COVER -> DAY ONE
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Once upon a time a man who was even more careful than he was rich, was tempted to buy a very expensive car. After he had it delivered it was installed in his garage and there it stayed. He would not take it out on the road in case some careless lout banged into it and damaged the gleaming paintwork. Once a year, on his birthday, he allowed his son to bring the car out of the garage and drive it round his private estate to be admired by all the luncheon guests. He had his portrait taken lounging against it now and again on these occasions to update the picture gallery in his dining room.
I was reminded of him this week when rumours began to circulate that President Bush is minded to withdraw United States troops from Kosovo just at the time when there is some danger that yet another fire will break out in the Balkans. This time it is triumphalist KLA fighters, disappointed in the Kosovo settlement, trying to engineer some kind of greater Albania in much the same way that the ambition in Sarajevo has been for a greater Serbia. Apparently the K4 force on the Macedonian border, dominated by American troops, has been reluctant to intervene in case some murderous terrorist decides to get violent.
If we have reached the stage where the most powerful country in the world has such a fragile governance (as opposed to party political) base that it cannot sustain the loss of a single military casualty then two major questions immediately arise.
The first, and most obvious, is what is the army for?If a host of regular activities from mining to motorcycle racing, were abandoned on the grounds that somebody might be killed in their pursuit, society would grind to a halt; no motoring, no industry and, come to that, given the heart attack statistics, no sex.
Of course the picture I paint is absurd but it is no more absurd than the most powerful army in the world being prevented from doing what it was created to do in case somebody gets killed. The conventional answer to my question is that it acts as a deterrent to which the immediate answer is that I can't think of the last time when it was deployed in that role.
In all the cases I can remember of American military involvement outside its borders it has reacted not deterred. Seemingly too little too late.
So far this vast expenditure on the American military has gone almost unquestioned, to the extent that there is virtual bipartisan stupidity over the NMD but how long can it last? How long will citizens, even with tax cuts for the better off, be prepared to throw bundles of greenbacks at a white elephant?
The second question is more serious because it is not simply a matter of value for money. That question is why democratically elected administrations of both parties believe that it is politically unsustainable for the military to sustain casualties? Let us not mince words.
In a country which is not demonstrably sympathetic to the plight of its poorer citizens and which holds life very cheap indeed -- both in terms of gun laws and capital punishment -- why is there so much worry over the possibility that a few infantry, who have freely joined the armed forces, might die in action?Is it that the cloud of the Vietnam fiasco still hangs over the body politic?
I think not.
It is my deep suspicion that any governing system which spends most of its time belittling itself, obsessing itself with how it might make itself smaller and weaker, cannot raise its game to justify casualties. If it is seen to stand aside while its own inner cities are torn to pieces by internestcine war between narcotics gangs, how can it justify risking life to intervene in warfare between gangs on the Kosovo/Macedonian border?
There may be no short-term domestic price to pay for this but history shows that weak governments and standing armies do not go well together.
Sooner or later the size of a military force that does nothing will have to be considered; as the number of personnel falls the amount spent on armaments and support will have to fall too; not proportionately, of course, because the fewer the personnel the stronger the case will be made for sophisticated armaments.
But, sooner or later the pork barrelling associated with defence will become a serious issue. At that point the world trade regime which the United States has been so keen to foist on the rest of us will forbid Congress from pork barrelling in the ordinary economy, from which defence expenditure is, of course, exempt.
- Will that signal an American move to resile from its WTO obligations?
- What shall we then think of the largest economy on earth with impotent armed forces and a tendency to pull out of international agreements it doesn't like?
Incidentally, just in case you were wondering, the rich man was so very, very careful, that when a jealous rival paid a gang of thugs to set his mansion on fire, he was so well barred and bolted in that the fire engulfed him, shortly after it had destroyed his beloved car.
