Against Automatic Military Responses Due to Red Lines

Karen, thank you. The situation in Ukraine is unresolved. NATO emphasizes Russian troops near the border and the concomitant threat, as seen from a military perspective and from a red line perspective. The NATO defense pact is a collection of red lines that call for military responses. With Ukraine an official Partner in NATO, although not a member, there is a gray area of an almost automatic response from NATO if Russian forces enter Ukraine — for any reasons. NATO gets all hot and bothered as if Russian forces are about to roll over all of eastern Europe.

These red lines reduce flexibility and they do not allow for individual cases in which matters are not as simple as invasion or no invasion. To avoid constant and serious warfare, we have to recognize that the interests of other powers matter. The threats that they perceive matter. The intent and goals of interventions matter. The size and nature of interventions matter. The risks of broader conflagrations matter. The costs to Americans matter. The world is not a perfect place and trying to make it perfect is a non-starter, expecially trying to do so through military means based on preserving a system of states that has so many drawbacks to begin with. The prime example of the negatives of America trying to make the world safe for anything is the disastrous entry of the U.S. into World War I.

If Russia introduces forces into Ukraine or portions of Ukraine, NATO and the West do not have good reasons to go to war over it on a trip wire basis. The U.S. attacked Mexico in several instances without its provoking responses from other major powers. The situation between Ukraine and Russia is not the same, of course, but there are parallels. And, in my view, the U.S. government does no good for Americans by undertaking to defend borders of other countries even not on a trip wire basis.

Obama’s Syrian chemical weapons red line is another example of near war when a major power removed its own flexibility. Threats against Iran have come close to the same situation, which is immature, foolish, and dangerous in its disregard for the intricacies, subtleties and nuances of all of these conflicts. Heck, the U.S. couldn’t even distinguish Sunni from Shia or understand jihadism when it invaded Iraq to “free” Iraqis from Saddam Hussein. It couldn’t or wouldn’t distinguish the Taliban from al-Qaeda when it overthrew the government in Afghanistan. Red lines are thoughtless, disregarding important matters. Mutual defense treaties that can draw America into wars or provide an excuse for the U.S. government to launch a war are also thoughtless. Issued years in the past, they don’t allow for changing circumstances or considerations of current costs and benefits. This is the case in Korea and other spots in the world. It’s the case with the U.S. commitment to Israel.

The U.S. has intervened many times in this hemisphere and elsewhere without Russia or some other power immediately claiming a red line and ratcheting up the rhetoric and the possibility of major war.

However, the U.S. has made Europe and eastern Europe its business, just as it has made South America, the Pacific, Central Asia and Africa its business. Regarding Europe, the Department of Defense has long made the case that the U.S. has “enduring interests in Europe”. Clinton’s policies explicitly bolstered that orientation. This orientation is entrenched in Washington. The very idea of leaving Europe to its own devices is anathema to Washington.

If Russia or France or Great Britain or Japan or any great power in the past had declared that it had enduring and vital interests in Central and South America or in Canada, how would the United States have reacted? It would have rejected these ideas strongly. But the U.S. goes around the world making red line treaties and declaring that it has interests everywhere, and if that is not enough, it declares it has the interests of the whole world at heart or the interests of whatever region it happens to invade or set up with banking and military ties.

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8:43 am on April 2, 2014