When the 'Credibility' Hawks Attack

We have seen this song and dance many times before, and we are seeing it again with Ukraine today.

The New York Times ran a “news analysis” piece by Michael Crowley this week that presents a deeply flawed argument about Ukraine and U.S. credibility. Beginning with the title, “Biden’s Stand on Ukraine Is a Wider Test of U.S. Credibility Abroad,” the article presents a series of false and alarmist claims to paint a picture of crumbling U.S. credibility inviting international aggression. It is a very slanted piece in that it mostly cites only those analysts that endorse some version of this view and includes no acknowledgment that most scholars that work on this question don’t agree with the argument being presented. Anatol Lieven observed that “the accursed word credibility” had entered the Ukraine debate even before this piece was published, and he explained why it is so dangerous:

The problem is that this can help lead the empires into local commitments that are totally unjustifiable in their own terms. “Credibility” then becomes a self-generating engine of conflict, because the initial commitment increases the amount of “credibility” that will be lost if the United States subsequently withdraws or suffers defeat.

This is why hawks love to talk about credibility: they wish to get that engine of conflict running and never let it stop.

The Times piece includes a predictable claim that withdrawing from Afghanistan somehow undermined U.S. commitments elsewhere:

Compounding the challenge for Mr. Biden is the possibility that Mr. Putin may perceive American weakness after Mr. Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which critics say signaled waning U.S. resolve overseas.

A proper analysis piece would point out that there are many people that have debunked this claim in the last few months. The idea that withdrawing from a conflict after 20 years, thousands of casualties suffered, and trillions of dollars spent signals “waning” resolve is absurd, but here it it treated as a serious interpretation that may be informing the thinking of the Russian government. Other states typically do not look at U.S. withdrawals from pointless peripheral wars as proof that the U.S. lacks resolve. It is much more common for them to marvel at American stubbornness and stupidity for staying in unwinnable wars for as long as the U.S. often does.