Arab News Blog

“… The second problem I have with Lee’s book is what I believe to be an underdeveloped understanding of American force and its limits. About three years ago, I was having a beer with a friend in Kramerbook’s when Lee walked in. We all three knew each other from Beirut and soon began talking about the intransigence of the Syrian regime. Lee shocked us by suggesting quite seriously that one option would be to bomb the presidential palace in Damascus or perhaps the residence in Latakia. I had breakfast with the same friend on Easter Sunday, and I checked with him to make sure I had remembered this conversation correctly. (I had.) What shocked me is that Lee had not seemed to think too seriously about the political effect he intended to achieve with this act of force. Coercive strategies and the force that make them possible are viable options, sure, but entire books have been written explaining how the coercive power of the threat of violence largely goes away once the violence is actually exercised. Forget the international outcry or the domestic consequences of an act of war absent congressional consent — my worry is that bombing the presidential palace in Damascus would not significantly affect Syrian behavior and would only serve to highlight the limits of American military power. (Kind of like when Hizballah took over West Beirut in 2008 and we … parked a U.S. Navy destroyer off the coast of Lebanon. The way that act read on the streets of Beirut was not “America is strong” but rather quite the opposite.)

But here is Lee, at the end of his book, conceding that “foreign powers cannot impose political solutions in the Middle East” but arguing that we should be ready to liberally use military force in the region in order to strengthen Arab allies. “Americans … should understand that he who punishes enemies and rewards friends … is entitled to rule.” It is often said that there exist no military solutions in the Middle East — only political solutions. “For foreign powers,” Lee argues, “the reverse may be true.”

Holy Clausewitz, Batman! So we’re just supposed to use military force and hope folks get the message? Drop some bombs and wait for the desired political effect?

When Kalyvas writes about control and collaboration, he is talking about exercising real control over a population. The kind of control the U.S. Army exercised with tremendous resources and manpower over Baghdad in 2007. Lee is actually quite critical of counterinsurgency, as he thinks it necessarily leads to negotiations with people he feels the United States has no business talking to. (“We rightly refuse to have relations with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, but if we continue to see our struggles in terms of COIN, in due course we will have no choice but to open up relations with all these so-called non-state actors.”) He also think it distracts from dealing forcefully with Arab regimes since COIN advocates often argue on behalf of sub-national engagement strategies.

But I have served in two U.S.-led wars and studied many others, and I cannot help but agree with Gen. Sir Rupert Smith that force, when exercised by the United States and other powers, has very real limits. When I read an editorial in this morning’s Wall Street Journal arguing that the Obama Administration is not serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program, for example, I have to ask (along with Jeffrey Goldberg) where I might find a viable military alternative to the current course of action. What is the military alternative, and is it credible?

I’ll conclude with this: if you’re going to make a case for the use of violence to realize a political end, you’re not going to find me in the back of the room wearing a Code Pink t-shirt and waving a banner. But you will find me with my hand politely raised asking how, exactly, the use of force is meant to achieve the political end. What are the interests at stake? What are the resources available? What are the desired end states? What are the risks and possible unintended effects? How are we mitigating those risks and unintended effects, and what contingency plans are we developing for when things go wrong? (And things will go wrong.) And what is your plan, by phase, for how force will be used? By all means, let’s have a conversation about the use of force. But it has to be a mature discussion, and you better think through the questions I just asked. Because hope is not a method — not for the Obama Administration, and neither for those who casually recommend the use of force in the political sphere.