft during the era that began with U.S. entry into World War II and that culminates today with the Long War does not easily reduce to a simple report card. Overall that record is mixed, combining wisdom with folly, generosity with shortsightedness, moments of insight with periods of profound blindness, admirable achievements with reckless misjudgments. The president who devised the Marshall Plan also ordered the bombing of Hiroshima. The president who created the Peace Corps also dabbled in a.s.sa.s.sination plots. The president who vowed to eliminate evil secretly authorized torture and then either could not bring himself to acknowledge the fact or simply lied about it.

Critics fasten on these contradictions as evidence of Washington's hypocrisy. What they actually reveal is the intractability of the human condition. Even the self-a.s.signed agent of salvation persistently strays from the path of righteousness. No wonder the world at large remains stubbornly resistant to redemption. Notwithstanding prophetic p.r.o.nouncements issued by American leaders, when it comes to discerning the future they, like other statesmen, fly blind. The leader of the Free World, surrounded by his impressively credentialed advisers, is hardly more capable of divining the global future than is a roomful of reasonably well-informed high school students. The leader of the Free World, surrounded by his impressively credentialed advisers, is hardly more capable of divining the global future than is a roomful of reasonably well-informed high school students.

As with American clairvoyance, so too with American power: Events have exposed its limits. Especially in economic terms, it is today a wasting a.s.set.

Any new credo must surely take into account these lessons of the era now drawing to a close, acknowledging the recalcitrance of humankind, the difficulty of deciphering history's purposes, and the importance of husbanding American power.

Note, however, that these very insights formed the basis of an earlier credo, nurtured across many generations until swept aside by the conceits of the American Century. Proponents of this earlier credo did not question the existence of an American mission. Embracing John Winthrop's charge, issued to his followers on the eve of founding Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, they too sought to create a "city upon a hill." This defined America's obligation.2 Yet in discharging that obligation, in their view, the city's inhabitants should seek not to compel or enforce, but to exemplify and illuminate. Yet in discharging that obligation, in their view, the city's inhabitants should seek not to compel or enforce, but to exemplify and illuminate.

For the Founders, and for the generations that followed them, here was the basis of a distinctively American approach to leadership, informed by a conviction that self-mastery should take precedence over mastering others. This Founders' credo was neither liberal nor conservative. It transcended partisanship, blending both idealism and realism, emphasizing patience rather than immediacy, preferring influence to coercion. Until the end of the nineteenth century, this conception of America as exemplar, endorsed by figures as varied in outlook and disposition as George Washington and John Quincy Adams, commanded widespread a.s.sent. Washington and John Quincy Adams, commanded widespread a.s.sent.

In his farewell address to the nation, a doc.u.ment that for decades enjoyed a standing akin to divine scripture, President Washington urged his countrymen to chart an independent course, enabling the United States "to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence." Washington had an acute appreciation of the extraordinarily fortunate circ.u.mstances in which the young republic found itself. "Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?" he asked.

Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?3 In a presentation to the House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, Secretary of State Adams elaborated on Washington's theme. The United States, he insisted, "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which a.s.sume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. and ambition, which a.s.sume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.4 For most Americans, most of the time, the policies prescribed by Washington and Adams defined the nation's proper orientation toward the outside world, a view that prevailed throughout the nineteenth century.

America's impulsive if abbreviated fling with European-style imperialism in 1898 signaled the impending demise of this tradition. "We used to believe ... that we were of a different clay from other nations," Harvard's William James reflected when contemplating the resulting American empire. But this had turned out to be "pure Fourth of July fancy, scattered in five minutes by the first temptation."5 U.S. entry into World War I at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 dealt a mortal blow to the belief that Americans were made of different clay than the warring peoples of Europe. Dissenters remained, but now they seemed to lag behind in their understanding of history's summons. Prominent among those dissenters was the radical journalist Randolph Bourne, who offered this impa.s.sioned defense of America's true mission in a world consumed by violence: If America has lost its political isolation, it is all the more obligated to retain its spiritual integrity. This does not mean any smug retreat from the world, with a belief that the truth is in us and can only be contaminated by contact. It means that the promise of American life is not yet achieved ... and that, until it is, there is nothing for us but stern and intensive cultivation of our garden. is, there is nothing for us but stern and intensive cultivation of our garden.6 With the advent of World War II, the tradition of America as exemplar-now widely and erroneously characterized as isolationism-stood almost completely discredited, finding favor with only a handful of cranks, malcontents, and anti-Semites. In Washington after 1945, it carried no weight at all. If not entirely forgotten, the cultivation of our own garden now figured at best as an afterthought. In official circles, fixing the world now took precedence over remedying whatever ailments afflicted the United States.

Outside of such circles, an awareness of America's own imperfections-social, political, cultural, and moral-survived. The advent of the postwar American credo, with all of the costly undertakings that trailed in its wake, fostered for a minority a renewed appreciation of the all but forgotten Founders' credo. Among critics of U.S. foreign policy, the old tradition of America as exemplar enjoyed a quiet renaissance.

Those critics questioned the wisdom and feasibility of forcibly attempting to remake the world in America's image. They believed that even to make the attempt was to court corruption in the form of imperialism and militarism, thereby compromising republican inst.i.tutions at home. Representing no one party but instead a great diversity of perspectives, they insisted that, if America has a mission, that mission is to model model freedom rather than to impose it. freedom rather than to impose it.

The famed diplomat-turned-historian George Kennan, a cultural conservative, was one such critic. Senator J. William Fulbright, a died-in-wool liberal internationalist, was another. The influential social critic Christopher Lasch, a self-professed radical, was a third. Martin Luther King, arguably the dominant moral figure of the American Century, was a fourth. arguably the dominant moral figure of the American Century, was a fourth.

Writing to an acquaintance in the midst of the Korean War, Kennan argued that Americans had for too long subjected their garden to abuse. "It seems to me," he wrote, "that our country bristles with imperfections-and some of them very serious ones-of which we are almost universally aware, but lack the resolution and civic vigor to correct." Here lay the real danger. "What is at stake here is our duty to ourselves and our own national ideals."7 In a contemporaneous lecture, Kennan returned to this theme. To observers abroad, he suggested, In a contemporaneous lecture, Kennan returned to this theme. To observers abroad, he suggested, the sight of an America in which there is visible no higher social goal than the self-enrichment of the individual, and where that self-enrichment takes place primarily in material goods and gadgets that are of doubtful utility in the achievement of the deeper satisfactions of life-this sight fails to inspire either confidence or enthusiasm.

Rather than obsessing about the threat posed by the Soviet Union, the nation needed to set its own house in order. By demonstrating a capacity to nurture "a genuinely healthy relationship both of man to nature and of man to himself," Kennan believed, Americans might "then, for the first time, have something to say to people elsewhere," perhaps even becoming "a source of inspiration" to others.8 A decade after Kennan, in the midst of another dubious war, Senator Fulbright a.s.sessed the implications of believing that America's own well-being required constant meddling abroad. It was, he wrote, "neither the duty nor the right of the United States to sort out" all of the world's problems. "[M]any things happen in many places," wrote the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "that are either none of our business or in any case are beyond the range of our power, resources, and wisdom." It was long past time for the United States to "confine herself to doing only that good in the world which she problems. "[M]any things happen in many places," wrote the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "that are either none of our business or in any case are beyond the range of our power, resources, and wisdom." It was long past time for the United States to "confine herself to doing only that good in the world which she can can do, both by direct effort and by the force of her example," abandoning her "missionary idea full of pretensions about being the world's policeman." do, both by direct effort and by the force of her example," abandoning her "missionary idea full of pretensions about being the world's policeman."9 Lasch, who spent decades ruthlessly dissecting American culture, concurred. "The real promise of American life," he insisted, was to be found in "the hope that a self-governing republic can serve as a source of moral and political inspiration to the rest of the world, not as the center of a new world empire."10 Martin Luther King went even further. In the spring of 1967, preaching on the raging Vietnam War, he insisted that the time had come "for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home." Before attempting to save others, the nation needed to acknowledge and correct its own sins and failings.

To none of these men did coming home imply pa.s.sivity or so-called isolationism. It did, however, mean revising the hierarchy of national priorities. In that regard, the militarization of U.S. policy, exemplified above all by the Vietnam War, had diverted the nation's attention from pursuing its true calling. The arduous work of creating a free society remained far from finished. Only by turning away from war would the United States be able to tackle what King referred to as the "giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism."11 The essential credo to which each of these figures subscribed, a variant of the convictions first articulated by the Founders, deserves renewed consideration today. Its essence is simply this: Founders, deserves renewed consideration today. Its essence is simply this: America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Const.i.tution as reinterpreted with the pa.s.sage of time and in light of hard-earned experience. America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Const.i.tution as reinterpreted with the pa.s.sage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.

The proper aim of American statecraft, therefore, is not to redeem humankind or to prescribe some specific world order, nor to police the planet by force of arms. Its purpose is to permit Americans to avail themselves of the right of self-determination as they seek to create at home a "more perfect union." Any policy impeding that enterprise-as open-ended war surely does-is misguided and pernicious.

By demonstrating the feasibility of creating a way of life based on humane, liberal values, the United States might help illuminate the path ahead for others who seek freedom. Or as Randolph Bourne once put it, "a turning within" is essential "in order that we may have something to give without." Yet this "giving without" qualifies as an extra benefit-a bonus or dividend-not as the central purpose of American life.

In short, if the United States has a saving mission, it is, first and foremost, to save itself. In that regard, Dr. King's list of evils may need a bit of tweaking. In our own day, the sins requiring expiation number more than three. Yet in his insistence that we first heal ourselves-"Come home, America!"-King remains today the prophet Americans would do well to heed.12 Come home and resurrecting the nation's true vocation becomes a possibility. Cling to the existing American credo and the betrayal of that vocation is a.s.sured. For anyone genuinely interested in education-a category that necessarily excludes partisans and ideologues-surely this stands out as a conclusion that the events of the post-9/11 era, and indeed of the entire American Century, have made manifest. era, and indeed of the entire American Century, have made manifest.

No doubt the case can, and probably will, be made that the obligations of global leadership demand that the United States take on the problems besetting Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, much as it has addressed those besetting Afghanistan and Iraq.

Little evidence exists to suggest that such efforts are likely to have a positive effect, however. No evidence exists-none-to suggest that U.S. efforts will advance the cause of global peace. If, as many suspect, Washington's actual aim is something more akin to dominance or hegemony, then evidence exists in abundance demonstrating that the project is a self-defeating one.

A NEW TRINITY.

Even if self-determination qualifies as a right, it is certainly not a gift. As with any right, it requires safeguards. To ensure that others will refrain from interfering with its efforts to create a more perfect union, the United States requires power. Yet in light of the credo described above, how precisely should the United States formulate and wield that power?

Here, too, there exists an alternative tradition to which Americans today could repair, should they choose to do so. This tradition harks back to the nearly forgotten anti-imperial origins of the Republic. Succinctly captured in the motto "Don't Tread on Me," this tradition is one that does not seek trouble but insists that others will accord the United States respect. Updated for our own time, it might translate into the following subst.i.tute for the existing sacred trinity.

First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests. vital interests. However necessary, military power itself is neither good nor inherently desirable. Any nation defining itself in terms of military might is well down the road to perdition, as earlier generations of Americans instinctively understood. As for military supremacy, the lessons of the past are quite clear. It is an illusion and its pursuit an invitation to mischief, if not disaster. Therefore, the United States should maintain only those forces required to accomplish the defense establishment's core mission. However necessary, military power itself is neither good nor inherently desirable. Any nation defining itself in terms of military might is well down the road to perdition, as earlier generations of Americans instinctively understood. As for military supremacy, the lessons of the past are quite clear. It is an illusion and its pursuit an invitation to mischief, if not disaster. Therefore, the United States should maintain only those forces required to accomplish the defense establishment's core mission.

Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America. Just as the U.S. military should not be a global police force, so too it should not be a global occupation force. Specific circ.u.mstances may from time to time require the United States on a temporary basis to establish a military presence abroad. Yet rather than defining the norm, Americans should view this prospect as a sharp departure, entailing public debate and prior congressional authorization. Dismantling the Pentagon's sprawling network of existing bases promises to be a lengthy process. Priority should be given to those regions where the American presence costs the most while accomplishing the least. According to those criteria, U.S. troops should withdraw from the Persian Gulf and Central Asia forthwith. Just as the U.S. military should not be a global police force, so too it should not be a global occupation force. Specific circ.u.mstances may from time to time require the United States on a temporary basis to establish a military presence abroad. Yet rather than defining the norm, Americans should view this prospect as a sharp departure, entailing public debate and prior congressional authorization. Dismantling the Pentagon's sprawling network of existing bases promises to be a lengthy process. Priority should be given to those regions where the American presence costs the most while accomplishing the least. According to those criteria, U.S. troops should withdraw from the Persian Gulf and Central Asia forthwith.

Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense. The Bush Doctrine of preventive war-the United States bestowing on itself the exclusive prerogative of employing force against ostensible threats even before they materialize-is a moral and strategic abomination, the very inverse of prudent and enlightened statecraft. Concocted by George W. Bush to justify his needless and misguided 2003 invasion of Iraq, this doctrine still awaits explicit abrogation by authorities in Washington. Never again should The Bush Doctrine of preventive war-the United States bestowing on itself the exclusive prerogative of employing force against ostensible threats even before they materialize-is a moral and strategic abomination, the very inverse of prudent and enlightened statecraft. Concocted by George W. Bush to justify his needless and misguided 2003 invasion of Iraq, this doctrine still awaits explicit abrogation by authorities in Washington. Never again should the United States undertake "a war of choice" informed by fantasies that violence provides a shortcut to resolving history's complexities. the United States undertake "a war of choice" informed by fantasies that violence provides a shortcut to resolving history's complexities.

Were this alternative triad to become the basis for policy, dramatic changes in the U.S. national security posture would ensue. Military spending would decrease appreciably. The Pentagon's global footprint would shrink. Weapons manufacturers would see their profits plummet. Beltway Bandits would close up shop. The ranks of defense-oriented think tanks would thin. These changes, in turn, would narrow the range of options available for employing force, obliging policy makers to exhibit greater restraint in intervening abroad. With resources currently devoted to rehabilitating Baghdad or Kabul freed up, the cause of rehabilitating Cleveland and Detroit might finally attract a following.

Popular susceptibility to fearmongering by those always conjuring up new national emergencies might also wane and with it the average American's willingness to allow some freshly discovered "axis of evil" to dictate the nation's priorities. The imperial presidency's ability to evoke awe and command deference would likewise diminish. With that, the possibility of responsible and genuinely democratic government might present itself.

Of fundamental importance, the ident.i.ty of the American soldier would undergo substantial revision. The warrior-professional brought home from distant provinces of empire might once again become the citizen-protector of the nation. Rather than serving as an instrument of the state, the soldier might simply defend the country-a cause to which Americans, regardless of cla.s.s or political orientation, might once again see as their own.

This very prospect-the prospect of any departure from the Washington rules reducing the privileges that Washington has long enjoyed-helps explain the tenacity of those intent on preserving the status quo. the Washington rules reducing the privileges that Washington has long enjoyed-helps explain the tenacity of those intent on preserving the status quo.

POPULAR COMPLICITY.

"War is the health of the State." So wrote Randolph Bourne nearly a century ago, as he contemplated the U.S. entry into World War I. Bourne's famous aphorism contains an essential truth, yet is too narrowly framed for present-day purposes. Not only war itself, but the preparation for, preoccupation with, and casual acceptance of war all serve today to enhance state power. In addition to the state itself, a constellation of individuals and inst.i.tutions drawing sustenance from the state also prosper.

That Washington is the princ.i.p.al beneficiary of the national security consensus prompts critics-whether on the antiwar left or the anti-interventionist right-to conclude that Washington itself defines the problem. Change the way Washington works, as virtually every presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter has vowed to do, and the problem will fix itself.

This diagnosis accords with a hallowed practice of blaming dark and distant forces for whatever problems afflict American society, from air pollution and fatty foods to poverty and the erosion of moral standards. Wall Street, the Trusts, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and the Mainstream Media: The list of villains is an imposing one. Yet even when the charges levied are not without merit, they fall well short of being satisfactory. In blaming Leviathan, Americans conveniently give themselves a pa.s.s.

The Washington consensus persists in considerable measure because it conforms to and reinforces widely accepted, if highly problematic, aspects of American civic culture. Put simply, if "they" routinely promulgate ill-advised national security policies, it's because "we" let them. Semiwarriors-whether Allen Dulles or Robert McNamara from an earlier era or their latter-day successors like defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates-get away with perpetuating the Washington rules because those rules draw upon, sustain, and help conceal the implications, moral as well as practical, of contemporary America's impoverished and attenuated conception of citizenship. measure because it conforms to and reinforces widely accepted, if highly problematic, aspects of American civic culture. Put simply, if "they" routinely promulgate ill-advised national security policies, it's because "we" let them. Semiwarriors-whether Allen Dulles or Robert McNamara from an earlier era or their latter-day successors like defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates-get away with perpetuating the Washington rules because those rules draw upon, sustain, and help conceal the implications, moral as well as practical, of contemporary America's impoverished and attenuated conception of citizenship.

That conception privileges individual choice above collective responsibility and immediate gratification over long-term well-being. For Americans today, duties and obligations are few. Although the United States is not without "good citizens"-they exist in every community-active partic.i.p.ation in civic life is entirely a matter of personal preference. The prevailing definition of citizenship requires simply that you pay your taxes and avoid flagrant violations of the law.

The Washington rules offer an approach to national security policy that hews closely to this minimalist definition of what it means to be a citizen. Americans once believed-or at least purported to believe-that citizenship carried with it a responsibility to contribute to the country's defense. In his "Sentiments on a Peace Establishment," written in the immediate aftermath of the American Revolution, George Washington offered the cla.s.sic formulation of this proposition. "It may be laid down, as a primary position, and the basis of our system," the general wrote, "that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defence of it." services to the defence of it."13 Out of this proposal came the tradition of the citizen-soldier, the warrior who filled the ranks of citizen armies raised for every major war fought by the United States until that system foundered in Vietnam. Out of this proposal came the tradition of the citizen-soldier, the warrior who filled the ranks of citizen armies raised for every major war fought by the United States until that system foundered in Vietnam.

Since Vietnam, military and civilian authorities presiding over the capital that bears the old general's name have abandoned his position, radically revising-indeed severing-the relationship between citizenship and soldiering. As with owning a gun or getting an abortion, military service falls within the realm of activities governed by individual choice. To defend the country and its interests, the United States now relies on volunteers who fill the ranks of a professional military establishment only loosely connected to American society.

In General Washington's day this was known as a "standing army." To the extent that the pool of willing volunteers proves insufficiently deep, the Pentagon makes up the difference by outsourcing many functions that uniformed regulars once performed. In an earlier day, such hired auxiliaries were known as war profiteers or mercenaries, terms freighted with unsavory connotations. Today to conceal such unseemliness, the preference is to use anodyne terms like private security firms private security firms and and private contractors private contractors.

The United States does not rely on this mix of military professionals and profit-oriented contractors because doing so delivers desired policy outcomes at an affordable price. Based on those criteria, the arrangement flunks, as the post-9/11 record amply demonstrates. Only when it comes to satisfying the ambitions of those wielding power and influence in Washington, while giving the American people a pa.s.s, can this system be said to work.

The Founders, the commander of the Continental Army not least among them, disparaged standing armies as inconsistent with republican virtue while posing a potential threat to republican inst.i.tutions. Today, Americans evince little interest in cultivating virtue, preferring instead the frantic pursuit of happiness, defined more often than not in terms of wealth, celebrity, and personal license. Washington meanwhile concerns itself less with the well-being of republican inst.i.tutions than with feathering its own nest, relying on adventurism abroad to divert attention from chronic dysfunction at home. not least among them, disparaged standing armies as inconsistent with republican virtue while posing a potential threat to republican inst.i.tutions. Today, Americans evince little interest in cultivating virtue, preferring instead the frantic pursuit of happiness, defined more often than not in terms of wealth, celebrity, and personal license. Washington meanwhile concerns itself less with the well-being of republican inst.i.tutions than with feathering its own nest, relying on adventurism abroad to divert attention from chronic dysfunction at home.

The so-called all-volunteer force satisfies the interests of both, conferring on citizens a semblance of autonomy and providing semiwarriors with an instrument well suited to the pursuit of imperial ambitions. Individual Americans are relieved of an unwanted duty, which many mistake as freedom. The semiwarriors also acquire a sort of freedom-to employ American military might however they see fit. Both parties in this arrangement profess to hold in high regard the 0.5 percent of the population actually bearing the burden of military service. Neither party concerns itself with the question of whether this arrangement accords with commonplace notions of fairness or efficacy. For the American people and for Washington, the arrangement is simply convenient, and that suffices.

There is a second way in which the Washington consensus meshes with the prevailing civic culture. Privileging the here and now at the expense of the future, those who govern and those who are governed are one in refusing to pay their bills. The matter can be simply stated: Washington wants guns; the American people want b.u.t.ter; ma.s.sive and habitual deficit spending satisfies both appet.i.tes, with responsibility for repaying that debt off-loaded onto future generations.

Here the record of the post-9/11 period is especially instructive. When George W. Bush became president in 2001, the Pentagon budget amounted to $305 billion and the total national debt stood at $5.7 trillion. Over the next eight years, the red ink flowed. Military spending doubled while annual federal deficits averaged over $600 billion. By the time Bush left office, the national debt had reached $10.6 trillion.

During the first year of the Obama presidency, with defense spending and overall federal spending increasing even as tax receipts fell, the annual budget deficit hit an all-time high of $1.4 trillion or 10 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP). The annual cost of servicing that debt reached a staggering $383 billion, equivalent to the GDP of Belgium, and continued to climb. So, too, did the resources funneled to the Pentagon: The Obama administration announced plans to increase military spending by 5 percent above what it had averaged during the Bush years.

For year two of the Obama presidency, the White House projected a federal budget deficit of approximately $1.3 trillion, an estimate to be taken with a grain of salt given the consistent tendency of previous administrations to lowball such matters. Stung by criticism from Republicans posing as fiscal conservatives, Obama promised to curb the federal government's spending habits. Yet this promise specifically exempted the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies falling under the rubric of national security, and therefore all but guaranteed deficits without end. A study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast trillion-dollar deficits for the next decade. Based on that a.n.a.lysis, by 2019 the total size of the national debt is likely to surpa.s.s $21 trillion, an amount substantially greater than the nation's GDP. By that time, expenditures required to service the national debt will exceed even the ma.s.sive amounts spent annually by the Pentagon-the equivalent of the interest on your monthly credit card statement exceeding the size of your mortgage payment. greater than the nation's GDP. By that time, expenditures required to service the national debt will exceed even the ma.s.sive amounts spent annually by the Pentagon-the equivalent of the interest on your monthly credit card statement exceeding the size of your mortgage payment.14 This sorry spectacle of fiscal indiscipline has generated much finger-pointing by both Democrats and Republicans. In fact, the nation's headlong lunge toward insolvency has been a thoroughly bipartisan project, with both parties deeply implicated and few Americans raising serious objections. When public protest has occurred, as with the "tea party" movement, it has derived from barely concealed partisan considerations. Overall, members of the present generation have plundered the inheritance of their children and grandchildren as remorselessly as the disgraced financier Bernard Madoff bilked those who entrusted him with their money.

By satisfying the immediate demands of their const.i.tuents, regardless of cost, politicians buy popular deference, win reelection, and insulate the Washington rules from serious examination. A half century ago, with the United States a creditor nation, President Eisenhower understood that military expenditures exact social costs. Today, with the United States in hock up to its neck, politicians pretend that Americans can have guns and b.u.t.ter, thereby perpetrating fraud on a scale far greater than Mr. Madoff's. They have gotten away with this modern version of bread and circuses for the same reason that Madoff did: When you're selling something that seems too good to be true, nothing works like having a greedy and gullible clientele.

The bottom line is this: A minimalist conception of citizenship that relieves individual Americans of any obligation to contribute to the nation's defense allows Washington wide lat.i.tude in employing U.S. military power. Unnecessary and misguided wars are but one deleterious result. An insistence that, unlike other nations, the United States need not live within its means obviates any requirement to balance the books, with the country hurtling toward insolvency as a result. and misguided wars are but one deleterious result. An insistence that, unlike other nations, the United States need not live within its means obviates any requirement to balance the books, with the country hurtling toward insolvency as a result.

To put it another way, if Washington pursues ruinous military and fiscal policies, Americans have no one but themselves to blame. Were they to define national defense as a collective responsibility (as George Washington urged) and were they to demand that the state operate on a pay-as-you-go basis (as common sense requires), the Washington rules would almost immediately become untenable.

CHOOSING.

At a White House press conference on July 28, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson explained why it had become necessary to send thousands of U.S. combat troops to fight in South Vietnam. "We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate," he emphasized, "but there is no one else."15 Johnson's statement, expressing a sentiment widely shared in Washington then and now, was deeply misleading. LBJ's immediate predecessors in the White House had had chosen. In the wake of World War II, with American wealth and power at their zenith, they had established "national security" as paramount among the purposes that government exists to serve. They imparted to "U.S. national security policy"-a phrase laden with weighty connotations-its abiding characteristics: a reliance on ideologically charged statements of intent and justification; an emphasis on coercive power held at the ready; and a penchant for global interventionism, both overt and covert. chosen. In the wake of World War II, with American wealth and power at their zenith, they had established "national security" as paramount among the purposes that government exists to serve. They imparted to "U.S. national security policy"-a phrase laden with weighty connotations-its abiding characteristics: a reliance on ideologically charged statements of intent and justification; an emphasis on coercive power held at the ready; and a penchant for global interventionism, both overt and covert.

Johnson had not invented this approach; he had merely inherited it. Yet by escalating the U.S. military involvement in Indochina, he, too, signaled his fealty to the Washington rules. He, too, was choosing. His choice was to conform. inherited it. Yet by escalating the U.S. military involvement in Indochina, he, too, signaled his fealty to the Washington rules. He, too, was choosing. His choice was to conform.

The consequences of that choice would prove to be fateful, not least of all for Johnson himself. The ensuing conflict-"that b.i.t.c.h of a war," as he called it-consumed the lives of fifty-eight thousand Americans to no avail and destroyed his presidency. Johnson had hoped that an ambitious domestic reform program known as the Great Society might define his legacy. Instead, he bequeathed to his successor a nation that was bitterly divided, deeply troubled, and increasingly cynical.

To follow a different course would have required Johnson to depart from the Washington rules. This he-although not he alone-lacked the courage to do.

Here lies the real significance-and perhaps the tragedy-of Barack Obama's decision, during the first year of his presidency, to escalate the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan. By retaining Robert Gates as defense secretary and by appointing retired four-star officers as his national security adviser and intelligence director, Obama had already offered Washington a.s.surances that he was not contemplating a radical departure from the existing pattern of national security policy. Whether wittingly or not, the president now proffered his full-fledged allegiance to the Washington consensus, removing any lingering doubts about its durability.

In his speech of December 1, 2009, while explaining to the cadets at West Point why he felt it necessary to widen a war already in its ninth year, Obama justified his decision by appending it to a much larger narrative. "More than any other nation," he declared, "the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades-a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, and markets open, and billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress and advancing frontiers of human liberty." that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, and markets open, and billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress and advancing frontiers of human liberty."16 Obama wanted it known that by sending tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to fight in Afghanistan his own administration was carrying on the work his predecessors had begun. Their policies were his policies. Obama wanted it known that by sending tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to fight in Afghanistan his own administration was carrying on the work his predecessors had begun. Their policies were his policies.

The six decades to which the president referred in his artfully sanitized rendering of contemporary history were the years during which the American credo and the sacred trinity had ascended to a position of uncontested supremacy. Thus did the president who came into office vowing to change the way Washington works make known his intention to leave this crucially important element of his inheritance all but untouched. Like Johnson, the president whose bold agenda for domestic reform presaged his own, Obama too was choosing to conform.

Still, we should be grateful to him for making at least one thing unmistakably clear: To imagine that Washington will ever tolerate second thoughts about the Washington rules is to engage in willful self-deception. Washington itself has too much to lose.

If change is to come, it must come from the people. Yet unless Americans finally awaken to the fact that they've been had, Washington will continue to have its way.

So the need for education-summoning Americans to take on the responsibilities of an active and engaged citizenship-has become especially acute. For me personally, education became possible twenty years ago at the Brandenburg Gate when I contemplated the disparity between what I had been conditioned to believe and what I was actually witnessing. The dissonance was too great to ignore. The ensuing process of confronting illusions (including my own) and of dissecting the contradictions besetting U.S. policy was sometimes painful and never easy. Yet it included moments of considerable exhilaration and its overall effect has been liberating. Self-awareness is a great gift. The ability to see things as they are, without blinders, is an even greater one. ensuing process of confronting illusions (including my own) and of dissecting the contradictions besetting U.S. policy was sometimes painful and never easy. Yet it included moments of considerable exhilaration and its overall effect has been liberating. Self-awareness is a great gift. The ability to see things as they are, without blinders, is an even greater one.

Americans today must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face is to make learning-and perhaps even a course change-possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose.

NOTES.

INTRODUCTION: SLOW LEARNER.

1. Henry Adams, Democracy, Esther, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres, The Education of Henry Adams Democracy, Esther, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres, The Education of Henry Adams (New York, 1983), p. 1066. This is the Library of America edition. (New York, 1983), p. 1066. This is the Library of America edition.

2. "Table of U.S. Nuclear Weapons, 19452002," Natural Resources Defense Council, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab9.asp.

3. Henry R. Luce, "The American Century," Life Life, February 7, 1941.

1. THE ADVENT OF SEMIWAR.

1. "President-Elect Obama's Grant Park Speech," November 5, 2008, http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/11/obamas_grant_park_speech.html.

2. "Foreign Policy Address at the Council on Foreign Relations," July 15, 2009, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/july/126071.htm.

3. "Transcript of Theodore Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine," December 6, 1904, http://www.ourdoc.u.ments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=56&page=transcript.

4. Tony Capaccio, "Congress Approves $636.3 Billion Defense Measure," December 19, 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601209&sid=aCyW2U1Ze0uY. Among the expenditures not included in this appropriation are those related to nuclear weapons programs, veterans' benefits, covert operations, and the costs of expanding the war in Afghanistan. Total military outlays surpa.s.s $700 billion-and that qualifies as a conservative estimate. included in this appropriation are those related to nuclear weapons programs, veterans' benefits, covert operations, and the costs of expanding the war in Afghanistan. Total military outlays surpa.s.s $700 billion-and that qualifies as a conservative estimate.

5. "Number of American Servicemen and Women Stationed Overseas," May 28, 2008, http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=108&subsecID=900003&contentID=254647.

6. Department of Defense Base Structure Report, Fiscal Year 2008, http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/bsr/BSR2008Baseline.pdf. This report does not count cla.s.sified facilities of which there are many.

7. The phrase is Chalmers Johnson's from his book The Sorrows of Empire The Sorrows of Empire (New York, 2004). (New York, 2004).

8. U.S. Pacific Command vision statement, http://www.pacom.mil/web/site_pages/us.p.a.com/regional%20map.shtml.