One may wonder what drives the US government to get involved so eagerly in the war in Ukraine after the defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a geopolitical explanation that I have echoed in other articles, the conflict was generated from the expansion of NATO to ex-communist countries, contrary to initial promises, with the aim of cornering Russia and block any attempt to become a major world power again. NATO’s post-Cold War list of new members includes former East Germany, three former members of the Soviet Union, and five former members of the Warsaw Pact.
It is also well known that some de facto powers in the United States have a private economic interest in the war industry. President and Commander-in-Chief Dwight Eisenhower, who knew what he was talking about, warned citizens in his 1961 farewell address to “guard against the acquisition of undue influence, whether sought or not, by the military-industrial complex ” and predicted that “the potential for a disastrous rise to inappropriate power exists and will persist.”
I already mentioned in another article my modest testimony of how some bellicose think tanks in Washington lobbied to arm Ukraine after the Russian occupation of Crimea. The lesson of the defeats in the Middle East is that the business is to sell weapons without sending soldiers. They didn’t get it then, but they got it now.
In any case, private geopolitical and economic interests for external conflict need a favorable internal political situation, as I analyze in my book La polarización política en Estados Unidos, which we will soon present in Barcelona. In a large and powerful country like the United States, domestic politics and foreign policy are negatively related.
When the country was under internal construction during the 19th century, it had no foreign policy. The topics at that time were the territorial expansion from the first thirteen colonies, the structure of the new territories and states, and the drawing of their borders. Only since the beginning of the 20th century, when the United States established fixed continental borders and was organized internally as a more stable federation, have they been able to develop an independent foreign policy.
However, the foreign policy of the United States is heavily obstructed by the ineffectiveness of the domestic political system. The constitutional formula of separation of powers between a legislative Congress and an executive president, with only two political parties, tends to produce mutual deadlocks between the two institutions, which generates legislative paralysis, frequent government shutdowns and presidential contests.
Bipartisan cooperation and the resulting joint work of the White House and Capitol flourish only when the existential threat of an outside enemy is felt, as was the case during World War II and the Cold War. War conscription in the 1940s, the Red Scare in the 1950s and its second edition in the 1980s were accompanied by popular feelings of fear and national unity, as well as by low electoral participation and widespread political apathy.
Conversely, during the last thirty years of relative external peace, unresolved domestic political issues and new demands have emerged in health care, climate, immigration, race, religion, gender, sex, family, education, gun control, and voting rights. , which have generated mobilizations, protests and a harsh confrontation and partisan polarization. Fear has been replaced by anger.
When President Bill Clinton was besieged by Republicans on all sides, he confessed: “I would have preferred to be president during the Second World War” and “envious that Kennedy had an enemy”. President George W. Bush also longed for the past when he launched the fight against a new axis of evil and Islamist terrorism which, according to his lieutenant, “followed the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism”.
President Barack Obama was paralyzed by fears that ending these wars would open up too many divisive domestic issues. It was Trump who began the withdrawal of troops from the Middle East and the first president in many years who did not start a new war; as a result, he faced an inner hell.
Joe Biden and the Democrats know that now the Republicans can again block any initiative on economic, social and cultural issues in the House of Representatives. To attract their cooperation in this new context of divided Government, they can again shift the emphasis to foreign policy with a belligerent orientation. A bipartisan foreign policy could satisfy the geopolitical interest of expanding NATO to the borders of Russia and private economic interests in the military industry.
Russia is the welcome common external enemy. The dilemma between internal anger and external fear once again creates political tension. But we are not living the nationalist hysteria of the cold war, but a weak bad copy. Security and military chiefs, including former ambassador to Moscow and current CIA director William Burns and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, recall Eisenhower’s warning, are more aware of the human costs of war, they have no overriding interest in maintaining another protracted conflict and press for peace negotiations.
