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The Alternative To War?

Mike

Well-known member
The cost of the alternative
If the Bush administration was less than candid about the cost of the war, the war's current critics are conveniently forgetting that there were costs involved in not going to war. If Saddam had not been deposed, it is not as if the power players of the Middle East would be currently sitting around some campfire singing "It's a Small World After All." Nor is it likely that we would have no troops in the region. To understand the true cost of the war, budgetary or otherwise, one has to go back to consider what the realistic alternative was at the time.

In late 2002 the U.S. had more than 60,000 troops stationed in the countries around Iraq to back up UN Security Council resolutions. Hans Blix, the UN's weapons inspector, credited those forces as being the reason he was getting even limited co-operation from Saddam. In the congressional debate about authorizing the war, the opponents' position was that we should continue with the UN inspection process, which required U.S. troops to stay on the scene. It was presumed that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), not just by President Bush, but by the National Intelligence Estimate and the spy agencies of many other countries. It would have taken a long time to convince a skeptical world that Saddam's noncompliance with 17 UN resolutions was innocent. Under the alternative scenario of the time American forces would have been stationed around Iraq for years, many of them in harm's way.

The true cost of the Iraq war, therefore, is not the pricetag we see in the papers, but the cost of that conflict relative to the alternative scenario on offer. We would have still stationed half to three-fourths as many troops as we now have in Iraq in neighboring countries. The cost of stationing them there would be lower than what we now pay but would still be substantial. The continuous use of air power would have been necessary to police the no-fly zones established in the ceasefire of the first Iraq war. Increased surveillance of the Iran-Iraq and Syria-Iraq borders would have been necessary to limit terrorist migration. While we did not find WMDs in Iraq, there was plenty of evidence on the ground to suggest that Iraq would have developed them if it had had the opportunity, as it had in the past. Hence, the real alternative to the war was probably eternal vigilance and a large troop commitment. I don't claim that my back-of-the-envelope calculations would be any better than they were in 2002, but it seems plausible that not invading Iraq would probably have cost at least a third as much as we ultimately spent on deposing Saddam.

Measuring the benefits
We went into Iraq with a set of goals in mind, but most of them were intangible. We need to consider whether we achieved our objectives, or other benefits, to know whether it was worth the cost. While no WMDs were found in Iraq, the U.S. demonstrated its willingness to go to war over them. Shortly after Saddam fell, Libya's ruler Muammar Qadaffi decided to reveal that he had a stockpile of WMDs-along with a nuclear weapons program-and that he would like to give them up voluntarily and abide by the norms of international law. The timing of his conversion made it clear that he had learned some lessons from Saddam's defeat. Moreover, the National Intelligence Estimate released in December concluded that Iran probably suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, around the same time as the Libya move. This latter finding is controversial, with no certainty regarding whether Iran has since restarted the program it denied ever having. But if the estimate is correct, the timing of Iran's decision to suspend its program, bowing to what the intelligence estimate called "international pressure" with 150,000 American troops suddenly next door, suggests that at least some good was done on this front.

In Iraq the war toppled an outlaw regime that not only had been flouting international law but had been a systematic abuser of human rights. It's fair to claim that America cannot afford to liberate all the people who live under oppressive regimes, but the causes of human freedom and dignity have certainly gained by his downfall.

These intangibles are real but are hard to quantify against the costs. It is certainly true, I would argue, that the net costs of the Iraq war are much lower than war critics maintain, or even than the usual budgetary accounting suggests. Each individual must make up his own mind about whether these imperfect successes justified the cost. Most voters don't believe they do, given the evidence to date, polls say. But to those skeptics I offer one more argument in favor of Iraq passing the cost-benefit test.

A key aspect of good decision analysis is the question "What if I'm wrong?" The administration and much of the world intelligence community turned out to be wrong about Saddam's WMD program. The costs of that error are now clear. But what if the administration had decided to leave Saddam alone and, in turn, he had had WMDs? The costs to the world would have been much higher.

The cost of staying or going
A war for home territory is the most expensive one to lose, but even though the American heartland is not directly at stake, there are still huge consequences to whether the U.S. is perceived as winning or losing in Iraq. Like it or not, a number of significant countries in the region depend on the perception that America would block any threat to their peace and security. A precipitate American withdrawal suggesting a lack of American commitment to the region or, worse, the perception that America had been defeated, could lead to a major regional realignment. Most countries in the gulf would have to reconsider their security situation and choose either between rearmament (including the acquisition of nuclear weapons) or cooperation with Iran, which would be happy to fill the vacuum left by an American defeat or withdrawal. This would ultimately cost us in ways far beyond the ability of dollars to measure.

On the other hand, an American success in Iraq could also change the course of history in the Middle East, where the U.S. has made huge investments in security over many decades. A stable Iraqi government selected by its own people would be a first in the Arab world. It would suggest that there is a third alternative to the current choice between repressive regimes and Islamic fundamentalism. It may have been naive to think it would happen in one or two years, and the administration can probably be faulted for not changing its occupation strategy sooner, but the initial success of the U.S. surge in troop levels shows that the decision is not yet out of our hands.

Whether we win or lose will come down to our perseverance and our willingness to learn and adapt as a result of our mistakes. It was former Secretary of State Colin Powell who cited the so-called Pottery Barn rule in warning President Bush about America's commitment after the invasion: "You break it, you own it." Well, we own it. Whether or not we like the decision to have invaded in March 2003 is immaterial now. This is difficult for an economist who deals with figures all the time to admit, but when it comes to war, the dollar cost is hardly a major concern. I am not a military expert. It's the military's judgment that should determine whether to double our investment or take our losses and go home. If our military leaders think we can ultimately prevail, we should stay. If we ultimately cannot, we should leave. It's as simple as that.

This has been the case in all our wars. World War II ultimately cost about 140% of GDP. Would FDR have thought, "Well, the war is worth it at 130% of GDP, but not at 170%"? In terms of the damage it did to the American economy and the American heartland, or simply in terms of the number of dead, the Civil War dwarfed all the others. But Lincoln certainly never took a pencil to do a cost-benefit test. Nor did John F. Kennedy when he said, "We will pay any price, bear any burden ... to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Had any of these leaders done that, they would have fallen into the trap that the economics profession is so often accused of: They would know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
 
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