84 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
RICHARD FONTAINE is CEO of the Center for a New American Security. He has worked
at the U.S. State Department, at the National Security Council, and as a foreign policy
adviser for U.S. Senator John McCain.The Nonintervention
Delusion
What War Is Good For
Richard Fontaine
A
s the casualties and Änancial costs o the United States’ Mid-
dle Eastern wars have mounted, Americans’ appetite for new
interventions—and their commitment to existing ones—has
understandably diminished. The conventional wisdom now holds that
the next phase in the United States’ global life should be marked by
military restraint, allowing Washington to focus on other pressing
issues. This position seems to be one o the few principles uniting
actors as diverse as foreign policy realists, progressives, nearly all o
the presidential candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary, and
President Donald Trump.
It’s not hard to see why Americans would look at U.S. military
involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya and conclude that such
interventions should never be repeated. The costs o these wars have
been extraordinary: at a rally in Ohio in April 2018, Trump estimated
them at $7 trillion over 17 years and concluded that the country has
nothing to show for the eort “except death and destruction.” Al-
though the precise Änancial cost depends on how one counts, what is
certain is that more than 4,500 U.S. military personnel have been
killed in Iraq and nearly 2,500 in Afghanistan, plus tens o thousands
injured in both wars—to say nothing o the casualties among allied
forces, military contractors, and local civilians. Critics o these resource-
intensive operations blame them for bogging down the United States
in a region o second-tier importance and distracting Washington
from the greater threats o China and Russia, as well as from pressing
domestic issues.