There are no silver bullet solutions to foreign problems. Don't pretend that bullets are counter-productive to keeping armed problems from getting worse.
I suspect this Army-commissioned RAND study saying American weapons cause instability probably reverses cause and effect:
Sending American weapons and other forms of military support to countries that lack stable governments raises the odds of armed conflict, proxy wars and terrorism in the places where those arms are sent, according to a new Army-sponsored study.
America may arm weak countries
because of instability that enables threats and not be the cause of the
instability and threats, no?
And what is the alternative to arming allies? If you count a brutal enemy winning and clamping down in those countries we refuse to arm and support as a form of quiet "stability"--or at least the impression of quiet "stability from the lack of media coverage (see the Afghanistan post-2021 skedaddle debacle)--you know the outcome of the study before you sign the contract. "Instability" may simply be the result of successful resistance by a country we arm to repel enemy attacks.
And check out this:
On the downside, Rand found that in general, a U.S. military presence was associated with an increase in terrorist attacks.
“This is true across the spectrum of forces, footprints and agreements, and activities,” Rand said.
However, the analysis indicates that in most of those terrorism cases, the scale of attacks tended to be small. Most instances happened during the Cold War, when organizations like the Red Army Faction were active in Germany.
Communists were violently active during the Cold War in West Germany when Soviet armies were locked and loaded in East Germany? What would we do without studies?
This also sets off alarms on study validity:
Rand said it was possible that U.S. military assistance to Georgia "led to more-aggressive policies by the Tbilisi government, which ultimately set it on a collision course with Moscow that ended in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War."
The collision course was ordered by Russia which already illegally controlled large parts of Georgia.
And Russia under Putin was poised to invade regardless of what Russian ploy Georgia fell for. If Georgia hadn't unwisely provided a pretext for Russia to invade it, Russia would have made it up. Don't revive the blame-the-victim mentality that even in 2008 was merely an excuse to avoid treating Russia as a rising threat.
I was not confused about Russia's ambitions. I even raised a warning for Ukraine as Russia ramped up their threat to Georgia prior to the war. The war was caused by Russia--not by Georgia. And certainly not by the limited military assistance we gave Georgia before the war. "Possible", indeed.
Putin clearly wants to restore Russia's Soviet borders. Georgia was an early test
run for Ukraine in 2014-15 and 2022.
I'm not saying arming poor, unstable countries can't contribute to instability. By all means, it shouldn't be the automatic and sole response when we see threats. And types of assistance matter per the study:
The U.S. could take more steps to mitigate risks when working with less advanced countries, such as adjusting the types of equipment it provides, Rand said.
“The transfer of attack helicopters, for instance, has more potential for misuse than the transfer of coastal radar systems or coast guard cutters,” Rand said.
That kind of general statement which is quoted is worthless for specific states. A landlocked state, for example. Or for a state that has a land enemy--external or internal--and not a pirate enemy. I mean, if the state we want to help has a maritime enemy, by all means focus on weapons and systems to deal with that, which are also intrinsically less suitable for internal repression. I mean, come on! Duh.
But when armed enemies try to take over a country or carve out part of your territory, arming and supporting the target state we find important enough to preserve is probably the only way to begin to defend that country. And if lingering "instability"--a "forever war" as we like to call this--is distasteful, perhaps try helping our friend defeat the threat and not simply avoid losing to the threat.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
