Feeding Dependence
As a practical matter, James at first seems to be right when he says:
But if paleos want to dial the US down from global hegemony, as they should, they’ve got to recognize that other countries — specific other countries — do indeed need to dial their participation up.
I say that it seems right at first, because it would be far easier to hand off the interventionist and guarantor role to other powers than it would be to simply shut down our myriad bases, dissolve NATO and attempt to play the part of a normal country. Without some other poor fools being suckered into responsible natons leading the way in taking over the obligations we needlessly maintain, many Americans would be reluctant to leave the other nations to their own devices, so finding a replacement would make the transition go much more smoothly. However, that’s the trap: there is no other power or combination of powers both capable and willing to fill this role, so we are supposed to think that we are stuck with it. There is also an assumption that seems to be widely shared that there will always have to be some outside power capable of acting as an emergency protector. It is probably more correct to say that some power or alliance of powers will tend to take on such a role, but I am much less certain that there is a need for one.
One of the main reasons why no other powers attempt to shoulder more of the burden of their own defense is that they believe it to be unnecessary, because they have become dependent on U.S. security guarantees and, in the last resort, our nuclear deterrent as well. If they have come to rely on us for things that they obviously ought to be providing for themselves, is it any wonder that there is no urgency in taking more of an interest in international conflicts far away? Among our Asian and European allies alone, you find enormous wealth and human capital that could be directed towards securing stability in their own regions and near-abroads. One of the reasons these resources are never directed toward such ends is that the U.S. does enough that it is not a priority for their governments. Once what is optional becomes necessary, the priorities of those governments will have to change, but the only way to make it necessary is to begin the process of weaning (I cannot think of any other way to describe the process) our allies off of dependency on the U.S. The only way do that is to start doing it, rather than waiting on the dependents to take over responsibilities that we refuse to give up.
On the whole, I think the “developing” world would fare much better over the long term if its internal political and military conflicts were left to the nations directly involved to resolve. There would, of course, be a place for foreign investment, humanitarian aid and diplomatic mediation, but the best way for nations to achieve some sustainable stability and prosperity is to make their own way without the promise/threat of foreign meddling. Had U.S. history been marked by extensive foreign interference in our internal affairs, there would have been great distorting and stunting effects on our political life. Whatever degree of independent political life we enjoyed on account of fortune, timing and favourable geography, interventionists tend to want to deny to other nations–and almost always with the intention of benefiting them! That needs to stop, and the best way to do that is to stop meddling.
It seems Russia, Japan, China, and South Korea are content to address North Korea, and that is being done despite historic animosities between Russia and China. Going back to Kosovo, it seemed as if Europe were capable of handling that situation. In Africa, many of the European countries retain some loyalty to their former colonies and attempt to work on their behalf. Even in South America, we see a region that is seeking more often to handle its own affairs. While not fashionable to say, our interests in the Middle East are primarily about oil. I think to say that we can universally persue a policy of detante without another power to take over ignores the basic reality that more often than not we are expressing a preference between various regional powers. And while for example I don’t think we should enter with great expectations that a Morales / Chavez block in South America will act in our best interests, I think from a paleo perspective we need to argue that whatever they do it probably won’t be that bad for us, and if it truly is bad for us, our ability to address it through massive intervention is likely not to make the outcome much better.
An important thing to stress is that the same relative weakness of other powers that makes them such poor replacements in launching interventions is the same relative weakness that makes them much less able to threaten U.S. interests.
” Among our Asian and European allies alone, you find enormous wealth and human capital that could be directed towards securing stability in their own regions and near-abroads.”
And you have a wealth of local knowledge that we (the US) will never be able to match. Any man on the street in Cairo or Amman or Damascus could have told you in great detail why going into Iraq was a horrible idea, a thought that never occured to our degreed and credentialed foreign policy elite. People close to a situation are much more likely to have a feel for the nuances of a situation that an outsider won’t grasp.
Exactly right. One significant problem in trying to mind other people’s business is that you don’t understand most of their business and end up exacerbating already difficult conditions.
The first step is initiating an honest discussion about what consitutes a real national interest, as opposed to discriminatory policies that serve only particular interests at the expense of 3rd parties (by definition, not “national” interests) This requires an open conversation about the concept of the “common good”, what it is, and whether our foreign and domestic policies are compatable with it. Without fleshing this out, the term “national interest” is just newspeak devoid of any real meaning.
We are involved in foreign affairs to such a point that we should start allowing foreign nationals to participate in American elections. (I can imagine slogans like “no liberation without representation!”)
As to the dominance of interventionism as the preferred paradigm of Serious People, and this constant impulse to “meddle” in other people’s business, the simple answer is that there aren’t many disincentives to engaging in interventionism on the part of those who make these decisions.
Its clear that scare-mongering and rhetorical appeals to nationalism are cheap, easy and work rather well at consistently garnering the necessary public consent for any given intervention regardless of context.
For the average citizen, the cost of intervention is indirect and unseen, and usually has no personal impact, while the psychological satisfaction that we’re “doing good”, “spreading freedom” or “fighting evil”, is a much more obvious reward. (for those citizens who come to oppose intervention, it’s mostly due to a realization of these unseen costs in the abstract: economic trade-offs and risk of blowback/retaliation. *personal observation*–very few oppose interventionism for moral reasons.)
There’s also the fact that those who seek power to influence policy happen to think highly of themselves and their policy prescriptions, and in the act of entering politics seek the employment of coercive force to impliment their agenda. This predictably creates a systematic tendency toward proactivity rather than restraint.
Third, and most important, is those factors that might compel restraint in private society–economic scarcity and expense, personal risk to life, limb, reputation and resources, moral and legal responsibility for one’s actions and behavior, considerations of reciprocity–have been excised from the political system by design.
If one were to engineer a ruling apperatus from scratch with the objective of making sure its internal actors avoid any meaningful personal accountibility for their activities, can externalize the costs and negative consequences of their actions onto unwilling 3rd parties, internalize the benefits, using these profits to further aggrandize themselves, all the while convincing the populace that they are being “represented”, you would have something resembling the illiberal democracy we endure today.
I don’t think those who would call a critique like this “extremist” deserve the mantle of credibility. The true utopians are those who would believe a system like the one described above can work to protect liberty, administer justice, foster social progress, and represents the epitome of western enlightenment.
I’m inclined to agree with much of Mr. Braunstein’s thoughts – it’s actually a pleasure to read something which doesn’t force ideas into some political/idealogical bed. The basic idea behind this Madison avenue government is the same as that behind any such form, from Lenin to Mussolini; it’s not about ideology – that’s just the hook. It’s simply about power. As for Utopians, when have any Utopian plans ever led to anything except agony? Let them lie in books, maybe pull out some bits that look feasible, and put together a Johnny Cash Cadillac government from whatever works. The problem, of course, is that when the governed get bored and stop tinkering with the machine, it inevitably gets taken over by the guys who crave power, and then most of us are shafted.