The Domestic Origin of Foreign Conflicts

The U.S. is seemingly involved in never ending conflict abroad. Although initially explained as a necessary war that was entered in order to combat terrorism, some people, including Andrew Bacevich, don’t find this explanation satisfactory considering how long the conflicts have lasted. Some alternative explanations include individuals such as President Bush himself, oil executives, and neoconservatives among others. However, in Bacevich’s mind, America’s “forever wars” are more likely due to deeper issues within the heart of American society, and that these wars are an outward expression of the country’s issues (5).

Bacevich explains these issues as stemming mainly from our changed understanding of what freedom encompasses (8-9). Our idea of freedom, according to him, has come to include the freedom to achieve as much comfort and luxury as we are able if we so desire. This emphasis on more abundance, and by extension, more consumption has increased American society’s reliance on external sources of goods. For example, the American need for oil was increasing in the 1970s, yet domestic oil production was declining, so America began importing oil more and more (30). Although an empire seems antithetical to freedom, which after all is what America was founded in opposition of, an American empire is how America retains its freedom, or at least its re-interpretation of freedom.

Alongside this idea that freedom requires an empire, Bacevich also says these wars are due to a prevailing thought in U.S. politics that America can make the world better by making the world more like itself (10). President Bush expressed this sentiment very well, saying, “survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” However, these desires to achieve a world that serves American interests and ideals, Bacevich points out, are hindered by these very ideals (11). American freedom includes individual choices that go against the construction of an American empire, the main one being choosing to not join the military and aid American troops. In other words, the freedoms that America is fighting abroad for are the freedoms that hinder its ability to fight. Bacevich calls this the central paradox of our time.

I think there is theoretically a way out of the “forever wars.” It just would depend on how attainable any solution is. If Bacevich is correct in his diagnosis of the core issue, I think that Carter’s ideas, although somewhat general, might be a good start. That is, a change in American culture overall would be what is needed to keep America out of foreign conflicts (32-33). Shifting the American culture away from abundant consumerism would allow the U.S. to reconcile with the possible loss of foreign energy and resources and help move towards more self-sustaining alternatives. The next step would be to find a way to change American culture, which I think social movements might have the capacity to do fairly well.