US foreign policy has failed in recent years mainly because the US relied on military force to address problems that demand development assistance and diplomacy. Young men become fighters in places like Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan because they lack gainful employment. Extreme ideologies influence people when they can’t feed their families, and when lack of access to family planning leads to an unwanted population explosion. US President Barack Obama has raised hopes for a new strategy, but so far the forces of continuity in US policy are dominating the forces of change.
The first rule in assessing a government’s real strategy is to follow the money. The US vastly overspends on the military compared with other areas of government. Obama’s projected budgets do not change that. For the next fiscal year, Obama’s budget calls for US$755 billion in military spending, an amount that exceeds US budget spending in all other areas except so-called “mandatory” spending on social security, health care, interest payments on the national debt and a few other items.
Indeed, US military spending exceeds the sum of federal budgetary outlays for education, agriculture, climate change, environmental protection, ocean protection, energy systems, homeland security, low-income housing, national parks and national land management, the judicial system, international development, diplomatic operations, highways, public transport, veterans affairs, space exploration and science, civilian research and development, civil engineering for waterways, dams, bridges, sewerage and waste treatment, community development and many other areas.
This preponderance of military spending applies to all 10 years of Obama’s medium-term scenario. By 2019, total military spending is projected to be US$8.2 trillion, exceeding by US$2 trillion the budgeted outlays for all non-mandatory budget spending.
US military spending is equally remarkable when viewed from an international perspective. The Swedish International Peace Research Institute says total military spending in constant 2005 dollars reached roughly US$1.4 trillion in 2007. In other words, the US spends roughly the same amount spent by the rest of the world combined — a pattern that the Obama administration shows no signs of ending.
The policy decisions of recent months offer little more hope for a fundamental change in US foreign policy direction. While the US has signed an agreement with Iraq to leave by the end of 2011, there is talk in the Pentagon that US “non-combat” troops will remain in the country for years or decades to come.
It is easy to see how the persistence of instability in Iraq, Iranian influence, and al-Qaeda’s presence will lead US policymakers to take the “safe” route of continued military involvement. Some opponents of the Iraq War, including me, believe that a fundamental — and deeply misguided — objective of the war from the outset has been to create a long-term military base (or bases) in Iraq, ostensibly to protect oil routes and oil concessions. As the examples of Iran and Saudi Arabia show, however, such a long-term presence sooner or later creates an explosive backlash.
The worries are even worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan. NATO’s war with the Taliban in Afghanistan is going badly, so much so that the commanding US general was sacked this month. The Taliban are also extending their reach into Pakistan.
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