Ready, Fire, Aim
Adam Seitchik
October 2003
Americans like to win and often do. When I was living in London my club tennis team was mainly a social affair. We’d swat a few balls (on grass if we were lucky) and then invite our opponents to join us for a pot luck supper and a few beers in the shed. It took awhile to realize what the game was about. In England it’s about playing, socializing and having fun. Here in the states it’s all teetotaling workout nights and fighting for a spot on the roster. We play to win.
When the Cold War ended, it looked like game, set and match USA. Political scientists debated what the new world order would look like, but the rest of us focused on getting online and getting rich. It appeared that most of the world wanted to follow suit. But we failed to recognize how the world had changed, to see the trouble ahead. Our foreign incursions seemed detached from any overall strategy, as we played defense to hold territory (Bush the elder vs. Iraq) or intervened with cautious altruism (Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia). Reflecting our benign glory, President Clinton’s approval ratings skyrocketed abroad.
“If you want to win the game,” an investment manager colleague used to say, “you’d better know the rules.” Now, two years after September 11th, we can see that we are playing a new game we don’t understand, using the old rules that don’t work. Our desire to win has overwhelmed our ability to see clearly the new game and the rules we need to play by. We have a problem with homeland security and we invade Iraq. Soviet-bloc nuclear materials are unaccounted for, and we threaten North Korea, which responds by restarting their weapons program. We use the military to fight nation states, when in fact terrorism is a multi-faceted, small-group problem requiring a complex, nuanced, internationally coordinated strategy. Our response to September 11th has been a bit like getting four under par in tennis. We are proving to the world and to ourselves that we have awesome military power, but it is increasingly obvious to those Americans who are paying attention that this has little to do with winning the fight against terrorism.
If you have a problem and implement a strategy, you can question whether you are “headed in the right direction” or “off on the wrong track.” The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has been asking Americans this question about every seven weeks since 1997. Prior to September 11th positive responses beat negative ones 31 out of 32 times, with an average difference of about 12 percentage points. In the first year after that dark day, Americans supported the president’s decisive response and overwhelmingly thought we were headed in the right direction. But now things have turned sour. We all know the problem: terrorism, and particularly the unthinkable of nuclear terrorism. But the country is beginning to question the strategy. Despite a brief rally from Iraq War Reloaded, the spread between “right direction” and “wrong track” has now gone more negative than at any time in the last seven years, at -12 points.
Terrorism can be reduced but not eliminated in a free society. A vigorous response consistent with American ideals of human rights and justice would focus on nuclear non-proliferation, tightened domestic security (particularly at ports and borders) and international cooperation and development. It also requires understanding that the current clash of civilizations is much more complex than the Cold War, calling for nuance and flexibility seemingly beyond the grasp of this administration. Instead of “ready, fire, aim,” we need a deeper understanding of the various peoples of the world, and what motivates their beliefs and actions toward us. (Note to school superintendents: ditch Latin; start offering Arabic now.) It’s time to stop swaggering around the world showing off our army, and accept that we’re members of a frustratingly complex community of nations. The new game at times requires persuading without bullying, even yielding as well as conquering.
Beyond risks to the country, we also risk our fear leading us to ever-simpler unhelpful reactions with awful moral consequences. It now appears that Hans Blix was right on Iraq for the right reasons. And perhaps many of our European critics were right, in some cases for the wrong reasons. The messy, democratic UN process was working. We have not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, nor weapons programs. Yet a talk radio host argues that we should have dropped a nuclear bomb on Iraq, and the callers agree. These men are acting tough, but in fact it is cowards who let fear compromise their morality and their principles. After all, isn’t using a weapon of mass destruction on 10 million children exactly what anti-terrorism is trying to prevent?
If America is increasingly “on the wrong track” it provides an opening to re-define the problem and the solutions. Next year will be my eighth chance to vote for president, and I feel that the stakes have never been higher. We need a leader who can articulate our fears but not pander to them, who can utilize our strengths but not abuse them, who can define clearly the parameters of the post-Cold War world and articulate a strategy for the liberal democracies within it. In a democracy we can only hope that our fellow citizens take care to vote from their highest principles, and that the successful candidate gets it right. These are serious times indeed. We need to win this game, and we can’t afford many more mistakes.