The Zithro made me do it.
First, read William Saletan's take on Kerry's "global test."
That John Kerry's "global test" is even considered a gaffe demonstrates the divide between realpolitik and politics. Kerry's bland position, that pre-emptive action has to be justifiable not only to the folks at home but, by default, to the folks around the globe, is controversial only to the severest jingoist, the uber-patriot who dismisses the fact that a superpower may need extra troops in the field. Bush must understand this fundamental fact, having taken both time to appear before the U.N. with flimsy evidence, and to build a coalition of the (no-longer) willing, Poland at the fore.
International alliances, fragile as they may be, and impotent as they are, find fans on both sides of the political aisle. Globalists believe the world can genuinely cooperate; their view of nation-states suffers from blinkering indifference to actual human nature. Realists, on the other hand, know that even a tottering alliance can be exploited for one nation's own interests. Any moral or global good is a spandrel.
Bush leans toward the latter. His camp senses that a large portion of the electorate fears the U.N., the World Trade Organization, and all other organs of the New World Order, or globalism writ obvious; this sentiment is held intuitively, deeply, and unswervingly. Bush feels no need to explain his reasoning while misrepresenting Kerry's more nuanced statement; the idea that Americans should (or even could) be held accountable by any other nation flies in the face of most Americans' values. His statements about the International Criminal Court perfectly epitomize the double standard. When the war criminals are Serbian, the World Court has every right to prosecute. When war criminals are American, only America can bring them to justice. Teddy Roosevelt's big stick never swings backward.
This sort of pragmatic unilateralism blends strangely with Bush's utopian democratism. He notes, correctly, that free nations don't attack each other--yet free nations have long, difficult paths toward freedom, often involving civil war; representative government is not the natural inclination of the human species.
Three years ago, isolationism and globalism both collapsed in plumes of fire and ash. In their place, Bush has erected unilateral democratism, the anti-realist philosophy of the electorate.
" He notes, correctly, that free nations don't attack each other--yet free nations have long, difficult paths toward freedom, often involving civil war; representative government is not the natural inclination of the human species."
ReplyDeleteClarify for me: are you suggesting that simply because the road to freedom is difficult and fraught with conflict it's not worth the trouble? If so, then I'll take my "intuitive, deep and unswerving" sentiment of freedom.
"Three years ago, isolationism and globalism both collapsed in plumes of fire and ash. In their place, Bush has erected unilateral democratism, the anti-realist philosophy of the electorate."
And yet you said that Bush leans toward the "realists" (as opposed to "Globalists) camp? So what makes it "anti-realist" again?
In fact, after reading this about 4 times (over two days) I am still not sure I understand what you're saying. It seems to have the virtue of being unassailable because it's incomprehensible, but I am willing to bet that reading some of the worst writing ever has dulled my reading skills. Help me out.
It's babble, really, a decoupage of random thoughts that haven't yet gelled. I can't decide whether to take Bush's words at face value, knowing the Straussian background of his advisors. There's an implicit contradiction between Bush's realist leanings (the view that alliances are useful for our own interests) and his utopian view that democracy can solve terrorism, a point he has repeated ad nauseam. Some terrorists, after all, are home-grown in democratic nations. Think Timothy McVeigh, the IRA, and Aum Shinrikyo. This is why attacking nation-states (even those that harbor terrorists) isn't necessarily the best solution to global terrorism, especially considering problems of blowback. We can all hope, as Dick Cheney does, that Iraq will become another El Salvador. But it's not likely in our lifetime.
ReplyDelete"It's babble, really, a decoupage of random thoughts that haven't yet gelled. I can't decide whether to take Bush's words at face value, knowing the Straussian background of his advisors. There's an implicit contradiction between Bush's realist leanings (the view that alliances are useful for our own interests) and his utopian view that democracy can solve terrorism, a point he has repeated ad nauseam. Some terrorists, after all, are home-grown in democratic nations. Think Timothy McVeigh, the IRA, and Aum Shinrikyo. This is why attacking nation-states (even those that harbor terrorists) isn't necessarily the best solution to global terrorism, especially considering problems of blowback. We can all hope, as Dick Cheney does, that Iraq will become another El Salvador. But it's not likely in our lifetime."
ReplyDeleteThat helps. If Bush has claimed that democracy will SOLVE terrorism it seems a bit naive. The question is one where being a Christian is a bit convenient: I get to say that nothing "solves" terrorism save the return of Christ. Wouldn't it be enough to say "Democracy breeds significantly fewer terrorists and provides each citizen with a sense of duty to protect his liberties?" and ground the Bush doctrine on that? You are much more well read on this than I. Does anyone make that claim?
Also, do you not take my claims at face value because of the Straussian leanings of my education? : ) I am reading Plato's Timaeus and Republic right now, as well as City and Man. I'll defend Strauss for a second--even if you hate the neocons, he understands Plato better than anybody. The moderns just miss him completely. But I digress....... : )
I would agree, even without ready statistics, that democray reduces terrorism; more importantly, though, it reduces inter-state conflict, as study after study shows. "Free nations don't attack each other" is a true statement. (Bush's other statement, "Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction," is an obvious falsehood.) But terrorists aren't nation-states; attacking and attempting to instill democracy by force from outside--that's what I doubt is effective, especially in the short term. Bush has every right to be optimistic about democracy; this doesn't set him apart from Kerry. But there's a difference between optimistic realism (not in the moral sense, obviously) and whitewashing a precarious situation in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteAn example of Bush's rosy-glasses thinking: he keeps trumpeting the fact that the world is safer with Saddam in prison. In a sense, he's right: Saddam was a threat. But an unstable, terrorist-filled Iraq is no less a threat to international security. (Besides, terrorists looking for nukes--not hypothetical weapons programs--could go to Russia, where they're inadequately defended.) Kerry's equally-devastating weakness is political. At one point in the debate, his tongue slipped and he said, "And Iran and Iraq are now more dangerous -- Iran and North Korea are now more dangerous." Even if it's true, it's too politically costly to admit the hard truth that an unstable Iraq is actually more dangerous than a contained Iraq. How many American lives have been saved, for example, by taking out Saddam and the Baathists?
The main reason I'm thinking about such things, and trying to bat ideas back and forth, is that the current Lincoln-Douglas debate resolution is "Resolved: the United States has a moral obligation to promote democracy in other countries." My students--and I--have to be ready to debate both sides of the resolution.
Keep those critical comments comin'. Much appreciated.
By the way, the Bush team's optimism about Afghanistan also seems a bit premature.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Afghanistan article:
ReplyDeleteJoseph Collins, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations (the fashionable Pentagon term for peacekeeping), made a blunt appraisal: "The performance of our European brethren is pretty pathetic," he said. "Pretty pathetic."
The problem, said Collins, is that "everybody wants to help, but nobody wants to put out. NATO is incredibly badly organized, the NATO nations are incredibly badly organized. The Germans complain all the time about their overstretch, and they've got less than 3 percent of their force abroad."
Man, why do we want multilateral action again? Also, what criteria are your employing for criticizing the Bush camps optimism? How is it "premature?" How is ANY optimism "premature?"
Their optimism isn't "premature;" bad choice of words. Their optimistic assessment of the electoral process (10 million registered voters! Nearly half women!) underplays the fact that warlords run large parts of the country, elections aren't de facto free elections, the 10 million figure is an overestimate, and in many places, women are still being persecuted for being women.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing wrong with optimism; I don't want Bush to be a dour pessimist, spouting doom and gloom. (Kerry takes on that role enough; he has to, politically.) What's wrong is painting a Thomas Kincade picture of reality when the facts are Guernican.
If Bush admitted a mistake in a campaign season, I'm sure pundits would call it political suicide. (He couldn't think of one thing--one thing!--he regretted about his term in office, remember.) After he is reelected, he'll start making major changes, and no one will in the administration will use the word "flip-flop" again. Something about a "foolish consistency."
Multilateralism, especially under the aegis of the U.N., has never been terribly effective at gaining military or peacekeeping results. (Humanitarian efforts have fared a little better.) Token multilateralism, though, from a politically Realist perspective, increases soft power. If multilateralism were as unimportant as it were dismal, Bush would have never gone to the U.N., never trumpeted Poland's involvement.
I just realized that much of my (muddled) thinking on these topics--utopianism, hyper-optimism, etc.--is influenced by Karl Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies," wherein he trashes all forms of utopian historicist social engineering and comes out in favor of piecemeal, tinkering solutions. Well worth a read, if you can get past his distrust of Plato's Republic.