Iraq, Vietnam and the Credibility Trap
Finally, the Iraq debate seems to be breaking out of the box that “stay the course” vs. “cut and run” has kept it in. As it does, one of the crucial issues is how we think about credibility. Track the Bush administration statements, especially as victory has become increasingly illusional (if not delusional), and you see more and more emphasis on credibility. Even “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” is about the message sent not just the material question of killing off x number of terrorists.
This conception of credibility, though, is a trap. It was a trap in Vietnam. And it’s a trap in Iraq. It’s a trap because it defines credibility in terms of resolve, but not in terms of judgment.
I guess it’s OK to talk about Vietnam. Apparently Bush has been using Vietnam memos provided by Henry Kissinger behind the scenes. And just the other day the president publicly used the Tet offensive analogy. One does need to be careful about how lessons are drawn, conscious of both the scope and limits of similarities among cases. Iraq and Vietnam have plenty of differences. But on some points like the credibility trap they have crucial similarities.
In 1965, when the decision was made to send in American troops, President Johnson quite explicitly articulate the need to demonstrate American credibility: “Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s word.”
Abbie Hoffman had his reasons for opposing the war, and Hans Morgenthau had his. He wrote an article in the New York Times Magazine in 1965 in direct response to this LBJ speech, called “We Are Deluding Ourselves in Vietnam”. In this article as well as his 1967 Foreign Affairs article, “To Intervene or Not to Intervene” and others, he took credibility very seriously but argued against the conception so heavily based on showing resolve. Vietnam was not a vital interest. Berlin was. Showing that we had the strategic judgment to know the difference was the true measure of credibility. Defining credibility largely as resolve backed right into the trap of a reflexive test-here-is-a-test-everywhere that gives your adversary the initiative and the capacity to define for you what is important.
The other key part of credibility as judgment was balancing commitments with capabilities. Walter Lippmann, also a realist, called this basic “solvency” of foreign policy. Here’s from Morgenthau’s 1967 Foreign Affairs article:
"This overestimation of our power to intervene is a corollary of our ideological commitment, which by its very nature has no limit. Committed to intervening against communist aggression and subversion anywhere, we have come to assume that we have the power to do so successfully. But in truth, both the need for intervention and the chances for successful intervention are much more limited than we have been led to believe. Intervene we must where our national interest requires it and where our power gives us a chance to succeed. The choice of these occasions will be determined not by sweeping ideological commitments nor by blind reliance upon American power but by a careful calculation of the interests involved and the power available. If the United States applies this standard, it will intervene less and succeed more."
The credibility-as-resolve precept carried over into the Nixon and Ford administrations as the reason for seeing the commitment through. Kissinger stated uncategorically that “the commitment of 500,000 Americans has settled the importance of Vietnam. For what is involved now is confidence in America’s purposes.” If the United States failed this test, President Nixon claimed, it would be perceived as “a pitiful, helpless giant” and “the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations around the world.” On the eve of the American evacuation of Saigon in 1975, President Ford beseeched Congress in similar terms not to cut off aid, arguing that to do so “would draw into question the reliability of the United States and encourage the belief that aggression pays.”
To the extent that such warnings were borne out, it was precisely because of the trap credibility-as-resolve led us into. Moreover, that the worst did not happen to American foreign policy was due in significant part to the Carter administration which did manage to get things done like the Egyptian-Israeli peace, the normalization of relations with China, and the elevation of human rights as a foreign policy principle and priority. None of that, though, could undo the fact that tens of thousands more American soldiers died in those last seven years of the Vietnam war while President Nixon privately acknowledged that “there’s no way to win the war. But we can’t say that, of course.” What if we did say it, or at least think it and plan accordingly consistent with credibility as the judgment to not get backed into blindly reflexive policies?
We’re facing very similar issues with Iraq. It is NOT just a matter of will and resolve. The American public’s unwillingness to stay the Bush course is not a lack of stomach but rather a questioning of the soundness of the strategy they are being asked to support, to pay for, to suffer for. There’ve already been good analyses done about how in going into Iraq we may well have done exactly what Al Qaeda hoped we would. And in then defining it as about resolve we’ve increased their options and reduced our own.
Once again our credibility depends on strategic judgment not blind resolve, just as Morgenthau said 40 years ago: “Intervene we must where our national interest requires it and where our power gives us a chance to succeed. The choice of these occasions will be determined not by sweeping ideological commitments nor by blind reliance upon American power but by a careful calculation of the interests involved and the power available. If the United States applies this standard, it will intervene less and succeed more.” .
Credibility isn't the issue and the stories of Vietnam and "Pork Chop Hill" aren't analogous.
Vietnam and Korea were swamps, big muddies. But Iraq's a wolf -- our wolf, now. And when you've got a wolf by the ears, it's damn hard to figure out how to let it go.
October 20, 2006 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
If by a wolf rather than a swamp, you mean we would endanger ourselves by letting go of Iraq, I think I disagree. It's true we've made our security situation worse by invading Iraq, and withdrawing from Iraq won't improve it all by itself. But in some ways it could contribute to not making it worse still -- the terrorist recruitment poster would be gone, though doubtless not forgotten, and the wasted resources could be put to more constructive use.
October 21, 2006 4:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes.
Calling Iraq more fraught than Vietnam means terrorism is more of a threat than Soviet Communism.
October 21, 2006 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think credibility is the central issue and I agree that Iraq is different. Iraq is OUR mess. We broke it, we own it. We can decide to be heavily involved or only on the periphery, but it's our baby and we'll be paying the child support for generations to come.
But I think Bruce is right. Going forward, we need to demonstrate our ability to tell the difference between what is urgent and what is important. WMD's in the hands of terrorists is certainly important. It might not, however, be urgent. Taking more time to assess the situation in Iraq before invading may have yielded a different plan of action. It was urgent only on the timescale of US election cycles. Little or no direct involvement in Iraq might have allowed us more time and focus on North Korea - a country that now has demonstrated WMD capability and a much more focused hatred of the US. Instead of being in a position of power to deal with North Korea, we are prostrated by the image of a country that doesn't know when to fight, doesn't know whom to fight, and doesn't know how to fight. Even the majority of the American people no longer believe in our government's ability to know these things. How can we expect anyone else to.
October 21, 2006 7:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Soviets/Afghanistan
USA/IRAQ.
Its as simple as that.
October 21, 2006 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
We broke it, but we don't own it. Never did. It was our hubris to think we did. And the Pottery Barn rule doesn't apply. W could have learned from Mother Goose:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
October 21, 2006 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
And yet, Humpty, employing those same horses and men, went on to found an empire upon which the sun never set.
Until, of course, it finally did.
October 21, 2006 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
More of a threat, yes.
The Soviet Union was a threat against its "own" satelites, and against the countries of Western Europe, much more than against the insular United States.
Although that also can be said about "terrorism" the difference is that there were strategies ready to be used against a threat of the Soviet kind, but there is no generally accepted strategy ready to use against terrorist groups aiming at changing certain U.S. policies that by the affected nations often are considered either imperialist, colonialist or both - except changing those policies, of course.
Terrorism is more of a threat in the meaning that it may successfully bend and mold America according to "its" wishes, something the Soviet Union could never hope for.
October 21, 2006 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Credibility? Mr. Jentleson, I think you missed something. You state: "Even “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” is about the message sent not just the material question of killing off x number of terrorists. "
Sir, 'fighting terrorists there rather than here' is using the land and people of a country that did not attack us and that did not represent a clear and present danger to the United States as a territorial and human shield against terrorist attacks on US soil. Tell me, what kind of credibility do cowards have, regardless of judgement and resolve?
October 22, 2006 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Plus, old Zbig made the cogent point this morning that if the argument is that we're fighting them over there (Iraq) then we're losing the war on terror.
October 22, 2006 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: The Soviet Union was a threat against its "own" satelites, and against the countries of Western Europe, much more than against the insular United States.
The same is true of the several radical Islamist movemenst in the Middle East. They are first and foremost a threat to the peoples of the Middle East who have borne their brunt. Secondly, a threat to neighboring areas: Europe, Russia, India. Thirdly and lastly to the United States.
Our obsession with the singular atrocity of 9-11 has caused us to imagine that there have bee no losses save ours.
October 22, 2006 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most certainly!
And it's deeply tragic that too many Americans seem not to distinguish between radical Islamist movements on one hand, and our common need to protect ourself against acts of terrorism on the other.
Terrorists have come in many different kinds and flavors, Islamists is only one of many.
By confusing policies adressing the Islamists with protection against terrorism, we are very much at risk of making us vulnerable for other kinds of terrorists.
A British friend of mine who works for a commercial airline uses to remark, that until September 2001 the United States had been the one single entity the most responsible for obstruction of measures proposed to track and counter terrorists. Not even the flow of money from America to IRA could be tracked, since U.S. liberties were more important than the security of terrorism victims. Then, from September 2001 and on, the U.S. government has erupted in a cascade of demands and regulations ostensibly adressing the terrorism threat. But, he notes, his feeling of security has only decreased, and his confidence in the concerned governments has evaporated. Anyone can see, he argues, that the blunt instrument said to be for the protection against terrorists, are as intelligent as discrimination against Germans, Italians and Irishmen had been as protection against the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, or the Irish Republican Army.
There is indeed a credibility gap!
October 24, 2006 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Laura Bush Admits Hubby's Nocturnal Woes
"George's nights have become troubling to him, more since the elections appear sure to return Congress to the Democratic Party," said Mrs. Bush. "He keeps waking up and shouting, like someone is pointing a finger and accusing him of something."
"What does he shout?" Well, it used to be "stay the course" but now it's almost always,"
"I did not have sex with that country!"
October 24, 2006 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting points but as we have seen with the Bush administration, seeing and hearing are very seperate senses.
If we were to take Bush's words at face value and believe the stated goals inside of those words, then you would be absolutely right about a credibility trap.
The problem, of course, is that nobody really believes the WMD argument. Nobody really believes the Democracy promotion argument. In short, nobody really believes the administration's rhetoric about spreading great American ideals to the Middle East so that the world can enjoy a sustained peace.
Instead, we believe what we know is true. Namely that convenient oil access, an enlarged military presence in the Middle East, and the ability to broaden executive authority under the auspices of war are the true motives of the Iraq War.
The most damnable part about the Iraq War is that the Bush administration is succeeding at most of its goals. The only disappointment, from its own point of view, is that it isn't as covert of an operation as they would have hoped.
October 24, 2006 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
In fact, both WMD arguments and removing-a-tyrant arguments belonged to them that I can swear on swayed opinions abroad. The point with the WMD arguments is that the western intelligence communities obviously exist in an echo chamber.
That the case for war was exaggerated was a thing many could put a blind eye to, as long as they believed the war was a good idea for one or another reason, if for nothing else but to avoid making the Americans upset during their emotional crisis and feeling of loss of security after September 11th.
My own nation went along for that latter reason, or, more cynically, maybe rather hoping to earn money thanks to favorable treatment of companies belonging to the coalition.
October 24, 2006 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exaggerated? Entirely fabricated is more like it. The only point of defense that the Bush administration might have is the pitiable (and false) claim that they weren't doing the fabrication, but were taken unawares by shysters, con men and unreliable informants.
Worldwide, I'm not sure that western intelligence agencies were fooled.
Both Jacques Chirac of France and Vladimir Putin of Russia made public statements that they, and their countries, did not believe that Iraq had a nuclear program of any sort. They were both more than satisfied that that had ended. Neither country was all that confident of chemical or biological weapons or programs, the best that they would say was that it was possible that there might be leftovers.
Canada also took the position that the evidence of wmd's was insufficient to justify committing to the Coalition of the Willing.
On this basis, we can pretty much assume that the balance of the world, India, Pakistan, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, China were unpersuaded.
Notably, most of the Arab and Persian Gulf countries, including Iran (but excluding Kuwait) took the view that there was no evidence of wmd's and that Iraq was no threat.
The only countries that actually supported American wmd allegations were Britain and Israel. Of the two, I don't think Israel mounted claims strongly at all.
Certainly in the politics of the day, these two countries positions were most questionable. Britain under Blair had proven itself an obedient lapdog. Israel was more than willing to fabricate information or support lies to advance its anti-Iraq agenda.
On the other side of the coin, whatever marginal possibilities that some countries might have acknowledged...
Jacques Putin speculating that there *might* *possibly* be a *small amount* of *leftover* chemical weapons, for instance.
The actual claims of the US and Britain were both unique and extraordinary.
- Niger Uranium sales (rejected at the outset by the Italians).
- Armada's of drone aircraft loaded with chemical weapons.
- 45 minute launch windows to Europe.
- Centrifuge tubes (rejected by the UNAEC)
- Mobile biological or chemical weapons labs.
- Smoking gun is a mushroom cloud.
Right wingers like to yammer on about how some long list of other countries supported the US and believed Saddam has chemical weapons. Unfortunately, its just not true.
No countries except Britain and the US were making hysterical wild claims for wmds. Those claims were not supported by any other country, except possibly Israel.
Several countries, including France, Russia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Canada went out of their way to reject American claims of wmd or Al Quaeda.
So for the record, its a bigger right wing lie to cover a huge right wing lie.
October 26, 2006 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Add to your cogent list the disparity between case officer/analyst levels and the upper brass at CIA. Tenet gave in to the "Team B" pressure.
Who is Jacques Putin?
October 26, 2006 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink