Kinda like this thing but there’s something you should know
we just came to bomb hello
*(revised Azure Sky video edit)
If the above Flash video doesn’t show on your iOS/Chrome device, here’s the re-cut Stiftung YouTube version:
These are dangerous times even without hype. For the first time since 1918, Waltz’ structural architecture of systemic international anarchy (defined not as ‘chaos’ but competitive positioning limited only by viable international means) puts forth a vacating chair. The Continent anticipated and feared the coming American century. The foundations of this entire blog have roots there.
We Americans, blissfully withdrew to our own continent, focusing on accumulating capital, ignoring the tired Lion’s increasingly feeble efforts to maintain its seat. Wilson thusly delivered a double blow — demonstrating the Empire’s implausibility then failing to deliver American power to the systemic framework. Now it’s our turn to look back at our ‘Diamond Jubilee’, perhaps.
It’s become oddly jejune to muse about international theory in practical terms. Recently, Japan (remember when Summers glommed onto that one in *1990*?) emerged a contender. A hard case of the unipolar flu in the 1990s restored American swagger only to give way to today’s feverish China nightmares. After squandering circa a trillion dollars a year on spastic militarism for the last decade, re-calibrating America’s strategic footprint happens in a conceptual vacuum.
Some argue re-callibration without intellectual infrastructure poses risk but also presents opportunity. These American Great Jump Aheaders urge us to see the de-stabilized Waltzian international order as Kobe Bryant looks down court on a fast break: reacting to what just passed (the old-bi-polar comfort and the briefly hellish uni-polar fever). The analogy? The U.S. naturally adapts to reality now but can shape shape fluid events “on the fly”. No excessive dwelling on the last play. (Forgive the sports metaphors. We rarely use them). Taken to extreme, the argument descends to the ad hoc.
Some permutations of the ad hoc are undeniably fanciful. Most seem unsound. Some might evolve into strategic merit if ever we Americans reconcile national interest with ideals. And it’s not at all clear that a nominal, constitutional republic premised on separation of powers will have the wherewithal to think, let alone act, with the necessary alacrity should it find a strategy conducive to Kobe Bryant fast breaks.
The future in ad hoc formulations usually is more of “now”, only more so. Or it filters down to Friedman banality such a America as “brand”: the least offensive to American consumerism. Recipes may vary but the concoction doesn’t. Mix severely deflated soft power, lingering still, with equally diminished hard power. Induce ‘buy in’ from the BRICs and other rising contenders in some version of the post-war world order. (Non-state actors in this agenda — from the post-Al Queda boogymen to Anon, etc. – more tricky).
All assumes the pot is worth the ante to others. Recent events underscore how even Europe remains ambivalent in many ways. For now, without Germany, Anglo-French designs on projecting power over Libya remain action without traction. The Gallic mind today no longer hyperventilates over US ‘hyperpower’ as in the past. Sometimes a harebrained scheme to intervene in Libya is just a harebrained scheme to paraphrase Freud – however unwise.
The US promulgated globilization memes post 1991 devolved into celebrating mindless casino capitalism. The old national and tribal (and other) isms remained, ignored. Even the meanest (in all sense) ad hoc conceptualism must account for US inability to understanding actual ground truths around the world due to provincial insularity.
When you look out at the world, what do you see? A purposeful foreign policy fast break in the making? Or something else?
One more reason we look at Libya and see a strategic diversion — at best. To bring matters full circle: if you’re still thinking about a fast break, Kobe has one advantage over all of us. He knows — without thinking — everyone on his team knows their united purpose is to make a basket. Isn’t the very notion of binding rules and referees anti-thetical to Waltzian anarchy the international order today?
Re Libya, perhaps Bismarck is right. The One Upstairs truly loves fools, drunks and the United States. We sure push our luck.
DrLeoStrauss says
Days not weeks pt. 160
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/world/africa/nato-commander-says-resilience-of-qaddafi-loyalists-is-surprising.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
“Days, not weeks” – part 145
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-09-18/libya/50456446/1
DrLeoStrauss says
Chinese test Predator drone clone crashes and burns. http://gizmodo.com/5837902/chinas-predator-drone-ripoff-crashes-and-explodes
This is actually hard to do, as the Stiftung has some familiarity with thing from the point of origin, if you will. A bloated boondoggle like Global Hawk? Easy to see that one tanking.
Dr Leo Strauss says
The Afghan model proves its worth here – special forces/DO paramilitary/contractors, airpower and local tribes can be effective against incompetent, ill-equipped, unpopular factions.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/04/2390637/libyan-rebels-prepare-to-take.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
Say, chaps, how’z that Libyan bombing working out for NATO? Like crap? Really. NATO’s a paper tiger? You don’t say.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/nato-rifts-strain-libya-campaign/2011/07/05/gHQAFKHJzH_story.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
Sarkozy is miffed Americans aren’t doing more in Libya and Gates just is ‘bitter’.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/sarkozy-lashes-out-at-us-over-libya-mission/2011/06/24/AGVV36iH_blog.html
DrLeoStrauss says
A good sign: Neocons are acting in public. They only do that when they’re losing.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/06/17/neocons_warn_house_gop_on_libya
Dr Leo Strauss says
UK already punched out.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8573849/Navy-chief-Britain-cannot-keep-up-its-role-in-Libya-air-war-due-to-cuts.html
Khadaffi leaves Newt, Sheen and the UK on the floor.
DrLeoStrauss says
Doug MacGregor’s DoD budget reduction plan. Remember when Cap the Knife became Cap the Shovel? A hat tip to any reader who can predict for us Panetta’s future nickname.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/26/a_radical_plan_for_cutting_the_defense_budget_and_reconfiguring_the_us_military
Dr Leo Strauss says
“He’s very devoted to a rigorous process,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor. “When things are chaotic in the world, the first thing he’ll do is set up a process.”
— On National Security Advisor Donilon (who’s probably equally skilled at arranging play dates)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-donilon-20110430,0,113908.story
DrLeoStrauss says
Of possible interest:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67730/g-john-ikenberry/the-future-of-the-liberal-world-order
DrLeoStrauss says
And let us not forget the North Korean model:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/gaming/news/article_1626656.php/Korea-Invades-America-in-Homefront-for-Xbox-360-PS3-PC
jamie says
There’s always the chance of a Sino-Indian conflict over Himalayan border issues, but I think both sides will be satisfied with what they have. Anyway, the Chinese sit on the mountaintops from where it’s hard to shift them.
I think the BRICS have a post – rather than anti- American agenda and would welcome a recovery in American capabilities to a certain extent. Certainly, I think that Chinese perception has gone from “great, let’s make hay” to “okay guys, joke’s over, who do we talk to to get some sense”. In all aspects apart from itself, the PRC’s a status quo power.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment One senses a certain jauntiness post Barbour and recent polling? We keed.
Agree with you that the BRICs (everything is now an acronym, PIGS and all) on their own unlikely can sustain positive coordinated action towards a stable international order beyond Venn overlaps. Their own timing horizons alone would be problematic. Which is a window of opportunity for creative American policy.
Reference to the BRICS in the thread here related only to identifying potential economies capable of assuming the American linkage role re lender/consumer of last resort to maintain normative system stability. Even there it’s a responsibility most will understand is a burden with real costs.
The whole notion of declinism (a British import when Oxbridge dons fled for more lucrative perches in New Haven and Cambridge ala Kennedy) misses the point. It assumes that a quasi imperial role ala the sun never sets is (a) the template; (b) desirable to maintain; and (c) an actual direct analogy. After all, contrary to imaginings 2001-2008, the American empire was always one mostly of indirect and intermediary action and suasion unlike any European model.
A re-calibrated American geo-strategic footprint and economic re-development are in our interest regardless of whether it’s (incorrectly) labelled ‘declinism’, etc. (Or in the American vernacular, conspicuous consumption on the Hill of Kool Aid in non-bio-degradable cups.) The nto so small trick/goal is to accomplish that while supporting an endurable international order that is more likely to favor liberal democratic (small caps) values overall and our national interests in particular without American systemic guarantees.
As you say so succinctly, ‘we just need some strategy and good policy.’ Amen !
Comment says
we think Indian and China and Russia will all be involved in heavy war with each other in the coming century and so BRIC unity is not there. there’s no reason we cannot turn things around over time – we just need some strategy and good policy. I’m confident in the medium long term.
Dr Leo Strauss says
As the Quote Machine reminds us, Napoleon advised “Never interrupt your [ his ‘enemy’ – today’s ‘rival’] when he’s making a mistake.”
DrLeoStrauss says
@jamie Hi, Leo please 🙂
Indeed, McCarthy did so, possibly testing the waters. In less than a year he went on to make his “I have a list speech.” Perhaps not unrelated, the American Midwest (including Ohio and Wisconsin) traditionally has the highest proportion of self-identified German immigrant ancestry.
jamie says
On the SS Viking thing. Didn’t McCarthy get his first leg up into national prominence shilling for Peiper over the Malmedy massacre?
jamie says
Doctor: interesting point about surplus capital. Our own declinists often seem hard put to know what they regret more – the end of Empire or of Sterling World. Contra that, the general left tradition in Britain always saw the end of empire as an opportunity for a bit of social democracy at home. Maybe that’s the link between teahadists and neocons. Promote rage against a socially just domestic settlement to block that avenue of “decline”. Anyway, if you can make that leap a good many problems solve themselves, or at least impediments to solving them tend to disappear. People think of themselves differently, in a non-imperial mindset.
One point about the BRICS: all of them abstained on the Libya resolution. They don’t think of war as a casual, feelgood aspect of policy, excepting possibly the Russians with their periphery. This is mildly encouraging.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Hi Jamie, thanks. Glad you re-posted.
Nicely put. Especially your conclusion with its perspective:
Encouraging that all involved have vested interests in a graduated trajectory, however framed or internally recognized. Managing Up needn’t be another person’s Managing Down if coincident interests are aligned. After all, it’s essentially what we’ve been telling the Chinese for 15 years.
The foundation of American power was always surplus capital. The Dawes Plan made that clear to the British fronting for us with the French over the Ruhr. That’s where our Empire really began. In 1923. Born in financial engineering, perhaps fitting if 2008 marked its expiration.
Recognizing that Waltz formulated several explanatory layers for international relations (and we are not using him as the acme, merely as a referential point), the first step in our view thererfore must be financial re-alignment. America is not insolvent, nor broke.
As you note, however, our capacity (let alone will) to be the economic Tragedy of the Commons is done. Japan is the world’s most indebted nation and downgraded twice by Standard & Poor’s, most recently in January 2011. The EU we know about. That realistically leaves the BRICs. All here also know how hard it is to get Japanese inspired export assault economies to focus on domestic consumption.
This period of Managing Up/Managing How One Needs will be unique in that it occurs while global resource constraints are still only dimly perceived. Many here will remember that prominent Neocons in the early 2000s privately agitated for outright seizure and possession of Saudi oil provinces. And that’s just a harbinger of conversations to come in many a kanzlei. Not even the prelude to the prelude.
Such competition will complicate even a coordinated move away from the dollar. Rumors are floating even now that Beijing is trying to think how it can asset swap out 2/3rds of its dollar position. In an arbitrage environment the right rumor is a 5 megaton MARV. Americans for all our crudity about deficit reduction etc. at least position ourselves away from the German solution of deliberate hyperinflation. Many Americans don’t realize how much kabuki there is now for creditors.
Here, American saturation with over half a century of ambient mobilization has left an enormous detritus of legacy/installed base thinking. Moreover, our now exposed plutocrats don’t even understand their own wares.
It’ll be tricky. Maladroit policies from any number of entities could wreak havoc.
An American Dolchstoßlegende hinted at in your post is not 100% entirely implausible. We believe fears will prove unwarranted. Most of those shadows anyway are cast by people on stilts.
But to answer your question we’d go back to where it started formally. 1923 (and again in ’29). Although the American tale there could be a caution to some. A pity we paid no attention in the 2000s. Then again, history has never been Americans’ strong suit anyway.
jamie says
I really don’t mean to hijack the thread, but I posted on this a while back:
http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2010/01/on-the-necessity-of-antiamericanism.html?cid=6a00d834518d3769e2012877035539970c
Sorry. I just bombed to say I love you.