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.This is what happened when Khrushchevexaggerated the size of the Soviet ICBM arsenal in the late 1950s.He ended up fueling an arms race which he did not want andwhich was not in his country's best interest.The Johnsonadministration's lying about events in the Gulf of Tonkin inAugust 1964 is another case where a well-told set of liesbackfired.Those falsehoods played an important role in gettingthe United States into the Vietnam War.Similarly, the Bushadministration told various lies in the run-up to the March2003 invasion of Iraq, which were not exposed at the time andhelped sell the case for toppling Saddam Hussein from power.In both of those cases, the fearmongering led to strategicdisasters for the United States.Backfiring is just one potential downside of internationallying; the other is blowback, and it is the more worrisome of thetwo.Leaders who lie to their citizenry for what they believe aregood strategic reasons might nevertheless do significantdamage to their body politic by fostering a culture of dishonesty.This is why fearmongering and strategic cover-ups are the mostdangerous kinds of lies that leaders can tell.Both carry a risk ofblowback because they involve leaders lying to their publics,and both are also prone to producing foreign-policy debacles.The potential costs associated with the other three kinds of international lies nationalist mythmaking, liberal lies, andinter-state lies are not nearly as great as with fearmongeringand strategic cover-ups.What lessons can we draw for future American foreignpolicy from this examination of international lying? TheUnited States emerged from the Cold War as the most powerfulstate in the world.That situation is not likely to change in theforeseeable future, as there is only one state China that couldchallenge America's position of primacy.But China has a longway to go before it catches up, and it has problems that mayslow or even halt its climb to the top.At the same time, a largeportion of the American foreign-policy establishmentincluding Democrats and Republicans believes that theUnited States has a moral as well as strategic responsibility notonly to police the entire globe, but to try to shape the politics ofindividual countries.Moreover, American leaders have not beenshy about using military force to achieve their grand goals.TheUnited States has fought five wars since the Cold War ended in1989, and it has been at war for fourteen of the subsequenttwenty-two years: 1991 against Iraq; 1995 and 1999 againstSebia; 2001-2002 against Afghanistan; 2003-2011 against bothAfghanistan and Iraq.The ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will surelydampen the foreign-policy elite's enthusiasm for reshaping the world at the end of a rifle barrel, but it remains to be seen howmuch.As a result, it may not be long before the United Statesmarches off on another crusade.There is little reason to thinkthat its basic commitment to running the world will go awayanytime soon, which means that United States is going to bedeeply involved in global politics for the foreseeable future.Such an ambitious foreign policy is likely to createnumerous situations in the years ahead where America's leadersfeel compelled to fearmonger.Remember, the leaders who aremost likely to lie to their publics are those who headdemocracies bent on fighting wars of choice in distant places.That description obviously fits the United States, and it goes along way toward explaining the Bush administration'sdeceptions in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.But it wascertainly not the first administration to engage infearmongering and it will not be the last.The United Statesspends more on its military than the rest of the world puttogether; it has a robust nuclear deterrent and is insulated frommost dangers by two enormous oceans.Given how secureAmerica really is, the only way its leaders can justify ambitiousglobal crusades is to convince the American people thatrelatively minor problems are in fact dire and growing dangers.Given America's global ambitions, therefore, we should expectfearmongering to be a constant feature of its national security discourse in the years ahead.This is bad news, becausefearmongering not only can have a corrosive effect ondemocratic institutions, it can also lead to disasters like Iraqand Vietnam. NotesPrefacel.Mary Dalrymple, "Kerry Avoids Calling Bush 'Liar'"MSNBC.com, September 24, 2004, http://www.msnb-c.msn.com/id/6086823; David Stout, "Kerry Accuses Bush ofHiding the Truth about Iraq," New York Times, September 16,2004."Transcript: First Presidential Debate," Washington Post,September 30, 2004.However, as Dalrymple points out, othersinvolved in the Kerry campaign did not hesitate to call Bush aliar, and Kerry himself did on occasion call Bush a liar, althoughhe was clearly reluctant to use that word.Patrick Healy, "KerryCamp Lowers N.H.Expectations: Behind in Polls, Senator NowSeeks Spot in 'Top Two,'" Boston Globe, December 8 2003.Introduction1.Charles A.Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the SpecialAdvisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD, Vol.1 (Washington, DC:Central Intelligence Agency, September 30, 2004), 34-35.Seealso Julian Borger, "Interrogators 'Botched Hunt for Iraq'sWMD,'" Guardian, April 27, 2005; Rupert Cornwell, "SaddamWas Bluffing over WMD Stocks, Says Report," Independent,October 2, 2003; Johanna McGeary, Timothy J.Burger, andElaine Shannon, "What Saddam Was Really Thinking," Time,October 18, 2004, http://www.time.com/time/mag-azine/article/ o,Qi7i,QQ5422,oo.html; Walter Pincus and Dana Priest,"Hussein's Weapons May Have Been Bluff," Washington Post,October 1, 2003; Alec Russell, "Leaked Report Points toSaddam WMD Bluff," Telegraph, October 2, 2003.2.George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at theCIA (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 331-33.3.Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, 34.4.In an article discussing "Saddam's alleged weapons bluff,"Slobodan Lekic writes, "Publicly Saddam denied havingunconventional weapons.But from 1998 until 2002, heprevented UN inspectors from working in the country and whenthey finally returned in November 2002, they often complainedthat Iraq wasn't fully cooperating." Slobodan Lekic, "Aide:Saddam Did Get Rid of Iraq WMD," Associated Press, August 2,2003
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