Lessons of Freedom From 20 Years of War Against Jihadism

From Real Clear Politics.com (Sept. 5):

Gross miscalculations, grave setbacks, and recurring deceptions and self-deceptions in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last two decades have brought nation building — another way of saying the promotion of democracy and freedom, since rights-respecting democracy is the only sort of regime that the United States seeks to build — into disrepute. More than 7,000 American soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq and tens of thousands were wounded. Direct Afghanistan and Iraq war costs to the U.S. taxpayer exceed $2 trillion. Notwithstanding genuine accomplishments in the two countries, Iraq’s Shiite-led government leans toward Iran, the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror and the United States’ primary adversary in the region, while a better trained and equipped Taliban now control more of Afghanistan than on 9/11. For many on the left and the right, the Biden administration’s calamitous pullout cements the conclusion they reached by the end of the Bush administration: promoting democracy and freedom are beyond America’s capabilities, impose destabilizing practices and institutions on local populations, and have no place in a responsible U.S. foreign policy.

The better conclusion, however, is that to serve the nation’s surpassing interest in securing the conditions conducive to freedom at home, U.S. foreign policy must responsibly identify opportunities to advance it abroad. In support of that conclusion, the two decades since the Sept. 11 attacks furnish several lessons of freedom, paid for with blood and treasure.

First, the conventional categories of foreign policy analysis — realists vs. idealists, isolationists vs. interventionists, and nationalists vs. globalists — should be set aside because they reflect hidebound dichotomies that derail clear thinking about America’s role in the world. The challenge is not to choose one of the poles but to secure American freedom by striking a reasonable balance among competing imperatives. U.S. foreign policy should begin with a clear-eyed assessment of the motives, aims, and geopolitical logic that drive nation-states while never losing sight, on the one hand, of how customs and ideas shape regime conduct and, on the other hand, of the rights inherent in all human beings. U.S. foreign policy should be grounded in America’s needs and priorities, which include the preservation of a free and open international order, while fashioning plans to act abroad — from speeches, educational initiatives, and foreign aid to (always as a last resort) military operations — to defend U.S. interests. And U.S. foreign policy should insist that sovereign nation-states are the fundamental political unit of international affairs even as securing freedom at home compels America to cultivate a diversity of friends, partners, and allies and to maintain — and reform — international institutions to promote comity and commerce among nations.

Second, the United States must distinguish between promoting democracy and promoting freedom. Both conservatives and progressives have a bad habit of treating these undertakings as synonymous. They are not. Although liberal democracies such as the United States weave together freedom and democracy to the benefit of both, they are separable and distinct achievements. Democracy refers to the people’s rule through fair elections. Hence, promoting democracy usually implies regime change. In contrast, freedom — which in the first place means the ability to choose how to live one’s life instead of being commanded by another — can be a matter of degree and enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent under a variety of regimes. Accordingly, freedom can be advanced — more religious liberty, more economic freedom, more free speech, more independence in the judiciary — incrementally and without replacing an authoritarian regime with a democratic one. Because freer nations are not only more respectful of human rights but also tend to be more productive, more reliable, and more aligned with the United States’ interest in a free and open international order, hardheaded political calculation requires the prudent allocation of scarce resources to advance freedom abroad. [read more]