Threat of war warrants serious discussion

Friday, January 17, 2003 - by Peter Golden

The making of foreign policy is not one of those occupations that occupy the working hours of most Americans.

By law the President and his cabinet, along with Congress, general staff and a cluster of national security and intelligence agencies, pretty well control the process. A handful of think tanks also get into the act leaving the rest of us, perhaps a hundred million adult Americans, to crack another brewski and ponder such issues as Iraq and North Korea.

From the first days of the nation, the exercise of "great power" politics has been fraught with equal measures of danger and opportunity for America. The danger part of the equation—the side that occupies us today—first presented itself to me at the gut level almost 25 years ago. One wintry afternoon, a secretary in the office in which I worked casually mentioned her dad would not be present for the family Christmas gathering that year. He had been killed a year prior in the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut.

Much has transpired in the interim. The Berlin Wall has fallen along with the "Evil Empire." The European Union has emerged, the Japanese gone into eclipse and we have awakened, along with much of the rest of the world, to confront the thousand-year-old hegamon of militant Islam.

Over two decades, through bombings, hostage takings and assassination, a small but widely supported segment of an otherwise highly spiritual faith has supplanted communism as the exemplar of evil in the west.

How have we responded since the destruction of the World Trade Center? While our way of life still leaves us vulnerable to weapons of mass destruction, the enemy apparently has no strategic capability. In the interim, much of the world has allowed us extraordinary latitude to project American power.

From more highly integrated intelligence and carefully coordinated police operations with foreign partners to deadly drone aircraft and carrier groups in the Persian Gulf, our ability to counter terrorism has been largely effective, and on "their" ground, not ours.

These days the economy is suffering and so are some of us, as a result. State and municipal revenues are sharply down and there is much to worry about, independent of terrorists, Iraq and North Korea. Where to find the money for the new high school? How to maintain municipal services?

But we love our SUVs, and until we insist on more effective energy conservation programs and create new energy sources we will do stranger things than invade Iraq or parlay with the North Koreans. Saddam has scores to settle, not the least of which is with our ally Israel. The North Koreans, hysterical with hunger and possessed of a fearsome capacity for violence, play global politics like guts poker.

It is possible that someone will unleash another atrocity—a "dirty bomb," smallpox, or what have you in an American city. Is it within the realm of possibility that North Korea will launch a nuclear or conventional attack on South Korea or Japan, or even our own West Coast. We have been wounded before and our allies decimated; we have entered into conflict at home and abroad, lost ground, regained it, and achieved victory. We will endure.

Speculation, however, does not stop the clock in the foreign policy game or allay the anxiety we all share. While the North Koreans bang the reactor door, the Chinese, all one billion of them, are growing their economy at a rate double that of ours and developing formidable industrial and technical capabilities. What are they thinking in Peking? Three-dimensional chess, anyone?

Which would you rather have, oil wars or wonderful new sources of energy and enhanced transportation systems? Is it possible to have both? All options fall under the heading of policy initiatives for the president, his cabinet and the Washington think tanks to promote. Or consider the Far East: should we go it alone, or rely on our Chinese friends to bring the North Koreans to the table?

Many Americans may be disappointed, but we cannot weaponize the National Football League or depend on James Bond to save the day. Yet we—all of us—must keep our eye on the foreign policy ball and calculate the costs and benefits.

By all means, have another brewski, but turn down the volume on the playoffs for a moment. There is a serious discussion to be had.

Peter Golden lives in Natick. He writes about technology, the environment and public affairs.

 
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