Elizabeth Shackelford: Choosing war over diplomacy makes for more dangerous times ahead

Chicago Tribune

4 hours ago

The world is getting more dangerous. Trust in diplomacy has been deeply undermined, making greater reliance on military might inevitable. Meanwhile, America's leaders are more focused on declaring war at home than deterring it abroad.
The one positive thing I thought we could count on from Donald Trump's second administration was his distaste for war. He has consistently condemned U.S. entanglements abroad and in his inauguration touted that his success would be the wars 'that we end — and … the wars we never get into.'
So much for that. Trump has proved no peacemaker. Israel continues to bombard Gaza, and Russia's war in Ukraine has only escalated. Russian aggression and Trump's casual attitude toward it have put Europe on a path to remilitarizing. NATO countries agreed at the group's annual summit this week to increase defense spending targets from 2% of gross domestic product to 5%. For those worried that Europe's overreliance on America's military is a weakness in the age of Trump, this might be good news, but it's still unsettling for a continent with a historic penchant for massive war.
America's new war in the Middle East is an even worse sign. Trump is ready to declare 'Mission Accomplished,' but we should all know better.
War is unpredictable and risky, perhaps more so to the overconfident than to anyone else. If you think that the Iranian regime won't strike back in a meaningful way, you're naïve. It may be too weak to take on the U.S. military directly right now, but the tail of war is long, and Iran has other ways to harm American interests — through proxy forces, terrorist attacks or cyberattacks, for example. Despite America's awesome military strength, we are no impenetrable fortress. After all, it was a terrorist attack in 2001 that changed U.S. foreign policy for a generation. In our globalized world, we still have many soft targets.
This administration is not well suited to deter such threats either. The Sept. 11 attacks revealed a dire need to reinvest in human intelligence and cross-agency coordination, and it worked. Even as Europe continued to face sporadic terrorist attacks, and we fought two ruinous wars abroad, Americans could rest easy at home.
That success required a level of professionalism and expertise that Trump's senior leadership has rejected. The administration has gutted many of our best tools for countering terrorism, such as violence prevention programs at home and U.S. Agency for International Development programs addressing the root causes of extremism abroad. Its fixation with using law enforcement and military resources to facilitate mass deportation of farm and construction workers will only distract from the real threats we face.
America's entry into this war has also undermined the power of diplomacy to mitigate conflict. Consider the practical effects of what has occurred. After years of negotiations, Iran joined a multilateral agreement in 2015 designed to prevent it from securing nuclear weapons. This diplomatic effort worked, but Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018. Seven years later, Trump relaunched talks to put a similar deal back in place. Iran was skeptical but, hoping to avoid a direct conflict with the United States after being weakened by Israel, came back to the table. After weeks of negotiations, which were predictably slow but moving in the right direction, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced Trump to abandon active diplomacy in exchange for war.
The United States has destroyed any incentive Iran had to cooperate with the international community on nuclear monitoring and diplomacy again. Other countries similarly positioned — say North Korea — will also be less likely to trust America's diplomacy in the future.
Contrary to Trump's assertions, none of this is likely to deter Iran from seeking nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime has learned that its conventional defenses are inadequate to protect against attacks by the United States and Israel. If diplomacy is no longer a meaningful path to peace, what is Iran's alternative? Nuclear weapons probably look like the only reliable deterrent left. America's own intelligence assessments indicate that the bombardments set Iran's timeline to securing them back by only a matter of months, even as it likely enhanced Iran's determination to do so.
After all, North Korea has gotten away with thumbing its nose at the international community and refusing to disband its nuclear arsenal. Ukraine scrapped its nuclear weapons in 1994 and probably wishes now it had them back. Russia's nuclear weapons have inhibited the global response to its aggression. Libya's dictator Moammar Gadhafi disarmed in 2003, at Western urging, especially from the United States, and subsequently ended up dead in a ditch. It's hard now to imagine any country that wouldn't seek the comfort of its own nuclear deterrent, if it's able.
If diplomacy and international cooperation aren't reliable, countries will be looking for other means to protect themselves in an increasingly threatening world. As other countries see their neighbors arming up, conventionally or otherwise, they may feel compelled to do the same.
If the 21st century becomes a global arms race, I wouldn't bet on a peaceful future.