Andrew Bacevich on Stopping the Search for Monsters to Destroy

This podcast episode includes references to the Eurasia Group Foundation, now known as the Institute for Global Affairs.

Transcript:

December 13, 2019

ANDREW BACEVICH: The significance of John Quincy Adams was that, in many respects, he was the greatest Secretary of State we ever had. He gave a famous speech in which he counseled his countrymen not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. Were we to do that, we would find ourselves caught beyond the power of extrication and thereby put our own liberty in jeopardy. We think that's kind of where we are.

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MARK HANNAH: Welcome to None of the Above. I'm Mark Hannah of the Eurasia Group Foundation. The Cold War was the defining element of American foreign policy in the second half of the twentieth century. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, what would define our foreign policy in the next century was pretty much unclear. But now, thirty years into a post-Cold War world, we can ask what forces have shaped our policy in this era, and how effective has that policy been? To help us answer some of these questions, we're joined by Andrew Bacevich, a historian, author, and the president of the newly launched Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Learning from the lessons of the past, we’ll dive into the possibility of a future where, according to the Quincy Institute slogan, “peace is the norm, and war is the exception.” Thank you, Andrew, for joining us today.

BACEVICH: Glad to be with you.

HANNAH: Right off the bat the Quincy Institute advocates against a militaristic foreign policy. And that's a cause somebody listening might just assume is held mostly by progressives. But you identify as a conservative. Can you talk about your conservatism and what it's like working with people who might see the world differently than you?

BACEVICH: We live in a moment when conservatism is equated with the Republican Party. And the first thing I would say is there is nothing about the Republican Party that is conservative, at least as I understand the term. I don't know what the Republican Party believes in, other than trying to advance the fortunes of the Republican Party. They certainly don't believe in the well-being of our country. So my version of conservatism—I believe in traditional norms. I'm a practicing Catholic. I believe we have a responsibility of stewardship toward God's creation to this planet. I am wary of excessive state power. My sense is when states acquire too much power, their purpose is to aggrandize the status of the people who are in charge, and the notion of the common good tends to get lost along the way. I believe in fiscal responsibility. I think at the end of the day, the bills have to be paid, and therefore budgets ought to balance. I could go on. Now, with regard to the Quincy Institute, I suspect most of my colleagues would self-identify as progressives. But the purpose of the Quincy Institute is not to talk about these sort of hot-button issues in the culture war. We're interested in how Americans understand their role in the world and the policies the United States pursues in trying to fulfill that role. In that regard, as a conservative, I would say I believe in realism—you have to see the world the way it is. I believe in prudence—I think power ought to be husbanded.

I believe that although war may be necessary at certain times in certain circumstances, it tends to be wasteful. It tends to be an enormous gamble because the people who embark upon a war think they can control the course of the war. Almost always, it turns out that they're wrong, regardless of their motives. It has nothing to do with whether or not they have good intentions.

And there, I believe, regardless of what we think about other sorts of political issues, my Quincy Institute colleagues and I are on exactly the same page.

HANNAH: So, Andrew, I want to ask you about how your worldview formed. You served in Vietnam as a soldier. You're a war veteran, and in that experience you saw our Cold War policy in action. Was that the key element in informing—?

BACEVICH: Here's the relevant personal background to this conversation. I was born in 1947. That is to say, I was born the year the Cold War began. I was born the month after George Marshall gave his speech at Harvard proposing the Marshall Plan. I was born when Foreign Affairs magazine on newsstands contained the famous article by George Kennan called “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” I grew up during the Cold War. I grew up believing the Cold War equaled international politics, that things beyond the purview of the Cold War, frankly, didn't matter. I was a true believer. I served in the Army. I was commissioned in 1969 and served until 1992. That is to say, I served until the Cold War ended. I believed the Cold War was necessary, that it was an honorable cause. I had a very difficult time coming to terms with the fiasco of Vietnam, not simply because I had participated in it, but because it seemed so much at odds. It seemed to undermine the notion that the Cold War was a necessary and honorable undertaking.

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BACEVICH: I got out of the Army in 1992. The Army is a demanding institution. I imagine if you are a monk in a Trappist monastery, it's a demanding institution. It expects you to believe certain things and to behave certain ways. That's what it's like to be in the Army. So, I believe certain things, and I behaved in certain ways. I get out of the Army. The Cold War is now ended. I am freed from this obligation to believe certain things. Because of what I ended up doing as an academic, I'm encouraged to think for myself, and I begin to think for myself at a moment when U.S. foreign policy is making a transition from trying to avert the catastrophe of World War Three into trying to use American military power to shape the international order to suit itself. So during the course of the 1990s, I began to have some serious second thoughts about U.S. policy. Fast forward to 9/11 and the global war on terrorism and George W. Bush very passionately and eloquently announcing that the time had come for us to bring the rest of the world into alignment with our values. The freedom agenda. And I thought, man, this guy has lost touch with reality. And so I became something of a dissenter.

HANNAH: I'm just going to ask you, why are you creating the Quincy Institute? What is the impetus?

BACEVICH: I think the impetus is a fairly long record of foreign policy failures. One might ask, when did that pattern begin? I think I would date it from the end of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the United States made many, many mistakes. Perhaps the worst of which was the Vietnam War, in which I participated. And yet, on balance, even in retrospect, you could make a case that U.S. policy during those decades was grounded in some sense of reality—that we did in fact pursue policies that were by and large, again with exceptions, consistent with the national interest.

HANNAH: And communism was actually spreading.

BACEVICH: In retrospect, I would argue strongly that the United States exaggerated the threat posed by communism and indeed by the Soviet Union itself, which was the principal sponsor of communism during that period of time. That said, there was a grounding in reality. The Soviet Union and the Soviet empire did pose a threat to the United States and more broadly to the West. Amassing military power to contain the Soviet Union, to prevent the outbreak of a third world war, made sense.

HANNAH: So the problem was defined accurately, if the solution was somewhat muddled or misguided.

BACEVICH: Yes. Now, when the Cold War ended—and remember the end of the Cold War caught the American foreign policy establishment by surprise...

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BACEVICH: It's not that all the smart people in Washington expected the Cold War to wind down. On the contrary, the smart people in Washington worked on the assumption that the Cold War was going to continue forever. The literature coming out of the Pentagon was still insisting—when Gorbachev was already running things in the Kremlin—that the Soviet Union was hell bent on an expansionist project and that it was, frankly—they argued—militarily superior to the United States. All that was hogwash.

But the point I want to get to here is that when the Cold War caught the establishment by surprise by ending, it led to a radical misinterpretation of what the consequences of the Cold War ending were. What we concluded, what the smart people in Washington concluded, and what the columnists for the New York Times concluded was that we had won a great victory. To cite the famous essay by Professor Francis Fukuyama, history itself had thereby come to an end. What did it mean to say history had ended? What it meant in Fukuyama's interpretation—and this is an interpretation embraced by many in the policy world—was the end of history meant there was now one sole surviving system, some way to organize a society, and that was our way: liberal democratic capitalism. Further came the conviction that the Soviets gave up because they recognized the superiority in military power the United States had achieved, and the Soviets could never catch up to.

HANNAH: Right. This was the “peace through strength” mantra of the Reagan administration, that somehow it had intimidated or cowed the Soviets into submission.

BACEVICH: But what followed, which went a step further beyond “‘peace through strength,” was redeeming the world through military power. In other words, if indeed history had ended, and there was only one single way to organize society, liberal democratic capitalism, we believed the end of history left us in a position to bring history to its necessary culmination by putting our power to work.

And indeed, virtually as soon as the Berlin Wall went down in the fall of 1989, eight months later in August of 1990, Saddam Hussein invades and annexes Kuwait, leading to the first major military undertaking of the post-Cold War era. That's Operation Desert Storm, which seems to end—I say seems because I think it was a bit of an illusion—in an unprecedented American victory. That is to say, Operation Desert Storm seems to affirm that the United States possesses military power such as the world has never seen.

HANNAH: And we saw it on CNN, too. We saw the bombs going over Baghdad.

BACEVICH: Everybody saw it. Not too many people participated, but everybody saw it. And therefore, large numbers of ordinary citizens bought into the notion of American military supremacy. Now, the point I'm trying to get to here is the hubristic conviction that history has ended, and we are history's agent, combined with the illusion that the United States has achieved military capacity such as history itself had never seen leads to a pattern of behavior in which the United States sets out to bring the world into alignment with our own expectations and values. Where does that happen? It happens more than anywhere else in the Middle East.

HANNAH: Andrew, you're one of the people who has embraced the term “triumphalism” to describe and criticize America's post-Cold War foreign policy. Can you explain what that term means and how it affects how we operate in the world?

BACEVICH: If there is one word that can best describe U.S. policy in the post-Cold War era, it has to be “triumphalism,” the conviction that we understand history's proper destination and that we possess the means, military means, to bring history to that destination.

It’s not that the United States during the Cold War had an aversion to military power. It was during the Cold War that we developed a massive military establishment. The whole national security state came into existence during the Cold War. But the principal rationale for that national security state was to prevent war from happening. After 1989, the principal rationale for the national security state is to put American military power to work to solve problems. And therefore, what we have, beginning with the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush, continuing into the presidency of Bill Clinton, into the presidency of George W. Bush, and into the presidency of Barack Obama, is an unprecedented pattern of armed intervention.

HANNAH: It's not as if we saw ourselves as an imperial power, because we weren't just doing this to satisfy American national interests. I think we also thought interventions would be in the interests of those countries we went into. Do you agree with that? We talk about liberating Iraqis. We talk about advocating for the rights of disenfranchised and all of these different parts of the world, and we’re freeing them from oppression. Do you think that's mere propaganda, or do you think it's just idealistic and out of touch with the ground truth of those societies?

BACEVICH: We should talk a little bit about the American approach to empire. I think most Americans have an aversion to that word and would insist that, “No, no, no, we're not Rome. We're not Great Britain.”

HANNAH: And in fact, we fought a revolution to liberate ourselves from Great Britain.

BACEVICH: Indeed, in some senses, at the very founding of our republic we were animated by anti-imperialism. That said, we have become the greatest imperial power of the contemporary world. For some reason, most Americans seem to believe that the default U.S. foreign policy is one of isolationism, that all we really want to do is to mind our own business. That's a load of hogwash. The default position of the United States when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world is expansionism. This is amazing. It always amazes me that this has been forgotten. But when we started out in the 1770s, we were this little tiny republic consisting of thirteen states huddled along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Lo and behold, by 1945, we are the richest country on the planet. We're the most powerful country on the planet. We have now expanded from sea to shining sea, and either directly or indirectly, we govern a variety of peoples from abroad. How did that happen? Isolationism does not provide an explanation. When we expand, as justification we cite the fact that we are spreading liberty. We're freeing peoples. We're spreading democracy. And that's not a lie, but it's a half truth. And the other half of that truth is we are expanding in order to acquire power.

HANNAH: What kind of power?

BACEVICH: In the nineteenth century, it tends to be territorial power. The Mexican War was a good example. This is a war of aggression against Mexico to affirm the removal of Texas and its incorporation into the Union and then to seize California and what we call the Southwest. We wanted those expanses of territory, and we took them, claiming all along that we were spreading liberty and democracy. In the twentieth century, the motivation of American expansionism shifts—less emphasis on territory, more emphasis on having access to markets and resources and what I think we could call “strategic advantage.” Take the example of post-World War Two in Europe. Europe, of course, had been battered, badly weakened as a result of World War Two, and we asserted primacy in Europe with the creation of the NATO alliance as probably the best example of that.

HANNAH: Do you think there's something unique about the American people or the American experience or American political institutions that leads us to want to expand our territorial reach, to expand markets for our companies? Essentially what I'm wondering is what explains this American imperialism you describe?

BACEVICH: I can offer two explanations, two explanations that mesh with one another and reinforce one another. The first is that's what great powers do. When our republic was created, the founders were men of ambition. They intended to create a great nation in North America. But they did not intend to create Switzerland, and expansion was a prerequisite to their notion of greatness. They did it through whatever means were available, whether it was the use of force or whether it was purchasing Louisiana or whatever was available. They were opportunistic expansionists. But—and this is why I think we are to a considerable degree different from earlier empires—we expanded with an absolute certainty that we were called upon to spread our values. And this is where the great sermon of John Winthrop back in 1630 remains so telling.

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BACEVICH: On the eve of founding what is about to become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Winthrop gathers his followers together and announces, “We will become the city upon a hill. We will illuminate the world.”

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BACEVICH: “And we're doing that because we have a covenant with God. God has chosen us in order to accomplish this task. If we fail to accomplish this task, then we will feel the wrath of God.” Now he was speaking in a very specific Christian milieu. But I would argue strongly that cosmic claim of being chosen, of having a very specific historic set of obligations, really carries through all the way to the present.

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BACEVICH: But if we look at the rhetoric George W. Bush used in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, justifying the global war on terrorism, it is the language of John Winthrop.

HANNAH: Is that a notion the Quincy Institute gets behind? It is compelling us to lead by example, as Joe Biden says, “The power of our example rather than the example of our power.” Is that something in the DNA of this new organization you lead?

BACEVICH: This is one of the things that defines the terms of debate with regard to basic U.S. policy. Yes, we are called. Well, how to fulfill that call? To fulfill that call by asserting American power? By coercing others into doing things our way? Or by serving as an exemplar? To demonstrate, by the way we run our country, that liberal values should be the basis of a society. There's been a tension between those two notions that runs throughout American history. In the post-Cold War moment—that is to say from 1989 until the election of Donald Trump in 2016—the notion of using American power to advance American values enjoyed favor. But if we go back to that sermon of John Winthrop, Winthrop was not proposing to use the sword to accomplish the American mission.

Again, he and his followers were devout Christians, and they believed it was by keeping faith with what they deemed to be Christian values that they would fulfill their mission. Now to your question about the Quincy Institute, I'm not sure the Quincy Institute has a considered view on whether or not we are chosen by God or by Providence or by history, but we do believe we can better achieve our purposes, however those purposes are defined, by serving as an exemplar.

HANNAH: Do you think the religious influence on our foreign policy is, on the whole, a good thing, because it leads to notions of responsibility? Or is it a bad thing because it sees certain religions as less-than or as competitive with our values—I'm obviously thinking of Islam—and it gives us this blinding confidence that God is on our side?

BACEVICH: One of the traditional fault lines in the debate over U.S. foreign policy is this argument between realism and idealism, and vastly oversimplifying that realists only care about concrete interests—if we can't identify a concrete interest, then we don't act, it's not our business. The idealists—and this is unfair to them—supposedly always want to go out and try to save the world and therefore get us involved in all kinds of situations that aren't our business. I don't think it's a useful frame. I do think we will always believe we have this mission. I happen to be a believer, and when I read the Bible, I don't see anything in the Bible that says God thinks the Americans are supposed to save the world.

HANNAH: We hadn't come along yet at that point.

BACEVICH: I think the real fault line is this one: are we going to accomplish our mission at sword-point, or are we going to accomplish our mission through example?

HANNAH: The Quincy Institute launched last week, and about a year from now, when you come up on your first anniversary and look back, what will success look like?

BACEVICH: This project we have embarked upon is not a one-year project. This is not a two-year project. If we want to make a substantial impact on the foreign policy establishment, on the debate within the foreign policy establishment, this is a ten-year project. So if you say, where are you going to be a year from now? We're probably going to be more or less where we are now. That is to say, we're going to be in the early stages of trying to change people's minds. How do we do that? We do it by engaging the policy community, by writing, by advocating, by participating in conversations to try to bring people around to our point of view, by listening to the point of view of other people. It's going to be a long haul project.

HANNAH: The task you've set for yourself is not an easy one. From defense contractor lobbyists to hawks on Capitol Hill to the apathy of the American public, there are a lot of potential stumbling blocks, a lot of obstacles. What do you see as the biggest obstacles to achieving your long term goals?

BACEVICH: What are we up against? Well, we're up against a military industrial complex that Ike warned us about. We're up against a vast national security bureaucracy, ranging from the intelligence agencies to the military services, both uniformed personnel, civilians, and civil servants, all of whom have an interest in self-perpetuation. We're up against what I think is a deceptive historical narrative, one that equates leadership with military assertiveness and constantly resurrects Adolf Hitler—the notion that totalitarianism and another holocaust are right around the corner unless we act and intervene. It's a false historical narrative, but one that is deeply embedded in the American sub-consciousness. There are multiple factors, and that's what adds to the challenge we are facing.

HANNAH: Where did you come up with this name, the Quincy Institute?

BACEVICH: Well, our namesake is John Quincy Adams, who is not a notably successful president. These days, he is fondly remembered as a member of Congress who was an adamant opponent of slavery. But for our purposes, the significance of John Quincy Adams was that, in many respects, he was the greatest Secretary of State we ever had. He was a Secretary of State for President Monroe. In 1821, Adams gave a famous speech in which he counseled his countrymen not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. His words. Were we to do that, he said, we would find ourselves caught beyond the power of extrication in foreign wars and thereby put our own liberty in jeopardy. We think that's kind of where we are. We have gone abroad in search of monsters to destroy, and we find ourselves embedded in wars that we don't know how to end and that are not in the interests of our country. So, he's an inspiration. It doesn't necessarily mean we agree with everything he ever did in his entire life, but we admire his wariness with regard to foreign wars. The Quincy Institute exists to try to change the way Americans think about their role in the world and to promote an approach to foreign policy based on realism, restraint, prudence, and pragmatism. We're against war because we think war is evil. Again, there are circumstances when war is necessary, but by and large, war is evil. And therefore, it ought to be a primary goal of U.S. foreign policy to avoid war and promote peace, and that's not what we have been doing for the past thirty years or so.

HANNAH: Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. Andrew Bacevich is the president of the Quincy Institute. He's the author of several books, including The Limits of American Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Also, America's War for the Greater Middle East is a phenomenal read. If you haven't checked it out, please do. He's coming out with another book, The Age of Illusion: How America Squandered its Cold War Victory, and you can look for any of those books anywhere you look for books.

I’m Mark Hannah. This has been another episode of the Eurasia Group Foundation’s None of the Above. Thank you for tuning in. You can find us on the web at noneoftheabovepodcast.org, iTunes, Spotify, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Please do rate and review us, and email us if you're interested at info@egfound.org or info@noneoftheabovepodcast.org. Thanks, catch you next time.

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