Nuclear Affairs.

• Author: McFarlane, Robert

History tells us that for a country to govern sensibly and protect its interests at home and abroad requires experienced, comperent professionals with the acuity to analyze and navigate the complex space of national security and foreign affairs, one that is replete with military, economic, technological, geopolitical, and diplomatic tensions. In the aftermath of World War II, individuals such as Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and Senator Arthur Van-denberg, among others, challenged Americans to accept that the United States must conduct its affairs and act in the world as it is, and not in the world as we wish it were. They emphasized both the necessity and strategic advantage of a U.S.-led allied system and the need to nurture what Winston Churchill originally characterized as a special relationship, and others have characterized as an essential relationship, between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Decades later, individuals such as Senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and scholars like Richard Pipes, Gaston Sigur, and Grace Hopper, among others, continued this legacy throughout America's tensions with the USSR. However, since the end of the Cold War and particularly over the past twenty years, America has faced complex risks and trade-offs for which twentieth-century geopolitical strategy is insufficient and for which America may be out of practice diplomatically. In a recent piece in National Review, for example, Bing West, a veteran Marine officer and noted author with years of experience in conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, records the grievous flaws of the Bush administration in 2001 that committed our country to a mission of nation-building in Afghanistan. Surely the horrific attack by Al Qaeda on 9/11 required swift retribution on the perpetrators in Afghanistan. But just as surely, we must expect that someone from among the elected and appointed officials at the White House, the State and Defense Departments, and intelligence agencies would have possessed the insight to point out the downside risks of a prolonged engagement such as have unfolded in Kabul in the past twenty years.

American officials would do well to adhere to two guidelines for judging whether our country should engage in long-term post-conflict commitments. First, predisposition. The country we seek to assist should have a political predisposition toward pluralistic governance and the economic means (with modest recovery assistance) to stimulate and achieve sustainable growth (e.g., Japan, Granada). Second, enduring ally. The country must remain allied with us in opposition to any ongoing threat to vital American interests (South Korea, Germany, Italy).

In the wake of 9/11 planning, surely someone should have had the wherewirhal to point out that historically nurturing a political evolution from tribalism to institution-building and, ultimately, pluralistic governance, requires generations involving periodic conflict and enormous cost in lives and treasure. Instead, none of the five officials around the table in the Situation Room in 2001 put their foot down regarding our goals and limits in Afghanistan. True, the original goal was stated as assuring against any renewed hosting or sponsorship of a terrorist attack on our soil from Afghanistan. And to the lasting credit of the military units deployed to Afghanistan, we were able to locate Osama bin Laden within weeks in Tora Bora, a mountainous redoubt in the eastern part of the country.

West makes it clear that these forces were trained and equipped to carry out a sustained assault involving heavy bombing, intense scouting, and patrolling and over weeks not months would have ended a successful siege with the capture of bin Laden.

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