Just What National Interest is Being Served by a Feckless Foreign Policy?

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis meets with members of the U.S. mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels

Former CIA bin laden unit chief, Michael Scheuer, rips apart the last week of feckless foreign policy maneuvers by the Trump administration. From the bombing of Syria, to the repledging of alliances to NATO and other allies, the dropping of the MOAB, and the handling of North Korea, Scheuer leaves no sacred cows unslaughtered. He writes:

Historically, U.S. political and military interventionism reliably produces three negative results: (a) motion without movement that fools Americans into thinking they are more secure; (b) dead and maimed Americans; and (c) a larger national debt. Let us, for a moment, look at the immediate results of the U.S. military interventionism that has occurred during the past two week:

–We bombed the Syrian military airfield from which a poison gas attack may have been launched against Asaad’s enemies. We destroyed none of Asaad’s gas arsenal, and did not destroy the base’s runways. This is a zero achievement for U.S. national interests, but a reason to celebrate for all of America’s most lethal enemies: Israel, the Neocons, Saudi Arabia, the media, the Republican and Democratic establishments, and the disloyal Israeli-First Americans, all of whom share the priority goal of keeping the republic perpetually involved in unnecessary wars with those they deem their enemies.

–We praised and pledged eternal fealty to NATO, as we have to even such less relevant entities as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In essence we have signed blank checks for NATO’s spendthrift leaders, men and women who will never defend themselves as long they can extort our financial help by stroking the enormous egos of official Washington and its self-serving general-officer corps with meaningless words like “America’s world leadership is back.”

–We dropped what we called “Mother of all Bombs” in Afghanistan and managed to killed less than 100 IS fighters. Probably not a cost effective use of the bomb; a good lesson to IS to stay out of easily identifiable cave systems; and a really craven replacement for the personal courage and massive killing that even now may be too late to defeat the Islamists.

–We and the Chinese have claimed a victory over North Korea because The Dear Leader backed down, except he did not back down, fired a missile that failed, and and earned no Chinese or U.S. military response for doing exactly what he was warned not to do. (NB: If the Dear One’s missile failed because it was hacked by U.S. war-makers, why has that method not been used previously to ensure no progress was made on North Korea’s nuclear program? And, if dearie’s missile was killed by a U.S. hack, do we not have yet another reason to thank Ronald Reagan — peace be upon him — for funding SDI?)

These four items all fall under the category of: “Using Military Power to Send a Message”. In none of the forgoing cases did the message sent mean any substantive improvement in the situation in so far as genuine U.S. national interests are concerned. Things may be quiet for a week or two, but the messages sent merely popped loudly, killed few, changed little, and will send the targets of the messages scurrying to find work-arounds that will allow them to proceed and then confront us with our failure.