The Cato Institute

There’s No Military Solution for Afghanistan

Afghans have endured 40 years of uninterrupted war, and there is no plausible argument that war will soon end…

In a new paper, a former U.S. commander in Afghanistan argues that America’s longest war is unwinnable, in part because Afghanistan is stuck in a cycle of trauma and violence brought about by four decades of uninterrupted conflict.

Erik Goepner, Cato visiting scholar and retired U.S. Air Force colonel whose assignments included unit commands in Afghanistan and Iraq, rigorously analyzed the impact that 40 years of uninterrupted war has had on the population of Afghanistan.

He contends that the country is caught in a vicious cycle whereby war causes trauma, which drives more war. Goepner concludes that there is little America can do to substantially improve the situation in Afghanistan, and recommends America withdraw its military forces. In addition, any future military planning and intelligence estimates should consider the state of a population’s mental health.

In order to statistically measure the level of trauma within the country, Goepner created the “Trauma Index,” which takes into account traumatic events in the form of torture, rape, death, and other atrocities associated with war.

Unsurprisingly, the average Afghan has experienced extremely high-levels of trauma. An Afghan adult has experienced seven traumatic events, on average, compared to one to two for a European and one to three for an American adult. As a result of the trauma caused by persistent and pervasive violence, Afghans have a post-traumatic stress disorder rate of 50 percent, by some estimates.

The mental illness, substance abuse issues, and diminished impulse control that stems from trauma have resulted in an Afghan society in which violence has been normalized. “Making matters worse,” Goepner writes, “Afghans have no real opportunity to receive professional care. Researchers have reported that Afghanistan’s mental health services are ‘nonexistent,’ that there is an ‘acute shortage’ of qualified providers, and that the general situation is one in which ‘chronic mental illness has been left unattended in Afghanistan for decades.’”

Goepner also discusses additional drivers of conflict in the country. He argues that ineffective security forces, low opportunity costs for rebel recruitment, and sanctuary for rebels in neighboring Pakistan create the “opportunity for rebellion,” while grievances against the corrupt and incompetent government and financial incentives from the illicit opium trade provide the motivation to rebel. Goepner contends that for the United States to help the situation in Afghanistan it must remove its military footprint and instead pursue policies that incentivize a more-effective, less-corrupt Afghan government.

Goepner succinctly summarizes the challenges facing Afghanistan, writing that “Thanks to 40 years of uninterrupted war, Afghans suffer from extremely high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses, substance abuse, and diminished impulse control. Research shows that those negative effects make people more violent toward others. As a result, violence can become normalized as a legitimate means of problem solving and goal achievement, and that appears to have fueled Afghanistan’s endless war. Thus, Afghanistan will be difficult, if not impossible, to fix.”

Learn more…

Weakening the Constitution to Go to War in Syria is a Terrible Idea

The Constitution is supposed to make it difficult for a President to take the U.S. to war. Why would Congress want to make it easier?

Despite President Trump’s calls during the campaign to pull back from the Middle East and more recent statements that he’s ready pack up and go home from Syria “very soon,” he nonetheless ordered missile strikes in Syria, ostensibly in response to reports that Assad killed civilians with chemical weapons.

President Trump’s announcement that the United States, France and Britain had launched airstrikes against Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack might have surprised the people who listened to him campaigning in 2016, when he repeatedly critiqued “stupid” Middle Eastern interventions.

Since entering office, President Trump has reversed course on foreign policy, and he evidently now shares the assumption that America must do something in response to atrocities in Syria — a wholehearted embrace of the Washington bias toward action.

In this, President Trump and his predecessor have something in common: Both he and President Obama came into office promising to change America’s foreign policy, but when faced with crises, both yielded to pressure to intervene. This bias toward action is one of the biggest problems in American foreign policy. It produces poorly thought-out interventions and, sometimes, disastrous long-term consequences.

President Trump’s previous strikes in Syria garnered bipartisan praise from the Washington establishment, praise that the president craves. Yet military action in Syria will not benefit national interests, and may draw the U.S. further into a quagmire there is no easy route out of.

Two days after President Trump declared “Mission Accomplished” on the latest round of missile strikes against Syria, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled legislation intended to reassert Congress’s relevance to the wars we fight. But the new Authorization for the Use of Military Force, introduced by Bob Corker, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, and the Democrat Tim Kaine, may end up doing the opposite.

Senator Kaine is right that, as he said in a speech about the bill, “for too long Congress has given presidents a blank check to wage war.” The 2001 authorization, passed three days after the Sept. 11 attacks and aimed at the perpetrators of those attacks, has done just that. Three presidents in a row have warped its limited authority into an enabling act for globe-spanning presidential war.

The Corker-Kaine resolution won’t bring an end to the Forever War; it will institutionalize it. Instead of ratifying war powers that three presidents in a row have seized illegally, Congress should repeal — and not replace — the 2001 legislation.

In authorizing the use of force against a list of terrorist organizations and their affiliates, the bill states that it “establishes rigorous congressional oversight,” “improves transparency” and ensures “regular congressional review and debate.” Such transparency requirements are an improvement over the status quo. But the bill also turns the constitutional warmaking process upside down.

Our Constitution was designed to make war difficult, requiring the assent of both houses and the president. The bill essentially changes that by merely requiring “regular congressional review” of presidential warmaking and requires reauthorization every four years; meanwhile, choosing new enemies, in new countries, is the president’s call, unless Congress can assemble a veto-proof majority to check him.

Learn more…

The Forgotten Anniversary: September 14th, 2001

After 16 years of war, it’s time to reckon with the less-appreciated anniversary of September 14, 2001, when Congress gave the President a relatively open-ended power to make war…

Over the last decade and a half, we’ve heard over and over again that “September 11th changed everything”—but maybe September 14 was the pivotal date. 

Sixteen years ago today, Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Aimed at the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and those who “harbored” or “aided” them, the AUMF has been transformed into an enabling act for globe-spanning presidential war.  

Two-thirds of the House members who voted for the 2001 AUMF and three quarters of the Senate are no longer in Congress today. But judging by what they said at the time, the legislators who passed it didn’t think they were committing the US to an open-ended, multigenerational war; they thought they were targeting Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Undeclared wars and drive-by bombing raids were hardly unknown before 9/11. But most of the military excursions of the post-Cold War era were geographically limited, temporary departures from a baseline of peace.

Barack Obama left office as the first two-term president in American history to have been at war every single day of his presidency. In his last year alone, U.S. forces dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven different countries. Seven months into his presidency, Donald Trump has almost certainly passed Obama’s 2016 tally already — all under the auspices of the AUMF.

The AUMF Congress passed in 2001 still serves as legal cover for current wars we fight in seven countries. War is now America’s default setting; peace, the dwindling exception to the rule.

Learn More…

We Cannot “Win” in Afghanistan

President Trump’s Afghanistan strategy ignores the evidence amassed over 16 hard-fought years. There will be no winning for the U.S. in Afghanistan…

President Trump campaigned on a platform of pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. That no longer seems to be on the table. 

On Monday night, President Trump informed the nation that he is escalating America’s war in Afghanistan. That means that our longest war will continue for at least four more years, and likely longer. It also means that more Americans will be sent across the globe to fight — and die — in the pursuit of unclear objectives, and in a conflict that is not vital to U.S. national security.

While specifics about the new strategy are sketchy, it seems to be more of the same, and more of the same will not improve reality in Afghanistan; it may, in fact, make things worse. 

Trump assured Americans that he had the strategy for “winning,” but his strategy looked a lot like one that previous battlefield commanders have suggested is sorely wanting.

Trump’s “winning” rhetoric, like that of previous administrations, makes it sound as though this is America’s war to win or lose. It is not.

The failure of the Afghan government and security forces is, primarily, a failure of Afghans. The U.S. can adjust its strategy as often as it would like, but Americans should not expect substantially different outcomes until Afghans find their own way.

Despite invading two countries, toppling three regimes and conducting military strikes in seven nations, the estimated number of Islamist-inspired terrorists has grown from approximately 32,000 before initiation of the war on terror to 109,000 now.

That is an argument to end America’s involvement in Afghanistan’s civil war, not for more of the same.

President Trump’s new strategy ignores the evidence amassed over 16 hard-fought years, and, as a result, more American lives and resources will be lost as this unnecessary war continues. There will be no winning for the U.S. in Afghanistan.

Learn More…

U.S. Should Shutter Most Military Bases Abroad

The United States maintains a veritable empire of military bases throughout the world — about 800 of them in more than 70 countries. Meanwhile, the strategic justifications for overseas bases have lost much of their value and relevance in the contemporary security environment....

The U.S. has by far the world’s largest contingent of overseas bases (the U.K. and France have roughly 12 each, Russia has nine, and China has only one). 

Such bases are also extremely costly, with estimates ranging from $60 billion to $120 billion per year. Stationing one service member on base in Europe or Asia (non war-zones) costs up to $40,000 more per year than being stationed in the United States, while the fixed costs alone of an overseas base range as high as $200 million annually. Estimates for the total cost of our overseas military bases exceed $120 BILLION per year.

Although rarely scrutinized by policymakers, this permanent overseas military presence is no longer necessary, needlessly costly, and counterproductive to regional stability.

1. They don’t protect the homeland from direct attack. Keeping 80,000 troops in Europe and more than 150,000 Asia doesn’t actually protect the physical security of the United States. Instead, it protects other nations and tries to prevent conflict in distant regions. This role of global policeman doesn’t add to U.S. security — and may even subtract from it.

2. Their deterrence effect is overrated. Some say bases make the world a more peaceful place by deterring aggression from bad actors. But, the world is more peaceful these days for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with overseas bases. And, sometimes, bases intended to deter aggression can backfire by creating fear and adversaries. Russia, for example, feels insecure as a result of the expansion of NATO and the stationing of U.S. troops and bases in Eastern Europe and right up to the Russian border in some cases. This insecurity partly explains their aggressive military actions in Georgia and Ukraine. Similarly, North Korea is motivated to get nuclear weapons as a deterrent because the regime fears nearby U.S. military bases, provocative U.S. military exercises, and frequent references to regime change.

3. They risk entangling us in unnecessary wars. U.S. military bases often cause policymakers to urge American intervention wherever conflict may breakout. But, this risks entangling us in unnecessary foreign wars that are none of our business. If conflict breaks out over maritime or territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, for example, the United States maybe obligated to intervene against China to fulfill its security guarantees to Taiwan, Japan, or the Philippines. Getting into a war with China over some uninhabited rocks of no strategic importance to us is terrible policy.

4. Technology has largely made them obsolete. It’s true that bases enable rapid military response, but modern technology has significantly reduced the problems of travel times over long distances. U.S. forces can now deploy to virtually any region fast enough to be based right here in America. An armored brigade combat team — which includes almost 5,000 troops, lots of heavy equipment, and vehicles — can get from Germany to Kuwait in about 18 days, only 4 days quicker than if deployed directly from the United States. Long range bombers can fly up to 9,000 miles in less than a day. After that, they can be refueled in the air, reducing the need to have in-place forces abroad.

The bottom line is that America doesn’t need a permanent global military presence to remain safe or prevent conflict. Troops should only be deployed overseas if there’s a clear and present danger to U.S. security. It’s time to bring them home.

Learn More….

Donald Trump & Our Nuclear Future

President-elect Donald Trump makes many statements via social media and off-mic about America’s plans for nuclear weapons, but it’s not clear what they mean…

With hasty tweets about nuclear weapons, cryptic support for arms racing, and overwrought spokesmen struggling to explain, president-elect Trump horrified the national security commentariat anew last week. Complaints centered on his willingness to embrace the expense and danger of heightened nuclear competition, abandon decades of bipartisan policy aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, and jettison the commitment in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)  to “work toward the cessation of the nuclear arms race” and eventual “nuclear disarmament.”

It’s sensible to be concerned by a president rash enough to undertake nuclear diplomacy through tweets. But the furor is partly misdirected. However we interpret his incoherent statements, Trump is likely to preserve the current U.S. nuclear policy, which funds the modernization of nuclear triad at excessive expense.

Learn More…

Should America Continue to Guarantee the Security of Taiwan?

That’s the question Cato Institute policy analyst Eric Gomez asks in his new paper, A Costly Commitment: Options for the Future of the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Relationship.

America’s security commitment to Taiwan faces a significant test. 

China’s growing power presents a challenge to U.S. military superiority, while Taiwan’s investment in its own defense has languished.

Adding to the challenge of keeping peace in the Taiwan Strait is the shifting political situation in Taiwan, exemplified by the January 2016 elections in which voters rejected the cross-strait rapprochement policies of the Kuomintang (KMT) and turned over control of the presidency and legislature to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The China-Taiwan relationship has remained relatively calm, but changes in the U.S.-China balance of power could make the Taiwan Strait a dangerous place once more if the implicit U.S. defense commitment to Taiwan loses credibility.

In a new paper, Cato scholar Eric Gomez outlines three broad policy options for the United States: shoring up the defense commitment by restoring military superiority over China; sustaining a minimum level of military advantage over China; or stepping down from the commitment to use military force to maintain Taiwan’s de facto independence.

Gomez concludes that our security guarantee to Taiwan is no longer credible or in the best interests of the U.S., and recommends that the United States step down incrementally from its commitment to use military force to maintain Taiwan’s de facto independence.

In the long term, the U.S. security commitment to Taiwan is neither beneficial nor advantageous for the United States. Taiwan will have to take responsibility for its own defense.

Stepping down from the implicit commitment to come to Taiwan’s rescue with military force carries risks, but other options leave the United States worse off in the long term. The likely damage to U.S.-Chinese relations caused by pushing for military superiority in the region outweighs the benefits. 

Sustaining a minimum level of military advantage is possible, but absent a long-term economic slowdown and/or political changes in China—both of which are beyond U.S. control—maintaining such an advantage in perpetuity will be difficult. 

Stepping down from the commitment through a long-term process would give Taiwan the time it needs to make necessary changes in its defense technology and military strategy.

“Peace in the Taiwan Strait is an important American interest,” says Gomez, “but it must be weighed against the difficulty of maintaining credibility and the growing costs of deterrence failure.”

Read the paper…

New Guide Hopes to Change Foreign Policy Debate at RNC and DNC Conventions

In a new book, Cato Institute scholars present practical, realistic approaches to today’s top foreign policy challenges, grounded in a strategy of restraint.

In Our Foreign Policy Choices: Rethinking America’s Global Role, Cato Institute scholars offer a clear strategic vision and a set of foreign policy options that starkly contrasts with the foreign policy platforms of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Bipartisan support exists for extensive alliance commitments, frequent military intervention, and higher defense spending. Cato’s new volume offers a wiser alternative that would make U.S. foreign policy cheaper, safer, and more popular.

Rather than being the policeman of the world, the authors argue for a more restrained approach to the world that avoids over-spending on defense and averts needless military intervention. Two editors of this book, Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy, and Emma Ashford, Research Fellow, will attend the Democratic and Republican national conventions to put forth these ideas.

The anthology includes chapters on key topics such as ISIS and the threat of terrorism, how to sensibly deal with the Syrian conflict, the right approach to Iran in the aftermath of the nuclear deal, and Russian assertiveness in Eastern Europe. It advises policymakers that NATO incentivizes free riding among allies and that America’s East Asian partners like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan should carry a larger share of the defense burden in the face of a rising China.

America’s current foreign policy of maintaining a global military presence and intervening even when vital U.S. interests are not at stake is expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya have cost us dearly in blood and treasure without making us more secure.

Restraint-oriented reforms could reduce annual defense spending by more than 25 percent and polls show that a majority of Americans do not want the United States to take a leading role in solving all the world’s problems.

“This new book seeks to advance a much-needed debate about the direction of foreign policy, says Emma Ashford. "Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington which identifies grave dangers to U.S. interests around every corner, Americans are fortunate to enjoy substantial security. We rarely need to use our military might. It’s in our interest to understand this.”

As Britain Tries to Learn from Iraq Mistakes, so Should the U.S. — by Privatizing the Va

The British government issued Wednesday the long-awaited Chilcot report, harshly criticizing the U.K.’s decision to join the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. The ensuing Iraq war “cost the lives of 179 British troops and, at the time of the British withdrawal in 2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis,” according to the Washington Post. “To date, more than 4,500 Americans have died in Iraq and more than 32,000 have been wounded.”

Many Democrats remain angry with their presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for voting as a U.S. senator from New York to authorize the invasion in 2002. Clinton later wrote, “I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had … But I still got it wrong.”

Privatizing the VA may be the only sure-fire way Congress can provide itself better information on the costs of war.

There is a reform that could have given Clinton and other policymakers better information about the costs of invading Iraq — information that could conceivably have prevented the invasion altogether or at least shortened the U.S. occupation.

That reform? Privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Learn more in Michael F. Cannon’s Op-ed in The Hill…

The Problem with Obama’s Light Footprint

In a new analysis, Brad Stapleton critiques Obama’s light footprint approach to military intervention, arguing it adjusts tactics instead of strategy….

 In The Problem with the Light Footprint: Shifting Tactics in Lieu of Strategy, Stapleton argues that President Obama’s effort to avoid becoming embroiled in another conventional ground war by adopting a “light footprint” approach to military intervention is fundamentally flawed.

The lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq have made Americans extremely wary of embarking upon new foreign military adventures. Unfortunately, Obama has continued to pursue the George W. Bush administration’s goals of defeating terrorism and promoting democratization abroad through military force.

Yet those strategic objectives are unlikely to be secured militarily—with either a heavy or light footprint. Although airstrikes and Special Forces raids may be useful for toppling dictators and decapitating terrorist hierarchies, they contribute little toward the realization of larger political objectives such as the eradication of radical Islamic terrorism or the democratization of the greater Middle East.

In March 2011, Obama authorized U.S. participation in a NATO bombing campaign against Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Libya, a prime example of the light footprint approach. The humanitarian mission soon morphed into regime change, and when Islamic extremists filled the power vacuum left in the wake of the Qaddafi regime, the administration in September 2014 announced a new “systematic campaign of airstrikes’ as to destroy ISIS. Overall, the results of Obama’s interventions in Libya have not served U.S. interests.

Another example of the light footprint approach has been the administration’s reliance on drone strikes. While drone strikes, especially in the northwest region of Pakistan, have decimated the hierarchy of al Qaeda and its affiliates, there are drawbacks as well. As numerous critics have suggested, the U.S. drone program could actually undermine the campaign to eradicate terrorism by engendering anti-American resentment.

The United States needs a new strategy, not just new tactics. Rather than attempting to defeat terrorism abroad, the U.S. should focus on improving intelligence and law enforcement capabilities to mitigate the threat of terrorist attacks at home. And rather than attempting to catalyze democratization with military force, the U.S. should pressure authoritarian regimes to introduce gradual liberal reforms—so that when those countries do eventually democratize, those transitions are more likely to endure.

In short, the United States should adopt a less militaristic strategy. Recognizing the inherent limits of what military action can achieve should lead to a gradualist strategic approach that mitigates the terrorist threat instead of eradicating it, and encourages democracy instead of imposing it through military force.

Read the paper…