In 2003, after graduating from college, Lieutenant Ehren Watada voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. army. The September 11 attacks and a spirit of patriotism motivated him to serve his country. In the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he was prepared to give the administration and its rationale for the war the benefit of the doubt. He served in Korea and then returned to Fort Lewis, Washington to prepare for redeployment.
Only then, on the eve of going to the Middle East, did Lt. Watada truly begin to rethink the Iraq War. He read about the administration's deceptive case for invasion. He pondered the legality of the war and the subsequent occupation. His doubts grew. He wasn't a pacifist; he believed in some wars. But the war in Iraq began to appear unjust to him. He came to a difficult decision. In January 2006, Lt. Watada refused orders to deploy to Iraq. He asked to be reassigned to a different unit, even one in Afghanistan, and offered to resign his commission. The military said no. When he went public with his refusal in June 2006, Watada became the first commissioned officer to do so. The military immediately began court-martial proceedings against him.1
"It is my conclusion as an officer of the armed forces that the war in Iraq is not only morally wrong but a horrible breach of American law," Watada has said. "Although I have tried to resign out of protest, I am forced to participate in a war that is manifestly illegal. As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order."2
The decision to invade Iraq in 2003 symbolizes everything wrong with the Bush administration's approach to the world. As Lt. Ehren Watada and so many others have subsequently learned, the U.S. government indeed manipulated the facts to make a case for war. The president's new doctrine of preventive war unraveled the very fabric of international law. Washington ignored the protests of allies and played on the fears of the American public all in an attempt to expand U.S. power in the world. The administration acted in the name of security, but its definition of security was both narrow and self-defeating, for both the United States and the world. Its actions have made the citizens of this and other countries less safe and secure.
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, and his rule was unjust. But, as Lt. Watada realized, there was nothing just about the U.S. rush to war. The Bush administration abandoned diplomacy and the mechanisms of international law. Thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died in the resulting conflict. The country is in civil war, and the economy has collapsed. There is neither security nor justice in Iraq today.
The errors of U.S. policy in Iraq are not confined to the Oval Office or the Republican Party. The approach of the Democrats to Iraq has also been unjust. The most powerful Democrats by and large supported the decision to invade Iraq. Earlier, they supported a decade-long bombing campaign that took the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Under the economic embargo in the 1990s, half a million Iraqi children died, to which Secretary of State Madeleine Albright could only say, "This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it." Before that, both Democratic and Republican administrations helped to bring Saddam Hussein to power and then armed him against Iran in the 1980s. This ugly pragmatism, too, is far from a just foreign policy.
Today, the Democratic Party and an increasing number of Republicans want to end the Iraq War. But in Iraq and elsewhere in the world, neither the current administration nor its congressional opposition has advanced a satisfactory alternative to the arrogant foreign policy of the Bush administration. The approach of most Democrats calls for the same amount of money to be spent on U.S. military presence around the world. Throughout the 1990s, the Democrat leadership also showed scorn for international law. Their "a la carte multilateralism" relied on the advice and consent of other countries only when they didn't block U.S. policy.
This scorn for international law has reached its pinnacle with the current administration. It isn't simply that the Bush administration does diplomacy badly. It is fundamentally allergic to diplomacy. Instead of the open hand of negotiations, the administration has relied on the closed fist of military power. This emphasis on unilateral and military solutions has exploded in our faces. With half our discretionary budget going to the military, we are relearning the lesson that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us four decades ago. An unjust war leads to poverty and devastation in two nations. The costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—in human lives, in money wasted, in post 9-11 good will squandered—have been immense.
The costs of distraction have been even larger. We have neglected the most profound challenges of our time. Global temperatures are rising and threatening the future of the Earth. There is enough nuclear material in the world for 300,000 bombs, and neither the nuclear club nor its aspiring members are doing much to reduce this amount. The gap between the global haves and the have-nots grows wider every day, which threatens everyone's prosperity, security, and health. The Cold War is over, but hot wars continue to claim millions of lives in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. And terrorist organizations have only grown stronger in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is not enough to describe the failures of the past and present. We have the ideas and the resources to change our future. We must now find the courage to act. And we must construct a vision of a just future, a foreign policy with justice at its core, so that we know where we are trying to go.
A Just World
We face a unique moment in U.S. and global history. We can either maintain an unjust and insecure status quo, return to the failed Cold War realism of the past, or chart a new relationship between the United States and the world. Our common future does not look promising. But if we redirect U.S. foreign policy, we can secure greater prosperity for our neighbors, our children, and ourselves.
Terrorism is not the only challenge facing the United States. War, poverty, loose nukes, and climate change all make us feel less secure than a decade ago. Over the last few years, the United States has addressed these issues with a blunt instrument. Like a fearful homeowner, we have stocked up on guns, added locks to the doors and windows, built higher fences around the property, and even taken over several of our neighbors' houses. Such an approach only increases the fear factor. More guns, higher walls, and more spending give us an illusion of security.
The Bush administration has insisted that we focus just on security. We must focus instead on a just security, because there can be no real security without justice. Current U.S. foreign policy unfortunately provides neither security nor justice:
- Is it just to demand that other countries dismantle their nuclear programs while the United States embarks on a program to build new nuclear weapons?
- Is it just to let the burden of global warming—and its prevention—fall on the shoulders of the poorest countries of the world?
- Is it just to address terrorism through military means instead of through law?
- Is it just to pursue trade, immigration, and health policies that widen the gap between the global haves and have-nots?
- Is it just to pour arms into military conflicts around the world and not address the underlying disputes over sovereignty and equity?
The answer to each of these questions is clearly no. An unjust foreign policy is ultimately an ineffective foreign policy that traps us in a cycle of fear, hostility, and decline. And it is also deeply unpopular. The Bush administration foreign policy has brought U.S. popularity in the world to new lows. At home, it has generated widespread dissatisfaction across the political spectrum.
We have an opportunity to transform the national conversation from the framework of fear that has prevailed since September 11 to a broader response to global ills and injustices. The growing public awareness of the climate crisis, the need to address the Middle East in a comprehensive manner, the wasteful extravagance of military spending, the continued threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear use, and the corrosive effects of global inequality have revealed the inadequacies not only of current U.S. foreign policy but the Democratic Party's "real security" doctrine as well.3
Both parties support the preservation and expansion of U.S. military power abroad. They believe that somehow our global military presence makes us more secure. The United States annually spends nearly $300 billion on this vast global undertaking. Let's be clear. This is no defense budget. This is offense, and it is offensive to the spirit of peaceful, international cooperation.
As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt realized more than 60 years ago, the future of the United States depends on our becoming a more responsible member of the global neighborhood. We demand accountability from others, but we must also be accountable ourselves. We must reduce our reliance on guns and back away from our global garrison. We must start playing by the rules and playing well with others. We must link arms to face the challenges that cloud our common future. We must treat others as we would have others treat us. We will not feel secure until we all feel secure. That is the essence of a just security approach.
A Just Alternative
We are entering a new "multipolar moment." The most aggressively unilateralist phase in U.S. policy is receding, and new centers of power are emerging. There is China's multilateral diplomacy, Russia's petropolitik, India's economic leverage, and a new generation of Latin American leadership. Beyond governments, civil society has gained a new prominence as "the other superpower." With this new multipolarism, however, has come the potential for increased conflict in the Middle East, Africa, Northeast Asia, and Central Asia. International polling suggests that citizens throughout the world expect and demand greater global cooperation to resolve these conflicts as well as pressing issues of poverty, climate change, and energy security. Americans, too, are eager for a new foreign policy, both to prevent a return of unilateralism and to implement an effective alternative.
The examples of Iran and North Korea offer a stark contrast in how the current administration is dealing with the new multipolar moment.
With Iran, the U.S. government has ignored promising compromise, refused to look at regional solutions, and slighted the advice of allies. Keeping "all options on the table," which includes a preemptive nuclear strike, the administration appears eager to repeat all the mistakes of the Iraq debacle and then some. Iran is a much larger country, with much more diverse political actors and greater regional influence. Even the few allies the U.S. managed to finagle into the "coalition of the coerced" against Iraq have mostly expressed their distaste for attacking Iran. By advancing a war agenda, the administration threatens to perpetuate an even greater injustice.
With North Korea, on the other hand, the administration reversed course in early 2007 by taking negotiations seriously and compromising on the sequence of denuclearization. Not only have Washington and Pyongyang embarked on a process that could lead to diplomatic normalization but the countries in the region have also begun to discuss a regional peace mechanism. The negotiated solution to the U.S.-North Korean standoff respects international law, aims to raise the economic level of North Korean citizens, and addresses unjust practices of the past such as Japan's colonial control of the Korean peninsula. It is far from a done deal. But the negotiations show great promise for the future.
Here we have three scenarios. The United States has made grievous errors in Iraq. We are currently on a collision course with Iran. But there is hope that we will resolve our differences with North Korea in the future. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, we are visited by the ghosts of U.S. foreign policy past, present, and yet to come. Which path will we take? And what foreign policy principles are available to help us make these complicated decisions? Will we make the right decision and, like Scrooge, be invited to the table to celebrate peace and prosperity, or will we remain ungenerous and alone?
In the following vision of a just security future, we will tell five different stories about our common future and the five challenges we face: climate change, global poverty, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and military conflict. We will address five different sets of core misconceptions and offer five interconnected prescriptions for change. The concluding chapter will put the challenges facing the United States in a larger historical context and offer an integrated just security program.
We cannot turn back the clock and rewrite what happened in Iraq. Like Lt. Ehren Watada, we must deal with the reality confronting us and make difficult and courageous decisions. But it is not too late to act. We still have time to arrest global warming and move toward nuclear disarmament. We can bridge the terrible gaps of wealth and poverty in the world. We can help bring peace to countries and regions torn by war. And we can radically reduce the impact of terrorism on innocent lives. On these five critical challenges, we can still change the script and come out on the side of justice.
Endnotes
- Material on Ehren Watada drawn from Sarah Olson, "First Officer Announces Refusal to Deploy to Iraq," Truthout, June 7, 2006; and, Ryan Elsey, "Lieutenant Watada—American Hero," (Silver City, NM and Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, February 21, 2007).
- Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, "Lieutenant Watada's War Against the War," The Nation, June 26, 2006.
- See the Democratic Party's Real Security program at: http://www.democrats.gov/BK.html.
