COST OF WORLD POWER

Notes of Concern…
…Jack Blair

The Responsibility of World Power Might Be Too Costly

Many decades ago an old friend of mine, United States Senator Gale McGee (D-Wyoming) wrote a book entitled Responsibilities of World Power. It was a defense of our involvement in Vietnam. He was one of the few taking a positive public stand on the unpopular war. I admired him both for his bravery and for his argument.

Over the intervening decades I have found myself becoming older and wiser about these things. The years have a way of bringing wisdom to most of us simply through our life experiences.

The other day I gave a speech at a Veterans’ Cemetery. As I looked out the window at all the graves and saw the flags flapping in the wind while the beautiful sunshine highlighted each of them, I asked myself what exactly our country received in return for those lost lives. Basically, was the result worth the price those that lost their lives paid.

In so many of our nation’s early wars it would be difficult to make an argument that the blood of patriots was shed without good cause. The “cause” was easy to see and understand and espouse. The results of defeat were obvious and real and immediately tangible.

At the same time, the blood of patriots has been shed in our more recent history for causes more difficult for the citizen to easily understand. Our “national interest” has grown broader and the nuances of our international role have grown more complicated.
We hear now that as the” leader of the free world” we have responsibilities that extend beyond our borders and our own self-interest. Harshly translated this means that our young soldiers must risk life and limb for causes more difficult to comprehend as having direct meaning to them and their loved ones.

This is where I have decided that I draw the line.

The American people did not seek leadership of the world.

If the world needs leadership it needs to come from a group of like-minded nations and not fall to any one people or nation. Even our oldest ancestors understood the importance of treaties and alliances.

I am less willing, day by day, to condone the sacrifice of American lives to save a world less and less interested in our country’s direct, easily understood well being.

I have three sons and a daughter. I would be unwilling to encourage them to risk their lives in defense of Afghanistan, the land of Taliban and poppies and drugs.

I would be unwilling to encourage them to risk their lives in defense of our Middle East allies who are often fair weather friends.

I would be unwilling to encourage them to risk their lives in any effort to rid Mexico of drug cartels.

Modern America would do well, in my opinion, to concentrate on direct threats to the homeland, to prepare to repel any “barbarians at the gate.” One can make an argument that we need to stop the enemy where he is but, my friends, that argument is getting moldy after Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bottom line: as long as our nation has atomic capability no other nation will conquer us. We have the ability to defend our nation, our people. The armaments of war have changed. It is less and less important to the survival of our way of life that any one soldier lose his life. In the age of massive bombs and technology the foot soldier is less integral to the success of our efforts.

The huge loss of American lives recently in Afghanistan and Iraq reflect only that we have been unwilling to use the power in our arsenal to lessen that loss of American life. That may well be a good decision but it is only so if we also are willing to let young American men and women die because we as a nation do not use what is in our arsenal to save them.

America needs to value every single life. America needs to make every effort to reduce the need for any individual American to lose his life in a time of war.

President Truman understood that basic fact when he used horrible weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He knew that he was the American president, not elected to protect the world, elected to protect Americans and America, When one looks at the projections of American dead had he chosen to wait on the ground combat necessary to win one begins to have some sympathy for his decision.

For those who feel strongly that America should never use her war ending weapons, I suggest that we should not engage in any war where the use of our weapons in the search for a quick and complete victory is not a choice. We should not enter into any military engagement it is not our intention to win. And we certainly should be unwilling to sacrifice one life for any conflict in which it is not our intention to be victorious.

When did our country decide it was OK to lose the lives of our young patriots because we withheld the tools of a victory that could clearly be ours?

I do not want the responsibility of world power.

I am content to live in America and I am willing to die to preserve our way of life. The stretch to see how dying in Afghanistan or Iran can be tied through difficult explanations and equations ultimately to be good for America is a stretch I am daily less and less willing to make.

At the same time, every life lost in whatever conflict is worthy of reflection, honor and remembrance. Not one soldier is responsible for the military decisions made by our leaders. But in the end, it is the soldier, not the decision makers, who pays the ultimate sacrifice.

We need to rethink war.