The Question of How--A Response to Andrew Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich's latest missive in Salon has been roundly (and rightly) criticized for its unquestioned parroting of the misogynistic comparison President Obama's female advisors to certain classical monstrosities. I leave it to the classics scholars and and people more versed in these issues to parse the professor's meaning and mistake. However, his broader point deserves some attention of its own. In his essentially "damn them all' argument, Bacevich posits that no matter the 'whys' (and he argues they do not matter) of American involvement in the Middle East, Presidents Obama and Bush, Clinton, Bush and others, always end up with the same 'how:

 

When it comes to the Islamic world, for more than three decades now Washington's answer to how has been remarkably consistent: through the determined application of hard power wielded by the United States. Simply put, Washington's how implies a concerted emphasis on girding for and engaging in war.

Leaving aside the question of whether the 'why' matters, Professor Bacevich is still mistaken. Force is not a generic, uniform concept as the now decade-long debate over the role of counterinsurgency counterinsurgency in American strategy has shown us. Force can be applied with limitations and without, it can be applied in concert with allies or without, it can be applied via 'shock and awe' campaigns with phalanx of armored vehicles or through small special operations units making a big impact with a small footprint. Now, the intervention in Libya is certainly a use of force but failing to acknowledge how this application of force differs from others, renders the above analysis largely useless. For instance, did the Arab League act in concert with a popular rebel movement in Iraq in 2003 to call for UN-sanctioned military operations? Or when Clinton fired cruise missile after cruise missile throughout the 1990s? Does Bacevich really mean to suggest that all actions undertaken by the US military in the Middle East are equivalent in outcome. While I understand and agree with much of the concern over American/NATO intervention in Libya, the ease with which so many analysts fall back on simplistic and inaccurate analogies to previous conflicts is lazy at best. 

Bacevich's second major point is this (pardon the pasting of the 'harpies' comment):

What we can say for sure is this: by seeing the Greater Middle East as a region of loose nails badly in need of being hammered, the current commander-in-chief has claimed his place in the ranks of a long list of his warrior-predecessors.

The key point is this: like those who preceded them, neither Obama nor his Harpies (nor anyone else in a position of influence) could evidently be bothered to assess whether the hammer actually works as advertised -- notwithstanding abundant evidence showing that it doesn't.

I couldn't disagree more. In fact, the Obama administration seems to be bending over backwards to ensure that they are not enamored with the effects of the 'hammer.' They got NATO to take over official command as soon as possible and have largely stood back and let the UK and France take the lead as much as possible--along with any of the credit and most of the blame. They have encouraged and almost begged Middle Eastern allies to contribute to the mission and the UAE and Qatar have promised their F16s. The only thing missing in my opinion is a more overt effort to contribute to humanitarian aide but I can understand their reservation about sending in US-flagged ships at this delicate moment. This is exactly how an intervention is supposed to work. The US's military capabilities will be unavoidably needed to start with (no one else could fire off 100+ tomahawks in a night) but the transition to a backseat role has happened as quickly as anyone could have hoped. 

So while a 'hammer' has been used it bears more resemblance to a tack hammer than the sledge Americans are generally used to seeing brought to bear on an adversary. Such actions are not above criticism but criticism should start firmly grounded in the specific facts of the occasion and not with an predetermined narrative of America militarism.