Senator Richard Russell once observed: “If we can go anywhere and do anything, we’ll be going everywhere and doing everything.” What mission do hawks propose: Invade Iran, a nation of 70 million? Fight in Ukraine, on the border of Russia? Join an increasingly militarist Japan to fight China over disputed islands that are bits of rock? Put American ground troops in the middle of Africa’s tragic civil wars?

If we have learned anything from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, it is that hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and massively superior military hardware often fail to produce a favorable long term political solution. In 2011, the United States spent more on the military than the next 13 countries combined, and 20 times more than we spent on diplomacy. We maintain nuclear forces of apocalyptic destructiveness. The military and the CIA are deploying drones and developing offensive cyberwar.

A rethink is long overdue. Today’s global problems—from terrorism to inequality to climate change—will be solved by cooperation or not at all. We need to work with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals, with China to combat global warming, and with Iran for Middle East peace. Saber rattling on behalf of the military industrial complex is archaic and dangerous.

Sources

U.S. Defense Spending vs. Global Defense Spending (Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation)

“America’s Orphaned Diplomacy” (Foreign Policy In Focus)

Former Senator Sam Nunn, in a conversation with former Senator Richard Lugar, moderated by Steve Inskeep. University of Indianapolis, February 25, 2014.