President Obama left the G20 Summit Friday with a ten-nation backing of his stand against the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Tomorrow night the president will address the nation on the subject. He knows the American people do not support the idea of bombing the Assad regime. Obama has acknowledged publicly that the American people are war-weary and suspicious of “further military entanglements in the Middle East….” Polls indicate that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war; and although expert opinion is split on the advisability of intervention (see Robert Booth’s Guardian article), we have to ask if America can afford yet another military intervention.
What can intervention achieve, after all, that will render the financial and economic costs sustainable? Can anyone accomplish anything positive in the light of Syria’s apparent instability? What happens if Iran, in its support for Assad, reacts by hampering oil traffic in the Persian Gulf? What happens to the price of oil and the fragile global economy?
It is increasingly clear that the U.S. government can barely afford existing military commitments, let alone new ones. Although it sounds incredible, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost U.S. taxpayers over $2 trillion according to a recent study described in the Los Angeles Times. And this cost may mount even higher as veterans claim future medical benefits. The cost of war is now so high, and the upside so dubious, it is difficult to understand President Obama’s eagerness to push intervention in Syria.
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It would seem that today’s government lacks financial prudence. Even if a military attack on Syria incurred no military or political costs, it would almost certainly come with a financial price tag. And as the U.S. national debt speeds toward $17 trillion, it seems fairly clear that we can barely afford peace let alone another war. According to Army General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an intervention in Syria would cost billions of dollars. Even the mere establishment of a no-fly zone in Syria would, according to Dempsey, “average as much as a billion dollars per month over the course of a year.”
In a 19 August letter to Eliot L. Engel of the U.S. House of Representatives, Gen. Dempsey further stated that military action (including the destruction of the Syrian Air Force) “would not be militarily decisive, but it would commit us decisively to the conflict. In a variety of ways, the use of U.S. military force can change the military balance, but it cannot resolve the underlying and historic ethnic, religious, and tribal issues that are fueling this conflict.” He added that regional violence would not end even if the Assad regime collapsed.
Despite knowing the costs, and given the dubious nature of the anti-Assad rebels, the Obama administration is asking Congress to approve intervention. President Obama is not worried about money, or the logistical difficulties the U.S. Navy would face (given its constrained budget). The president wants to use military force to punish a foreign government, or perhaps overthrow that government, because he says it’s the right thing to do. The president does not stop to think that America may need its limited resources to maintain its own defenses. Instead of financial prudence, the president insists on what Thomas Sowell has called “the vision of the anointed” which is, in truth, at odds with the free market and a frank acceptance of financial limitations.
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Nearly 2,400 years ago, the philosopher Plato postulated four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Courage. Prudence is the virtue which our big-spending interventionists have failed to cultivate, stressing instead the upholding of international law. The problem is, however, that you can spend all the money in the world and there will still be dictators and injustice. If the United States went to war against every country that was in violation of international law, we would end up bombing half the countries in the world – and at least two of those countries would be nuclear powers. Furthermore, these interventions would bankrupt the United States very quickly. If someone were to say that the virtues of Justice and Courage require us to intervene, they would be proposing a paradox in which the first of the Cardinal virtues is negated by two others. But Prudence is the virtue that trumps all. Without Prudence, there can be no meaningful Justice or Courage. There are always global or national problems that one might throw money at, but none of these problems are ever solved. The “war on poverty” did not end in victory despite the massive expense. The “war to end all wars” did not bring peace to the world. And intervention in Syria won’t bring peace to the Middle East, or prevent the future use of chemical weapons by other countries.
Prudence is defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as “the ability to choose good and avoid evil….” Prudence involves the cultivation of practical wisdom. Such wisdom supposedly comes with age. It involves learning from experience. In terms of money and finance, prudence requires that we accept the limits of American power because America is almost broke. We do not have wealth to squander on saving the people of other countries. If we continue down this road, we may undermine our own economy and perhaps the American people know it.
Related:
Will Syria Bring an Oil Shock?
