America’s Distaste for Another Land War

The U.S. Secretary of Defense is urgently warning against another military engagement like Iraq and Afghanistan because America can no longer afford it and the U.S. military is stressed out and exhausted.

One could never describe Robert Gates as an “unguided missile” as Americans put it – someone driven by rashness, unpredictability and recklessness. This intellectual who served more than a quarter-century in the Central Intelligence Agency’s foreign section and two years as agency director is by his very nature deliberative. He has served eight presidents and is the first Defense Secretary to survive the transition from a Republican to a Democratic administration.

And now Gates says, “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined’, as General MacArthur so delicately put it.” Gates made the statement in a speech he delivered at the West Point Military Academy, where young Americans are educated in the ways of warfare.

It was possibly the most significant speech Robert Gates ever gave during his long career as he prepares to leave his post later this year. In view of the blatant calls for the United States to intervene militarily in Libya in order to prevent another bloodbath, the speech appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Gates isn’t a dove; he has never been a dove. But since taking office in December 2006, he has been a witness to the immense political, psychological and financial burdens that the land warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed upon the U.S. military and American society in general. He’s also intimately acquainted with the workings of the American defense industry, which has profited enormously from these wars due to the need for a never-ending flow of supplies and weaponry to combat areas.

After nearly 10 years of a two-front war in the Middle East, the majority of the American population is stressed out and exhausted, as is the U.S. military. Gates therefore has argued for some time now that things had to change and that, in a time of nightmarish national budget deficits like the present, military budgets would also have to be scaled back.

Not because the global security situation had improved recently but because the challenges facing the United States are now more complex and unpredictable. Gates listed the dangers: “Just think about the range of security challenges we face right now beyond Iraq and Afghanistan: terrorism and terrorists in search of weapons of mass destruction, Iran, North Korea, military modernization programs in Russia and China, failed and failing states, revolution in the Middle East, cyber, piracy, proliferation, natural and man-made disasters and more.”

Gates emphasized to the West Point cadets that the United States — a nation that has maintained the most powerful military and by far the largest intelligence apparatus in the world — has never been able to predict how and where it would fight its next war. Naturally, U.S. forces should be prepared for any and all developments, but Gates doesn’t foresee the U.S. Army getting involved so quickly in a land war in a country that would entail occupying, pacifying and administering it. Most probably, U.S. military involvement in the future will be limited to air and sea operations in Asia, the Persian Gulf, or wherever needed.

The U.S. hawks are already accusing Gates of encouraging “rogue nations”, since they no longer have to fear a ground war with the United States. But most likely, they’re merely unaware of the facts or they just don’t want to accept them. The fact is the United States can simply no longer afford more land wars and the continued overextension of its military capabilities. Gates has humbly accepted that fact and his critics will someday come to the same conclusion.