Andrew Bacevich's 24 questions — expose U.S. strategy hallucinations

19 May 2017

We are so accustomed to being trapped inside manufactured illusions — that Reality is (now) unrecognizable

Andrew Bacevich recently published an essay that implicitly demonstrates how far off Sanity's Track the United States is these days.

I draw your attention to it because . . .

Insofar as I can tell, this important essay has been completely ignored. A fact that perfectly illustrates Bacevich's title for it:

Forbidden Questions: 24 Key Issues Ignored by the Washington Elite and the Media, TruthDig (09 May 2017)

Rather than attempt to paraphrase Bacevich's thinking, which bypasses sound bites in favor of accurate subtlety, I encourage you to read the whole thing.

The essay is quite short. Its questions will hold any mildly thoughtful person's interest.

Here is an excerpt

Regarding the lack of competent American strategic thinking:

[Question] 9. The Gulf:

Americans once believed that their prosperity and way of life depended on having assured access to Persian Gulf oil. Today, that is no longer the case. The United States is once more an oil exporter. Available and accessible reserves of oil and natural gas in North America are far greater than was once believed.

Yet the assumption that the Persian Gulf still qualifies as crucial to American national security persists in Washington. Why?

That's a pretty basic strategic inquiry, isn't it?

Why would an already overextended US military continue to take on supremely expensive, unnecessary burdens?

Is anyone in American leadership capable of rational thought?

Or is it all about Military Industrial Complex profits?

A second sample

This one is pertinent because we Americans do not seem to have rationally defensible clues, as to why we make (a) enemies out of some people and (b) friends out of others:

[Question] 16. Our friends the Saudis (II):

If indeed Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing to determine which nation will enjoy the upper hand in the Persian Gulf, why should the United States favor Saudi Arabia?

In what sense do Saudi values align more closely with American values than do Iranian ones?

If we knew some history (as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, probably laughing, pointed out a few weeks ago), we might recognize how strategically asinine much of our foreign policy actually is:

We should not be spending lots of money and appreciable blood on things that are not (like Saudi Arabia) vital to our national interests.

Nor should we (rationally, at least) be doing strategically the same by making enemies out of foreign populations (like Iran's) that frequently demonstrate that their societal thinking is workably close to our own.

Thinking about Bacevich's 24 questions

Answering Bacevich's questions reveals (I think) the Deep State's self-interest in promoting self-destructive national strategies.

There is a big difference (for example) between:

(a) the war-promoting Military Industrial Complex's profit-gobbling

and

(b) the strategic interests of the United States, taken as a whole.

The moral? — When leaders and institutions are not asking the most basic policy questions . . .

. . . follow the source of their money — as well as the workings of their personal and organizational self-interests.

Exercised rationality frequently highlights the trampled common sense that intentionally fostered illusion spawns. Seeing this is the value of Bacevich's 24 questions.

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Andrew Bacevich's 24 questions — expose U.S. strategy hallucinations