Both of these things could be true. Europe, Japan, and Asia may be happy to have us spend hundreds of billions on arms and occasionally throw a scare into some obstreperous regime as long as it isn't very strong -- Iraq shows that the level of strength required to make a monkey of the US is a lot less than anticipated. But it is still better having some cop on the beat, even if he's fat, stupid, ignorant, drunk, and helpless in front of a halfway real menace -- than none at all. From a Hobbesean pov, that is. And from the point of view of the rest of the G-7, if they don't have to pay for it. Besides, it makes us less competitive that we do. Very self-sacrificing of us, really.
And on the other hand, the US's utter and complete defeat in the Iraq hammers home the lessons of Vietnam about the limits of US power. It seems we can't beat anyone bigger than Grenada, which is actually pretty pathetic considering what we pay for the armed forces. Well, we can do things like throw Saddam's Iraq out of Kuwait, but not much more.
The defeat in Iraq is far worse than the defeat in Vietnam -- the Vietnamese were a regular army (The NVA, we really did wipe out the NLF in the Phoenix program and Tet) backed by the Russians, and our misconduct was constrained by the fear of World War III, while nobody in Iraq beat us but the remnants of Saddam's' army, the guerrillas they trained, a handful of foreign jihadis and domestic suicide bombers -- a real David and Goliath story.
--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> Carl:
>
>
> I think Iraq could prove the most costly, in the
> sense of debilitating, US
> war of all time. It has exposed the US "hyperpower"
> image as a sham,
> revealing the US military is neither omnipotent nor
> even competent. That
> image will be more deeply branded into the
> consciousness of the world and US
>
> public every extra day the US is in Iraq. In turn,
> that will:
>
>
> [WS:] I think it really depends how we conceptualize
> the source of US power.
> If we think of it as a top-down, militarily enforced
> authority, then yes,
> the consequences that you described are likely to
> ensue.
>
> But there is an alternative conceptualization - as a
> Hobbesian leviathan of
> the world, i.e. US is a hegemon by quasi-consensus
> of the most of the world
> nations - who accept the US power either to avoid a
> 'war or all against all'
> or simply because it suits them to have a hegemon
> and no one else can step
> up to the plate. In such case, the actual power
> does not matter that much
> as the consensus that the US is a 'legitimate'
> hegemon. In that view, the
> emperor may not have clothes, but he is still the
> emperor.
>
> I am more inclined toward the second
> conceptualization - it is closer to how
> all kinds of power are exercised in society. Brute
> force is seldom required
> to produce compliance - in most cases people consent
> to what they perceive
> as legitimate authority.
>
> However, regardless of which conceptualization one
> prefers, the long term
> cost of the Iraq failed adventure will be enormous.
>
> Wojtek
>
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