In the run-up to the second Iraq War, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell allegedly told President George W. Bush: “If you break it, you own it.” Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage privately called this the “Pottery Barn rule.”
In the ensuing years, politicians and commentators alike have used the phrase to describe the idea that what the U.S. military destroys, it is obligated to rebuild and, if need be, occupy.
The phrase is meant to have a deterrent effect. It was used to discourage American military action against Bashar Assad’s Syria, for example. But it’s also been employed to castigate, like when a journalist recently argued that Trump is now responsible for restoring the status quo ante to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But an important corollary should be added to this font of conventional wisdom: says who? Where is it written that the United States must rebuild the ruins of those it fights or defeats?
The U.S. did precisely that after World War II. America helped rebuild both Germany and war-torn Europe. It reconstructed Japan from the ashes of a devastating fire bombing campaign that culminated in the first use of nuclear weapons.
However, both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan unconditionally surrendered after losing great-power wars. And restoring both made strategic sense, as well.
The U.S. rebuilt Germany and Europe because doing so was crucial to checking the spread of communism. Ditto for Japan. The U.S. had initially hoped to occupy both countries for a short period of time.
But around 1947, American defense planners decided to extend the occupation, both to forestall Soviet aggression and also because leaders of those respective nations wanted America there for protection. Their defense forces had been gutted, their economies leveled. They needed protection. It was, as some historians put it, an “empire by invitation.”
Importantly, both Germany and Japan had new governments. The Third Reich was gone. The U.S. didn’t rebuild Nazi Germany. That would have been unthinkable, strategically, morally, and politically.
And while Hirohito was kept on as emperor, the militarist clique that took Imperial Japan to her doom had largely been expunged. The regimes that had waged war lay in the rubble.
Sometimes it makes strategic sense to rebuild the ruins of those you vanquish. But it can also be a trap, leading a nation further down the rabbit hole into greater involvement, possibly at the expense of blood and treasure that, in a final cost analysis, doesn’t always add up.
Of course, failing to rebuild carries risks of its own. It can create a vacuum, both for friend and foe alike, thereby creating additional instability. It can provide the space for dangerous ideologies, such as communism or Islamism, to grow and thrive.
Indeed, one of the chief arguments for an extended U.S. presence after the Second World War was the feeling that America had left the continent to its own devices after the First World War, and with disastrous results.
Nor were these the only prolonged periods of military occupation in American history. Far from it.
After the Spanish-American War, the U.S. occupied the Philippines for 48 years, from 1898 to 1946. This included combating a bloody insurgency, a brief scandal over inadequate provisions sent to troops, and the forced retirement of the top U.S. Army officer at the time.
In another largely overlooked episode, the U.S. occupied Nicaragua for a total of 21 years, from 1912 to 1933. U.S. troops sent to China to end the Boxer Rebellion in 1901 didn’t leave until 1941.
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In all of these instances, successive administrations were constrained by Congress, the budget, and popular opinion.
In foreign policy, like everything else in life, there are trade-offs. Sometimes it’s worthwhile, even essential, to repair what was broken. And sometimes it’s not.
But the axiom that the U.S. is somehow obligated to rebuild what it has destroyed is a bit of conventional wisdom that should be put to rest forever.