A left-wing foreign policy: Responds
Rule, James B.
MY FRIEND and colleague Ian Roxborough draws from a fund of expertise in military matters rare among our Dissent circle. He properly points out some unanswered questions in my exposition; let...
...DISSENT / Fall 1999 75...
...The left doesn't come close to choosing the targets for application of U.S...
...Roxborough argues that "it may be more costly to keep the peace than to wage a cold war," and goes on to detail how U.S...
...Two kinds of issues are at stake here— technical and political...
...But how do we know that the next venture in American arms will not involve something vastly less acceptable—for example, propping up disagreeable regimes in Mexico, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia...
...we hardly even have a distinctive position in these matters...
...military muscle...
...let me try to return the compliment...
...Most of us, for instance, have been relieved that ethnic cleansing in Kosovo could be blocked at costs that appear—thus far, at least—acceptable...
...Such ventures would no doubt also be packaged by American elites as "peacekeeping operations...
...The fact is, we simply don't know who the next "freedom's enemy of the month" will be...
...Instead, we mostly find ourselves, after the fact, reacting to the use of an outlandishly expensive military establishment constituted according to principles few of us would want to be associated with...
...And how do we know that future humanitarian disasters like the one in Kosovo will be deemed worthy of the attentions of American geopolitical planners...
...JAMES B. RULE is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook...
...military forces and procurement would have to change in order to meet this challenge...
...So far, then, so good...
...As a matter of military calculation, all this is convincing...
...True, one can point to heartening examples...
...But how do we know that the purposes that will guide future applications of American military might will indeed involve "keeping the peace" in ways that Dissent readers would endorse...
Vol. 46 • September 1999 • No. 4
