On October 4, 2021, The Soho Forum hosted a debate between William (Bill) Kristol and Scott Horton. The resolution under debate:
A willingness to intervene, and to seek regime change, is key to an American foreign policy that benefits America.
Kristol argued in the affirmative and Scott in the negative.
Bill Kristol is founder and editor-at-large at The Bulwark and co-author of The War Over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission.
Scott Horton is the author of Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism and Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan.
For more on each of their bios, see here.
This debate was centered around the justification and effects of US interventionist foreign policy. Now I must admit I have a strong positive bias toward Scott Horton and a strong negative bias against Bill Kristol.
Kristol’s main view of US foreign policy is centered around the thought that the US government, in particular, should act to spread democracy around the world through welfare and warfare — facilitating regime change if necessary. He repeatedly conveys the message that, although US intervention is messy, you must think of the things that would have happened, or might happen, if the US did not, or does not, intervene. Kristol also seemingly has no real concern for the financial costs — nor of the impacts of those costs — of US interventionist foreign policy. In my view, he has a shortsighted understanding of cause and effect.
Horton on the other hand has the view that US interventionist foreign policy, aside from being immoral, has simply lead to a domino effect of neverending future interventions while exacerbating existing conflicts around the world — resulting in greater destruction to lives and livelihood than if the US had not intervened in the first place. Horton sees, not only the readily apparent death and destruction of the wars, but he sees the unseen destruction, too. In other words, Horton also understands the policy’s financial impacts, the corresponding growth of the State, and the resulting loss of liberty at home and abroad.
I will focus on the financial aspect of the debate because that’s the focus at Monetary Current. War is a racket, after all. And frankly speaking, to stop unnecessary wars, well, you must strike the root — the means to finance those wars.
In Kristol’s opening argument (at about 00:16:16) he says,
“Can we afford to be the global superpower? Yes. It costs, I don’t know what our defense budget is now, about, I think 3.5%, 4% of GDP. Let’s just add a percent or two for intelligence, state department, all the other costs of being a global power — 5-6%. It’s worth it in my opinion. If other people think it’s doing harm to the world, you can make that argument. But it’s not, it’s not that we can’t afford it. That is just not a really important argument, I think. So we should argue it on the merits, I think, rather than this kind of notion that we are going bankrupt because of the defense budget.”
This is really the only time I noticed throughout the debate that Kristol brings up the financial aspect of pursuing US interventions. It is a blasé attitude toward the costs.
Contrast this with a portion of Horton’s opening argument (at about 00:31:18):
“In your 1997 National Greatness piece in the Wall Street Journal, you wrote that the universal principle at the heart of the American ideal is a mandate to ‘advance freedom’ around the world. Apparently by any means necessary for the world’s own good. But means determine ends. And even if somehow waging violent coups and regime change wars across the planet could guarantee freedom for those people, it would necessarily come at the expense of those whose lives and liberty our government is actually sworn to protect — ours. No wonder that here in America as well, people are moving to the Socialist Left and Nationalist Right since the disastrous consequences of militarism and regime change are what passes for liberalism in the center. The backlash from Bush’s disastrous wars and the devastating economic crash of 2008 — a direct result of the Fed’s militarism-friendly easy money policy in the preceding decade — led to the disruptive and destabilizing presidency of Barack Obama. His disastrous wars and the so-called K-shaped economic recovery of his time in office — meaning bankers and think-tankers paid by defense contractors did great while the people on the bottom 3/4 of the economic ladder remain stuck in 2009 — led directly to the election of Donald J. Trump running as an economic populist and war-sceptic over W. Bush’s brother and Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.”
Horton again, just a few minutes later (00:36:05) channels Smedley Butler,
“The whole thing is really just a racket. As the soldiers call it, ‘a self-licking ice cream cone.’ In other words, a government program creating its own disasters it must then attempt to solve.”
Then … (00:49:21),
“Edward Snowden leaked the black budget to The Washington Post and they published it. Obama spent a billion dollars a year on the war in Syria.”
And Horton again ... (1:02:43),
“Mr. Kristol has said repeatedly just how affordable all of this is. But our national debt is 30 trillion dollars right now. We spend something like a trillion dollars a year on militarism if you count the VA and the care and feeding of the nukes at the Energy Department and the rest of that. We absolutely cannot afford it. And if you ask the people who lost people in the wars or in the terrorist attacks against this country in the meantime, their costs are a lot higher.”
And here’s the kicker… (1:03:24),
“There is severe, as they call it, ‘economic anxiety’ in this country — mostly caused by the boom and bust crash cycle that we have. They call it the Business Cycle. It’s the inflationary money cycle. And the reason they keep expanding the money supply is to make the world empire seem free. For all those checks [Kristol] was cashin’, they never raised his taxes once in the highest bracket. Because they just borrowed the money from China and printed it instead. And so, then regular people are blowing their brains out because they are forced to carry this economy on their back.”
The results of this oxford-style debate show Horton considerably favored over Kristol both pre- and post-debate. Horton gained 12% of support after the debate vs. a 2% gain for Kristol.
As I stated earlier, I came into this debate heavily biased. But, for those of you that generally believe the current US interventionist foreign policy is necessary, I encourage you to watch this debate and challenge yourself to think about what the world has gained and what the world has lost over the years as a result of the current US foreign policy.
Below are two other fun highlights of the debate, in my view at least:
At about the 45-minute mark, Horton was explaining how the US intervention in World War I set the stage for World War II and he made a slight quip to Kristol (in bold below) which gave me a chuckle.
“As even Winston Churchill himself said, it was Theodore Roosevelt’s — and especially Woodrow Wilson’s — intervention of World War I that caused World War II. World War I was ending as a stalemate before America got involved and tilted the power so far in favor of the Allies and against the Central Powers that, first of all, they prolonged the war long enough for Lenin and Trotsky, [Horton turning to Kristol] no offense, to seize power in Russia and create the Soviet Union …”
It appears I’m not the only one amused: Calling out the Trotskyite - YouTube. For context, Kristol’s father, Irving Kristol — known as the godfather of neoconservatism — was a Trotskyist.
Another moment that caught my attention was when an audience member questioned Kristol to provide a specific example of a war that could be considered — in Kristol’s words — a “low-grade, low-risk, low-cost” war (1:04:07). As Kristol responded with the example of The Balkans intervention, he makes the following statement,
“I mean look, I’m antiwar.”
Sure you are, Bill.