Imperialism as a Lifestyle

“Wave at them, but have a plan to kill them.” – General James Mattis

Here’s a fine how-do-you-do for Memorial Day.

My title is prompted by my reading “Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground.” (I get my reading suggestions from the Wall Street Journal weekend book section.) The author is Robert F. Kaplan, writer of many books and long-standing foreign policy pundit. It’s mainly a work of journalism, and aside from the noxious political agenda, quite interesting. The ideology is screamingly, avowedly, explicitly pro-imperialist, but therein lies a basic question about U.S. foreign policy.

The rationale for the U.S. projecting power all over the world has evolved from traditional Cold War nostrums to the U.S. global war on terrorism (GWOT), meaning the war on Al Queda and its offshoots. Second billing in this crusade goes to narco-terrorists concentrated in Colombia, who allegedly are allied with homicidal Islamic jihadists. This focus notwithstanding, Kaplan always has one eye on China.

The nature of the power projection is what’s interesting. Obsolete are the relics of World War II and the anti-Soviet build-up in Europe – vast arrays of troops, armor, and air bases. For Kaplan, in this book at least, the future is in small wars waged by scattered outposts dominated by elite commandos.

The day after 9-11, one of my lefty listservs was predictably chattering about the attacks. I suggested that what was needed was an army of assassins, since the responsibility of any national government in the affair was not yet clear. That is pretty much what we have.

Military missions are deployments in the dozens aimed at either rousting or assassinating terrorist suspects. The basis for such forays is intelligence gleaned from locals thanks to humanitarian projects like building schools, digging wells, and providing medical care to impoverished locals. Kaplan is pretty pointed in acknowledging that these services are for the purpose of acquiring information about bad guys.

Quoting one NCO (non-commissioned officer, usually either a sergeant or corporal) “From these firebases we try to spread peace and sunshine. The object is to seduce who we can and kill the rest.”

Kaplan is at pains to distinguish this from nation-building, about which skepticism prevails. I would say his disclaimer is an evasive way of denying any criteria for success. He wants to imply that the benevolence advances democracy, but he can’t quite bring himself to argue that forthrightly.

The problem is these missions have no beginning, middle, or end. By 2004, when the book was published, it was clear that the Iraq occupation was trending in the direction of futility. A lengthy chapter on Afghanistan is non-committal in this respect. We have the benefit of hindsight, knowing that success was still out of reach nearly twenty years later. In the early months of the Iraqi occupation, as a blogger I quoted an unknown officer saying, “Tell me how this ends.” That man was David Petraeus.

Thing is, the soldiers are fine with this. I stipulate that I have no idea how accurate Kaplan’s portraits of them are, so what follows is me channeling Kaplan. Aside from his cliché-ridden, homoerotic descriptions, the guys are basically action freaks, happiest in dangerous adventures. The Marines in particular are in the nature of a cult. (Remember, this I infer from Kaplan.) Their representation is disproportionately from the southeast U.S., evangelical Christian, and Confederacy-loving, what Kaplan calls the “southern military tradition” with “Confederate spirit.” He loves these fellows and what they do, to the point of accompanying them in conditions of extreme hardship and danger.

The ranks, especially the National Guard detachments, are full of cops and firemen, which makes you think of how these gentlemen function back in their civilian roles.

It is worth noting that the current dominance of massive military occupations is a departure from the shape of the U.S. military before the Spanish-American War. In other words, the real birth of the professional, post-Civil War military is wiping out indigenous resistance to westward expansion. Kaplan in fact is obsessed with the “Injun country” metaphor, cautioning the reader that the use of native American names for vehicles and military bases is a mark of respect, even admiration.

At any rate, the open-endedness of these deployments is why I describe military life – as described by Kaplan – as imperialism as a lifestyle.

Two of his local stories may be surprising. One is the mission in Colombia. The military there is very busy chasing narco-traffickers through the jungle. The militias adhere to both the left and the right. If you believe Kaplan, the U.S. is after both, though elsewhere it is suggested that once the lefties (the FARC) are liquidated, the right-wingers can be absorbed into the regular military and police.

Another interesting locale is Mongolia, wedged between Russia and China, suggested by Kaplan to be potentially important in the event of a land war in Asia. Note, this is one of our experts.

Kaplan does have a critique of the way the U.S. military operates. He argues that it is top-heavy. Too many bureaucrats, not enough warriors. He also argues that the warriors are burdened with impractical, politically motivated regulations and restrictions.

He does not seem to consider that this mixture of the benefits of discretion on the ground and the needs of government policy in the large are an endemic fact of life, so it does little good to whine about overweening politicians. High policy has benefits too, the better to minimize the incidence of political debacles like Abu Ghraib.

A saving grace for the book is that it ends before its theory has been decisively debunked, first in Iraq and second in Afghanistan. Where does that leave us? I did see a piece by RK indicating that the U.S. needs a huge Navy to contend with China. Otherwise, evidently Kaplan has done self-criticism, though I didn’t feel like subscribing to The Atlantic to read it. And one book from him is enough.

I’m fond of citing a bit from disastrous British colonial experiences in various ‘Stans, which gave rise to the idea of a “doctrine of masterly inactivity.” Why not let adversarial powers be the ones to get over-extended and blunder into assorted fiascos? Remember when China invaded Vietnam and got its butt kicked? At least they had the sense to declare victory and withdraw.