News Journal: Hard choices about power, democracy and authoritarians

Reading the latest opinion polls on what Americans think about foreign policy, I begin to wonder if, as a people, we have collective amnesia.
We fought a war in Vietnam in order to stop the spread of Chinese communism. After 10 years and the loss of 58,000 lives, we finally pulled out. The corrupt government we left behind soon fell. But to the surprise of many, the new Vietnam government had no intention of allowing their country to be dominated by China. Today we have established trade and diplomatic relations with Vietnam and count on its support in our efforts to counter China’s influence in Southeast Asia.
Ten years. Yet there are people today who still say we should never have pulled our troops out, that we could have “won” the Vietnamese war.
We went into Afghanistan 13 years ago to destroy al-Qaeda’s base there. But the mission soon turned into a protracted battle against the Taliban. Our troops, including the 2,400 who have died there, have performed superbly. But we finally had to recognize they were hobbled by another corrupt and fractured government. As much as a majority of Afghans hated being governed by the Taliban, many of them hate the Kabul government even more.
Thirteen years. Yet there are people today who argue we should not withdraw our troops at the end of the year, that a military “victory” in Afghanistan is still possible.
After almost nine years and the loss of 4,500 lives, we pulled out of Iraq leaving behind another corrupt government. The price we are now paying for that government’s exclusion and persecution of Sunnis is the rise of ISIS.
Nine years. Yet there are many people today who believe we should have stayed in Iraq and somehow “won” the war.
The one striking thing in common in all three of these conflicts is a corrupt government that did not have the support of its people. You would think that by now we might achieve some kind of consensus agreement that:
1. Our attempts to create democratic governments by nation-building simply have not worked. And for a good reason: By definition, a democracy is the collective choice of the people to be governed. In all of history, no country has ever successfully imposed a democratic government on another people.
2. Even the best military force in the world cannot succeed unless it has the support of the people for whom it is fighting. Too many Vietnamese, Afghans and Iraqis saw us, not as liberators, but as a hated foreign invader.
The latest estimates are that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars will ultimately cost the United States $4 trillion.
It isn’t hard to understand the enormous frustrations Americans have about what has happened in the Middle East and what we confront today. But the rational way to lessen that frustration is by beginning to acknowledge our recent history and learn from it.
We are now becoming engaged in an effort to destroy ISIS. I believe we can do that, and without our boots on the ground, but only if we get the support of the Sunni nations in the area –Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others. If those countries are not willing to take a stand against the barbaric Sunni extremism of ISIS, we will be seen as a foreign invader and become engaged in another long engagement with poor results.
In the future, we have to do a lot more to prevent choices like these. At the top of the list of what must be done is the resolve to make far better use of “soft power.” Joseph Nye, the former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, coined that term and defines it as “the ability to get what you want by attraction.” Soft power relies on attracting and persuading people and governments around the world using diplomacy, international broadcasting, foreign exchange programs, developmental assistance, disaster relief, and military to military contacts.
No one argues that we should not maintain our military power. But we should have learned by now that it must be used only as a last resort, and only when we have a clear objective that does not lead us into an endless and unwinnable conflict.
Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. senator from Delaware.

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