Introduction

     The national debate over the war in Iraq, which began with the invasion of April, 2003 and is still raging in the form of an active insurrectionary movement, has illustrated once more the prevalent confusion over the concepts of national interest and national security.

     All countries have national interests of many kinds:  diplomatic, political, economic, social and cultural.  National interests are pursued through diplomatic means, propaganda, cultural programs, and economic measures, both positive and negative.

     National security is a subset of national interest, and comes into play when the vital interests of the country are at stake, up to and including its survival.  Only in such cases is the use of subversion, sabotage, military display and war justified.  When these measures are deployed in the pursuit of national interests of a less serious nature, the result is a greater or lesser degree of (often literal) overkill, with concurrent waste of resources of all kinds:  human, financial, economic and diplomatic.

Historical Review

     In the history of the United States, there are many examples of this confusion and the resulting costs, stretching all the way back to the War of 1812.  It is questionable if the British depradations at sea justified the use of force to try to put a stop to them, and the resulting war could at best be considered a draw, considering that the British captured and burned Washington in the course of it.  The Mexican War and the Spanish-American War were simple imperial wars of conquest on the part of the United States, and therefore come under a different category.  In a different category also are what might be termed punitive expeditions, including several in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and the Far East in the final decades of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.  Recent examples would include the invasions of Grenada and Panama in the 80’s.  All such actions fell far short of war, by any reasonable definition.

     The national interest/national security calculation came into play starting with U.S. entry into World War I and has continued until the present.  Some of the wars the U.S. engaged in during this period present no problem of identification.  In 1941 the United States was attacked in Hawaii and responded.  Its national security was obviously at stake and there was no controversy (the declaration of war was adopted by the U.S. Congress with exactly one dissenting vote).  An interesting intellectual game could revolve around the question of whether the United States would have and should have declared war on Germany and Italy as well as Japan if those countries had not immediately declared war on the U.S.  But in fact they did, so the fact that president Roosevelt very much wanted to go to war with all the axis powers was not a factor that came into play.

     The fact that president Wilson wanted to enter World War I on the side of Britain and France, however, was clearly a factor in the decision to go to war over the attempt on the part of Germany to enforce its blockade of the allies through the use of submarine warfare.  The United States could have vigorously defended its national interest in that case through measures short of war, including economic ones that would likely have been successful.  It could also have refrained from running munitions through the German blockade while honoring the British blockade of Germany.  It can be argued that the national security of the United States was never threatened, although various national interests of the United States, including discouraging aggressive unprovoked wars, was.

It can also be argued that the U.S. got nothing out of the first world war, and indeed, was made a party to one of the worst peace agreements ever negotiated, some of the nefarious results of which are still plaguing us today.

     The Korean and Vietnam wars are more complex, in that they took place in the context of the so-called Cold War.  There is not doubt that the Soviet Bloc posed a threat to both the national interests and the national security of the United States.  Whether the North Korean conquest of South Korea or the North Vietnamese conquest of South Vietnam were threats in and of themselves to the national security of the U.S. is, however, another question.  A much stronger case can be made for the Korean War than for the Vietnam War.  A North Korean conquest with the obvious collusion of the Soviet Union and communist China would clearly have threatened Japan and called into question the value of our military commitments.  It would have been similar to a lack of response to a Soviet attack across the iron curtain in Europe.  That it was in our national interest, much less a reaction to a threat to our national security to follow the French withdrawal from Vietnam with our own participation in that civil war is by no means clear, although it was defended under the so-called “domino theory”.  Our eventual defeat and withdrawal was not, in fact, followed by a communist/Soviet or Chinese takeover of any of southeast Asia outside of Indo-China is historical proof that in fact the domino theory was wrong.  Our involvement in Vietnam led not only to national humiliation, but to severe and long lasting damage to the national psyche.

     The first Gulf War was justified in terms of an international response to an unprovoked attack by one country on another, and there is no doubt that we and most other countries have a national interest in preventing such actions and in reacting to them when they occur with firm and hopefully effective measures.  It is instructive, however, that the same dictator had previously attacked another neighbor, Iran, without justification, and the international reaction was entirely ineffective.  After eight years the resulting war simply petered out.

     The invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 to wipe out the Taliban government, which had been sheltering and supporting al Qaida, was as clear-cut a case of pursuing the national security through military action as U.S. entry into World War II.  There was no domestic or foreign opposition and even hostile countries, such as Iran, supported the action.

The Iraq War

     The U.S. invasion of Iraq in April of 2003 was justified on grounds that Iraq was a national security threat to the United States because the Saddam government was allied to al Qaida and because the regime had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was trying to develop atomic weapons.  As we now know none of this was true.  Suppose it had been true, and there was no doubt that in fact at least the weapons of mass destruction claim was genuinely believed by most of the Western intelligence services?

Having stockpiles is not the same thing as using them, but Saddam had in fact used chemical weapons on two occasions, against his own Kurds and against Iran.  The evidence of ties to al Qaida was extremely weak and could not justify military action against his government.  So we are left with possible WMDs.  It would certainly have been a judgement call as to whether their existence was a threat to our national security as opposed to the national security of other countries which might have been of importance to us.  Their possible existence had not previously been seen as a direct or imminent threat to us nor had possession of such weapons (and nuclear weapons) automatically triggered military action against any other country.

     Following the invasion and the failure to find and WMDs, the war was justified by saying that the Saddam regime was oppressive, brutal and thuggish (all certainly true) and the world was better off without him.  Certainly the existence of such governments is contrary to our national interests and those of most other countries, and measures short of military action against them require no further justification.  Nevertheless, tens of millions of Armenians, Jews, gypsies, Ukrainians, Chinese, Cambodians, Rwandans and many many others attest to the sad fact that massacre and genocide do not necessarily, or even usually result in effective action to prevent or punish them.  Nor normally are authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes dealt with militarily unless they threaten other countries, and often not even then. 

     So the question remains an open one.  We can, I think, all agree, that Saddam’s disgusting government was an open sore waiting to be lanced if possible through non-military measures.  If not possible, lived with as in so many other cases.  Was it a threat to our national security?  Or for that matter, of any other country?  That is the question on the table and the reason for the ongoing and increasing controversy over the 2003 invasion and its aftermath.

Conclusion

     The confusion between the terms national interest and national security has much more than terminological interest.  Defining threats to the national security as simply contrary to the national interest may lead to a weak and ineffective response.  On the other hand, defining situations contrary to the national interest as threats to national security may lead to actions which sap the resources of all kinds which the country involved devotes to them.  The difference is fundamental and proper reaction vital.