The introductory chapter of Andrew Bacevich’s new book “Washington Rules” is titled “Slow Learner”. In it, Bacevich recounts his time as an Army officer in Germany during the strange twilight of the Cold War, after the wall fell but before Mikhail Gorbachev did. He and some other officers were able to take a trip into the previously forbidden zone of East Germany. They were shocked by its decrepit nature compared to the wealthy and maniacally well run West Germany. They also came across some Soviet units on training maneuvers. This was the extreme western end of the fearsome military that Bacevich and his companions had studied and prepared for, the Red Army that justified the extravagant American military and its presence in West Germany:
. . . we noted a significant Soviet military presence, mostly in the form of trucks passing by – to judge by their appearance, designs that dated from the 1950s.
[...]
Through binoculars, we watched a column of Russian armored vehicles – BMPs, in NATO parlance – traversing what appeared to be a drivers’ training course. Suddenly, one of them began spewing smoke. Soon thereafter, it burst into flames.
The great threat was a sham, a fact Bacevich somewhat shamefacedly admits he didn’t learn until well into middle age. Before that, he had been an assiduous believer in the “Washington Rules” of his title.
There are three Washington rules Bacevich invokes throughout his book, what he frequently refers to as the “sacred trinity”:
. . . an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism.
Emphasis in the original.
In other words, the “trinity” is the all but unchallenged belief that the U.S. needs to be able to kick anyone’s ass, anywhere in the world, and do so frequently.
“Washington Rules” charts the origins of the trinity in the wake of World War II, its rise to an axiom of American military thinking, and its ability to endure even in the face of massive defeats (Vietnam) and the removal of its original justification (the Cold War). Bacevich is equally scathing as the story moves into contemporary times and the bottomless pit of the Terror Wars. He has particularly harsh words for David Petraeus’s endorsement of counterinsurgency as something the American military can and should be doing.
For a recent example of just how pervasive the trinity is, look no further than the United States Senate two weeks ago. Two men who are, theoretically at least, crucial to the ongoing war in Afghanistan went there to be confirmed. The first was incoming Secretary of War Leon Panetta, and the second was the new Ambassador to Kabul, Ryan C. Crocker. These were the headlines used by The New York Times:
Panetta Demurs on Troop Drawdown in Afghanistan
Ambassadorial Nominee Warns of Risk if the U.S. Abandons Afghanistan
You don’t even need to read the stories to get the unambiguous message: we must continue. This is all the more remarkable when you remember that not only is the war increasingly unpopular here at home, but that the rubber stamping of the war’s continuation occurred in the same Senate where a record number of perfectly qualified people have seen their confirmations killed outright. So revered is the trinity that it is immune to both partisanship and popular discontent, a truly remarkable feat.
What dismays Bacevich more than anything, a theme throughout the book that reaches a masterful conclusion at the end, is the way American pragmatism has been discarded in favor of fantasy based ideology. Invoking the rigid foolishness of old time Communist bosses demanding that agriculture and industry bend to their theories instead of the other way around, he struggles to find a difference between them and us. We demand that the world work the way we want it to, and when it doesn’t, instead of asking why, we demand harder. That kind of folly simply isn’t sustainable, no matter how fervently the adherents to the Washington rules believe. Bacevich is a heretic to them, but he’s also right, and the questions he’s asking, about the reasons and the costs of keeping the country on a permanent war footing for six and a half decades, need real answers, not blind faith.
