MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti) - US military interventions around the globe over the past 50 years have not benefited the country, but only serve to gratify the ambition of American politicians at a cost of inflicting enormous harm on the world, according to the experts interviewed by RIA Novosti.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the pretext for the US war in Vietnam, the first full-scale invasion of a foreign country by the United States in post-WWII history.
On August 2, 1964, the USS Maddox, while patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin and gathering intelligence signals, approached the coast of North Vietnam and, according to the United States, was attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. A second attack allegedly followed on August 4. As unclassified documents later showed, the incident was fabricated to pressure Congress to pass a resolution authorizing the deployment of troops to Vietnam.
The US invasion of Iraq followed a similar pattern. This time Americans went to the UN Security Council with evidence purporting to show that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction in order to obtain a mandate for the war. The US lost the vote in the Security Council but invaded Iraq anyway in 2003.
There is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the escalation of ethnic violence that the US and NATO cited to justify military action in Yugoslavia in 1999. While in 1983, the United States invaded Grenada and overthrew the pro-Communist government under the pretext of protecting American citizens.
Each intervention was different in its way, but the overarching theme is that when the United States wants to take military action, it simply looks for an excuse.
“The United States acts bluntly and flagrantly, and does not hesitate to use military force when other methods fail,” said Yury Rogulev, director of the Roosevelt Center at Moscow State University. He added that the United States sees intervention as a logical and legitimate means to achieve its goals.
But a pretext is always needed to sway public opinion and the Congress.
“The Gulf of Tonkin incident is evidence of how the US tries to find plausible pretexts for decisions that have already been made,” said Andrei Kortunov, director of the Russian Council on Foreign Affairs.
Long before the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the United States was deeply involved in the conflict in Vietnam. A former French colony, Vietnam was partitioned into North and South, separated by a demilitarized zone, in 1954 by the agreement on the withdrawal of French troops.
After the French withdrew, Ho Chi Minh quickly consolidated power in North Vietnam. The Americans were weighing whether to back the South against the North. Advisors from the United States were active in Saigon long before 1964. According to US military thinking at the time, should South Vietnam fall to the communist North, communism would spread inexorably to neighboring countries in Southeast Asia – the so-called ‘domino theory.’
The bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 began in a wave of triumphalism, Kortunov believes. He thinks that the United States wanted to consolidate its dominant role in Europe and reaffirm NATO’s relevance. “The war in Yugoslavia blended seamlessly into the United States’ larger vision for Europe,” he said.
Iraq, on the other hand, is the product of an offensive rather than a defensive posture toward the world. President George W. Bush believed that American democracy should march triumphantly through one country after another, starting in the Middle East, Kortunov said.
According to the experts, more often than not, large-scale military interventions have had devastating effects on the US economy, particularly in the long term.
“Usually, events such as fighting a war and sharp increases in military spending have a dual economic effect,” Kortunov says. “They may spur the economy temporarily through higher defense spending and a surge in patriotism. But history tells us that there are unlikely to be any long-term benefits. This is unproductive spending that leads to economic imbalances, increases budget deficits and, accordingly, inflation and public debt.”
US military spending in Vietnam sank the US economy and President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ domestic agenda. Following its defeat in Vietnam, the United States began to fall apart from the inside. The prestige of the political parties and government bodies plummeted, and ordinary Americans grew deeply disenchanted. Lyndon Johnson ignominiously departed the presidency without running for re-election in 1968.
Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had the same devastating consequences for the United States. At the end of his two terms in office, President Bush left the country in a deep recession, the effects of which are still reverberating in the US economy.
“In 2000, Bush inherited a huge budget surplus from Clinton,” Rogulev said. “However, this surplus disappeared almost instantly, followed by budget deficits and mounting public debt, which Obama has so far failed to reduce.”
According to the experts, the last two to three decades show that major wars seldom have positive results. In fact, such wars typically end in failure or stalemate. US military interventions do not do any good for America’s global prestige.
“Anti-American sentiments begin to rise, regional political regimes lose confidence in the American presence,” Kortunov said. “In the end it’s more about minimizing damage than capitalizing on any dividends.” The Americans may have won militarily in Iraq, but they failed to achieve their stated goals, such as building a democratic society.”
“We can see the consequences of these military actions in Iraq,” Rogulev said. “The country broke into small pieces.”
The situation in Vietnam, which defeated the US, was different. “The situation in the country improved,” he said. “But the damage was enormous, even though Vietnam already was a poor agricultural country.” In addition, the Soviet Union helped the country rebuild after the war.
Economic crashes, declining prestige in the eyes of the global community, a deflated country, and greater anti-American sentiment across the world. You would think that the American leadership could not ignore such consequences of its military interventions. “However, we shouldn’t overestimate how much rational thinking goes into such decisions that are often based on less than reliable information,” Kortunov says.
As the world's largest economy, the United States wields enormous resources. Its revenue, spending and capabilities cannot be compared with any other country, the experts noted.
“Americans are extremely wasteful about how they use these resources and are extremely vulnerable to ideological influences,” Rogulev said. “This ideology causes direct harm to the economic power of the United States. In addition, the Americans can print more money and pay for all this spending with cheap dollars.”
The United States claims to be a global leader, but when the American political establishment is under pressure, it needs to assert its leadership status by getting involved in major regional problems.
“Often the political leaders’ time horizon for planning is very narrow. Sometimes it’s more important for a president to show strength and confidence in the short term in order to get re-elected or boost his party’s chances in midterm elections,” Kortunov concluded.
