Addicted to “More”

In the first chapter of his book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Andrew Bacevich argues that the United States’ involvement in the Middle East isn’t solely about combating terrorism. Instead, he says that U.S. foreign policy is driven by an older, underlying value: America’s need to continue its high-consumption way of life. According to Bacevich, Americans have redefined “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (which were once centered on basic rights) to justify an endless quest for “more.” Bacevich even goes as far as to say that “more” is the only single word that can define what it means to be an American in the twenty-first century.

Because of this obsession with consumption, especially oil consumption, the U.S. has built its foreign policy around securing resources and maintaining access to global markets. Bacevich warns that “the ethics of self-gratification threatens the well-being of the United States… it saddles us with costly commitments abroad that we are increasingly ill-equipped to sustain.” In other words, it’s our quest for energy and dominance of the global economy (rather than the fight against terrorism) that keeps us entangled in the “seemingly never-ending conflict” of the Middle East. Bacevich also challenges the idea that America fights wars to spread freedom and liberation. He argues that U.S. foreign policy has always been about expanding American wealth and influence, not about liberating others. He writes, “Crediting the U.S. with a ‘great liberating tradition’ distorts the past and obscures the actual motive force behind American politics and U.S. foreign policy.” The U.S. expanding and intervening abroad has consistently been justified with noble language, but the true goal is to do whatever it takes to ensure that the American standard of living is not sacrificed.

As for getting out of these endless conflicts, Bacevich suggests it would require Americans to change fundamentally. Instead of shaping our lives around materialism and consumption, we would need to learn to prioritize values of sustainability. As Bacevich details in his writing, leaders like President Carter tried to warn about this “crisis of confidence.” Although, Americans largely rejected that message, instead favoring President Reagan’s promises of endless prosperity. Reagan understood that the way to make Americans engaged was to tell them what they wanted to hear… after all, the American people “wanted self-gratification, not self-denial.” Because it is not very likely that Americans will be willing to abandon their never-ending desire to have “more,” Bacevich is skeptical that the U.S. will easily break free from its pattern of empire and war in the Middle East. Without a major shift in national values, and a willingness to rethink values that have been evident since the day our nation was founded, the “forever wars” are likely to continue.