Paul Kendall:
America’s Military Power
Needs Re-Direction

Military power is now the central tool of American foreign policy. Its omnipresence in our international relations and its influence over our decision-making processes, however, distort our perspective on critical issues and diminish the effectiveness of our strategies.

Today, our military is everywhere and doing everything. Aside from fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we maintain military installations in over 100 countries and spend billions of dollars each year to place military intelligence units in our embassies, to teach interrogation techniques to foreign military officers, to fight a "war on drugs," to subsidize the sale of weapons to insurgents and dictators, and even to spy upon American citizens here at home.

Under the ill-defined slogan of fighting the "War on Global Terrorism," the Defense Department now has the authority to gather intelligence, to undertake covert "self-assigned missions," to fund developmental assistance projects, and even to conduct diplomatic relations with foreign governments.

The budget for these non-war-related activities is so huge that it dwarfs that of all other foreign policy-related agencies combined: the State Department, the Agency for International Development (AID), the Office of Trade Relations, the Millennium Challenge Fund, and the Peace Corps. And with all that money comes overpowering influence. A recent study funded by Congressional Republicans concluded that the net effect of the military’s omnipresence is friction, overlap, and confusion within our embassies, to the detriment of diplomacy and at the expense of our foreign relationships.

This column concurs with that conclusion. Military intelligence units are trained to see threats, not to view social and political turmoil as potential harbingers of democratic change. Battle units are trained to respond with coercive force, not with suasion, appeals to economic self-interest, threats of diplomatic isolation, or patience. And the top brass is trained to request more men and lethal toys, not to ask for diplomats or developmental assistance.

None of this military training is wrong. But giving undue weight to its particular perspective distorts the conduct of foreign policy. It sows fear rather than seeing opportunity, and it results in the use of force rather than acting with reserve.

This column believes that our country would be better served if our military’s mission were to be re-directed to and focused upon providing global security. Limiting the mission to providing a global security umbrella for us, our friends, and our allies would assign to our military five primary foreign policy goals:

• Projecting American power as a deterrent to any nation that might consider the use of physical force to attack us or to threaten our vital interests, or that might consider providing safe harbor to non-state actors with similar intentions, such as al Qaeda;

• Providing intelligence and logistical support to regional defense coalitions, such as the African Union, the Organization of American States, and NATO, as they respond to any military aggression of one of their member states or to the threat of coercive force from a neighboring great power;

• Providing intelligence, logistical, and manpower support to United Nations-authorized peacekeeping missions, such as in Darfur;

• Protecting the world’s commercial trade and communications corridors through vital maritime straits, international air lanes, and cyberspace; and

• Acting unilaterally, if necessary, to remove from power any regime that first uses nuclear weapons.

All other activities that are now assigned to the military, such as promoting democracy, pursuing regime change, fighting drug wars, combating genocidal conflicts, and meddling in the domestic affairs of other nations, could then be undertaken by diplomacy, non-military foreign assistance programs, the United Nations, regional coalitions, INTERPOL, or the CIA.

The so-called "Global War on Terrorism" would be no exception. Unlike our President, the leaders of England, Spain and Indonesia—three examples of nations that have repeatedly suffered from terrorist attacks—have not felt it necessary to militarize their responses to atrocities nor to see the hand of al Qaeda on every trigger and bomb. Instead they see these attacks as criminal acts best understood in the particular geographic and historical contexts of each country and as acts that are best responded to with a combination of local intelligence, police work, diplomatic engagement, political compromise, socio-economic development, and patience. We should exercise similar wisdom and judgment.

If we are to avoid costly military entanglements in the future and if we are to re-establish our role as a respected leader in world affairs, then Congress and the President need to debate the alternatives to the militarization of our foreign policy. It is probably wishful thinking to hope for any new direction to emerge quickly. More realistic is the hope that those currently aspiring to the office of President will debate this issue during their primary campaigns and will indicate a need to re-direct our military in their party’s platform. We the general public can help assure that outcome by urging them to do so.

Paul Kendall, a semi-retired private investor and resident of Braintree, has traveled widely and lived in South America. He has studied foreign policy at American University in Washington, D.C. and focuses on issues of national security and U.S.-Latin American relations.