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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Friday, May 2, 2003
When Paradigms Collapse
Armed Liberal has a post in response to my post on Cultural Marxism, and I wrote a long comment in reply to his post, which is worth re-posting here:
My problem is twofold (actually, I'm sure folks can identify other problems I have, but I'm speaking in regards to this subject):
1) I knew when I wrote the post that it could be criticised or dismissed (which you don't do, but others might) on the grounds that its critique is from the Right, with sources almost exclusively from the Right (I note in passing that what Armed Liberal considers the most incisive description of the matter at hand is from a source derived from a viewpoint that is also generally considered on the Right).
I'm largely unaware of, and think there is a great gap, in critiques of the philosophical roots of "Bad Philosophy" from moderate or (especially) Liberal positions. Which is ironic considering that in actuality the principle targets of this movement, that we both oppose, have foremost been Liberal ones (some Liberals, "Scoop Jackson" type Liberals, did confront this, but most of them, at least most of the ones I'm aware of, ended up being cast into the Outer Darkness and are now associated with Conservatism or "Neo-Conservatism" as a consequence).
The best effort from a Liberal "place" that I'm aware of is Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s "The Disuniting of America", which is (IMO) a very good critique of one intellectual consequence/derivation of this movement, but which ultimately does not acknowledge/recognise, much less confront, the source or the larger ideology and its dogmas. Thus it is really in a way a critique of one of the symptoms rather than of a cause (but it's very good for a short work - but, again unfortunately, as far as I'm aware of Schlesinger did not continue to pursue that line of scholarship).
Perhaps this is just a gap in my knowledge. I would (and I'm sincere here, not trying to score a rhetorical point) be very much interested in links to Liberal critiques of the Frankfurt School's intellectual vision (now I will, though, go for a rhetorical point - my direct familiarity with Adorno's "The Authoritarian Personality" was in a class taught by a Professor, in a class on American Political Science, who - the Professor - was, I would say, a very mainstream Liberal - not a Marxist - who assigned the text and lectured on it rather uncritically; a method that is not by any means wrong but which does show, IMO, how these guys were and are able to take advantage of the fact that many decent Liberals do not want to be seen as giving credence to what they think are criticisms originating from the Right by expressing criticisms of their own).
Thus, IMO, by these types of means, a lot of Liberal institutions found it very hard to defend themselves (as predicted by the originators of the Frankfort School, despite all their blathering about what a "repressive" society this was they counted on its open-mindedness in advancing their cause) from essentially having the Leftist "tail" wag them.
2) My second problem will take less space to express and it is related to the final paragraph in the above; while by no means sharing Buchananite ideology, I am pessimistic - I do not believe this problem will be overcome by the means available to a classically Liberal society like our own (argumentation, persuasion, and the like), and would not support other means of defeating it (the "War on Bad Philosophy" abroad may actually be the easier one to win than the internal one, the "Pan-Western Culture War"). So I have analysis and description and critique but lack solutions.
Ironically, even though I am unapologetically conservative (of the Hayekian type, even though Hayek himself rejected the label "conservative", like others who resisted that he was pushed, essentially, into the conservative camp), I think the solution might have to come from (actual) Liberals (such as yourself) asserting themselves and confronting the non-Liberals masquerading in their own institutions (or our own institutions, but ones largely associated with Liberalism). But I don't see that happening on a wide scale any time soon, and even if it did, again, I'm not sure how it can successfully be done in a way that adheres to the principles we hold dear.
(I guess this #2 wasn't as short as I thought it would be).
Barring that, I think we're looking at a long-term problem (where "long-term" is defined in Civilizational terms) and the best we can hope for is sort of like the image of mediaeval monks - preserve a "saving remnant" that can be used to rekindle the flame of liberty and (classical and otherwise) liberal society at some point in the future, after the Gramscian paradigm has attained power fully - that is, the last stage, overt control over political institutions, and burned itself out in a way that IMO will not be all that different from how Stalinist Marxism burned itself out (but remembering that it was given external pushes that assisted, were vital in, toppling it; waiting till it went over of it's own weight would likely have taken decades longer and thus resulted in even deeper societal damage).
Myself I keep up my part because it's a worthy effort even if it might be futile, and in the hopes that someone (or several someones) will see a solution where I do not. But I haven't yet seen what I think would be an effective means of combating and overcoming the procession of this paradigm (which, given the degree to which it's adherents are impervious to empirical feedback, the Kunnian "collapse" will come only in a terminal stage, very late, when the corrosion is so severe that it imposes itself on things; that is, the danger is that by the time this paradigm collapses, it will do so only as the consequence of larger societal or civilizational collapse brought on as a result of the paradigm itself - in the way Thomas Sowell describes as the danger, in the quote from his book in my post). Civilizations have "a lot of ruin in them" (that is, they can take a lot of abuse and aren't frail critters), and ours is pretty resilient. But nothing is impervious and it may be that the Frankfort School intellectuals and Gramsci identified a real opening to exploit - it's almost ju-jitsu, in a way, using the very strength (the openness that, ironically, they claim does not exist in our society, the tolerance that, again, they claimed to not believe to be substantive in our society, and the like) of the liberal (small "l") culture against it, in a way, as a means to (consciously and deliberately, if one reads their own writings) dissolve and topple it.
With a drop in the tempo of overseas operations and the level of conducting the argument for them some, such as Steven Den Beste, have shifted focus a bit to the conflict of ideas at home (the "Pan-Western Culture War" aspect of the "War Against Bad Philosophy" to use phrases created by two of the members of Winds of Change).
Important aside: For some, what follows may read like a "conspiracy theory". If you think that like people pursuing similar goals constitutes a "conspiracy", then it is. But it's not a cabal, it's just people with similar views pursuing similar goals, sharing ideas and forming a movement. Note also that I'm going to be quick-linking to a variety of articles, not because I agree with everything the authors have said, but because they have produced the most incisive critiques I am aware of on this particular subject. I might wish that critiques from a wider array were out there, but this is one of the problems, really; many who might otherwise oppose this movement do not do so because of a "no enemies on the Left" blindness. Hopefully this is changing some.
For a firm understanding of the phenomenon here, it's necessary to punch through the political camouflage used by some of the practitioners, and also have knowledge of the intellectual roots of this movement. First, regarding the camouflage - the ideologues of this movement are often misidentified as Liberals (often deliberately, including by themselves when expressing themselves outside of their usual circles, that is, when being introduced before a wide audience that does not share their preconceptions), though they have little in common with, say, Harry Truman or John F. Kennedy. They may vote Democrat (though many don't), but that is tactical, as part of the "Long March Through the Institutions". They also often speak of themselves as "Progressives" and members of the "Progressive Movement", attaching themselves to the turn of the century party represented by Robert La Follette, but in a parasitical way. They are no more the heirs of that legacy than they are the heirs of Liberalism. This is done so that many people who otherwise might oppose the ideology they promulgate are lulled into passivity or even converted into useful dupes. It should be understood this way:
How to identify the political left? Current usage refers to everyone left of center as "liberal." Yet what are currently identified liberals liberal about except hard drugs and sex? In regard to everything else, they are determined to intervene, regulate and control your life, or redistribute your income. Obviously, when terror-hugging radicals like Ramsey Clark and Communist hacks like Angela Davis are referred to as "liberals" – as they routinely are – the obfuscation works to their advantage and against the interests of veracity and democracy. The term "liberal" should be reserved for those who occupy the center of the political spectrum; those to the left should be referred to as leftists, which is what they are.
We're really talking here about Leftists of a particular stripe. Horowitz is referring to them as "Neo-Coms", Neo-Communists. But they're really Cultural Marxists and their ideology has its primary source in the scholars of the "Frankfurt School", who's influence has spread rather far. One more aside: it is quite possible that many of the people who are influenced by the ideas formulated by Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse might say they're unfamiliar with such figures and their writings. To that, one point needs to be kept in mind: it is quite possible to be influenced by ideas without direct knowledge of their origins, as we see all the time. The influence of, for example, Marcuse (bio) spread widely as a result of his influence on those who studied in the '60s and became professors, then passing on his ideas with new formulations. An awareness of Marcuse is particularly on point as he formulated one of the concepts that is most at issue these days - the suppressing of speech in academic settings and the establishment of a clear double-standard, where highly paid professors and speakers will get up on stage to talk vociferously about how their "dissent is being suppressed", while on the other hand establishing doctrines that actually suppresses the speech of conservatives (see this John Leo column for a concise description). Marcuse's concept of "Liberating Tolerance" (tolerance for movements of the Left and intolerance of movements of the Right). Put that alongside Antonio Gramsci's (see also here and here) realization that Marxism was not going to be achieved through an uprising from the Proles (who were satisfied with rising standards of living and not suffering immiseration as Marx predicted), but would come from infiltrating and taking over cultural institutions. The pairing of this "Long March through the Institutions" (a phrase coined by Gramsci's student, Rudi Dutschke), with "Liberating Tolerance" has created a powerful fulcrum that allows a small intellectual (in the Hayekian definition of what an intellectual is - "dealer in second-hand ideas") class to move western civilization in their preferred direction, all out of proportion of their numbers (note that while the scions of this movement often invoke the word "democracy" and mouthed the phrase "power to the people" and it's variants, they have had their greatest successes through undemocratic means, and always lose out when popular attention is focused on their activities. This is one reason why great effort is often made to change the subject and keep issues off the table - if one tries to discuss whether this or that writing or concept is something that is of academic worth, for example, or whether we should be paying professors who loathe this country and its society - they will take great efforts to shift the discussion to one of "academic freedom" rather than the merits or demerits of the issue itself).
This is not really a populist movement, it is indeed anti-populist and anti-Liberty. In a way, it uses that as a strength. Where others, once they are shown that most people disagree with a particular policy (say, a given speech code) would say "the people have spoken" and move on, Cultural Marxists are resilient and persistent. Indeed, this works to their advantage in another way. As I said, when the public is focused on some policy or idea generated by this movement, it invariably loses out. What one gets, then, is specific victories followed by long term defeat (almost like America in Vietnam, in a way) - "well, that's good, we got them to drop the speech code at X University." However, a few months later the same people at "X University" will quietly produce a policy intended to achieve the same goals as the one that was overturned. This is, indeed, both the why and how almost all of America's major Universities have restrictive speech codes, selectively enforced.
When I said this was a "strength", though, I mean it is one only in a certain way. But it's really one of the more alarming elements at work here. It is an aspect of the thing identified by the essay-writer quoted by Steven Den Beste in this post; however, they aren't as "cut off" from the rest of us as implied by the Galapagos analgy. That analogy makes it seem quaint but not really that dangerous. Though it is an ideological movement that is largely cut off from empirical feedback, it has a direct influence on the wider society; they are, as Steven writes, not subject to any sort of reality check (including adverse popular reaction), but this has very significant consequences for the health of the larger society and its politics and culture (see here for the nexus between the War on Bad Philosophy at home as well as abroad). In this post I quoted extensively from Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed, and the observation is important enough, I think, that I'm going to repeat it:
Dangers to a society may be mortal without being immediate. One such danger is the prevailing social vision of our time - and the dogmatism with which the ideas, assumptions, and attitudes behind that vision are held.
It is not that these views are especially evil or especially erroneous. [I am not as charitable as Dr. Sowell here] Human beings have been making mistakes and committing sins as long as there have been human beings. The great catastrophes of history have usually involved much more than that. Typically, there has been an additional and crucial ingredient - some method by which feedback from reality has been prevented, so that a dangerous course of action could not be blindly continued to a fatal conclusion. Much of the continent of Europe was devastated in World War II because the totalitarian regime of the Nazia did not permit those who foresaw the self-destructive consequences of Hitler's policies to alter, or even influence, those policies. . .Today, despite free speech and the mass media, the prevailing social vision is dangerously close to sealing itself off from any discordant feedback from reality.
Even when issues of public policy are discussed in the outward form of an argument, often the conclusions reached are predetermined by the assumptions and definitions inherent in a particular vision of social processes. . .
. . .What is important about that vision are not only its particular assumptions and their corollaries, but also the fact that it is a prevailing vision - which means that its assumptions are so much taken for granted by so many people, including the so-called 'thinking people,' that neither those assumptions nor their corollaries are generally confronted with demands for empirical evidence. Indeed, empirical evidence itself may be viewed as suspect, insofar as it is inconsistent with that vision.
Discordant evidence may be dismissed as isolated anomalies, or as something tendentiously selected by opponents, or it may be explained away ad hoc by a theory having no empirical support whatsoever - except that this ad hoc theory is able to sustain itself and gain acceptance because it is consistent with the overall vision.
I'm rather pessimistic on this entire issue because even if there is a(nother) backlash against "political correctness"/Cultural Marxism, I'm not sure that it will have much long-term effect. People cut off from empirical feedback are equally impervious to persuasion. They have, in many cases, closed off institutions where they have become influence to hiring people who do not share their perspective or vision. True diversity is the fruit of liberty, not ethnicity (for example), but most of the University Departments that are culturally or civilizationally influential are all but monolithic when it comes to ideas.
Within the framework of our principles, it'll be impossible to reverse this. The institutional transformation was possible because the people who ran the institutions thirty years ago were open-minded, but the current lot which got in under that principle do not return the favor. Professor John Diggins, described here as a "kind of Johnson liberal, or Hubert Humphrey liberal, who were liberals when liberals were actually liberal" is quoted as saying, in reference to how this process worked, that:
"You know, we liberals let you in, and you came in, and you closed the door behind you."
That whole piece is worth reading on this facet of the issue, which is not isolated to Universities. So we're faced with a problem where the door has been closed to people who do not share this vision, and what means do we have, within the framework of our principles, to re-open it? It's not as if we're going to purge the academy &tc. of Cultural Marxists, nor is it really possible to shame people without shame into adopting more intellectually diverse hiring practices and we're not going to impose ideological litmus tests/quotas in hiring. So then what? Wait for them to retire? That won't solve it, because they hire their intellectual progeny, who will be their successors.
Fins: I know there are a lot of links in this post, but I strongly recommend that you check 'em out, along with this, this, and this.
Bridget Bardot praises those who, like herself, haven't let empirical reality affect their views (in this case, Jean Marie Le Pen and Arlette Laguiller (Trotskyite). Like the Viennese painter and Corporal in the Great War who was - like Le Pen - something of a minor war hero, Adolf Schicklgruber (who was a vegitarian and also firm in his beliefs), she expresses her greatest love for animals and has this to say about humans:
"shocking view of humanity, which at a global level, I detest".
Well, Schickegruber is nodding his agreement from whatever hole he resides in.
Of course
Most French view Bardot as a benign eccentric but still see her as royalty.
Indeed.
Russia is responding warmly to the feelers put out by the Frankenreich to join them in a Grand Alliance. Greece has decided to jump aboard as well. You'd have thought that they'd have learned from the last time they placed their fate in the hands of Frankish military support, but nooooo - obviously not (speaking of which, we're coming up on the aniversary of founding of Nea Roma Constantinopolis. You'd really think that Greeks would be wary of Franks bearing gifts at this time of year.
But you'd be wrong, apparently.
Well, on the other hand, the ambitions of this budding alliance is the humbling of what they think is a great Empire, and the last time the East accepted the military guarantees of smiling Franks, a great Empire was destroyed and its city sacked and ravished.
In other news, John Major, who did so much to put the Tory Party where it is today, is now doing the same for Prince Chuck. They'll make quite a pair.
These people probably were influenced by media spreading messages of hate.
But I don't think we can hold the media outlets responsible for their actions. After all, I listen to hate radio (BBC World Newshour) on my way in to work every day, and it hasn't made me hate Israelis yet (though I give them an "A" for effort). The people who did the bombing and those in organizations that directed the bombing are responsible. But media outlets enflaming situations by slanted reporting that exculpates, and thus indirectly or directly encourages this sort of behavior certainly do re-enforce the violent tendencies of some. Still, I'm not in favor of banning them. But I do think there should be more competing sources of information. I also think that people shouldn't be coerced or tricked into funding messages of hate. Therefore, I think the Licensing Fee should be repealed.
Yes, this is at least in part satirical.
Also yes, I do think the BBC's privileged status, funded by coercive license fees, should be eliminated.
Once you realize that, then everything Noam Chomsky says makes total sense. One then might be tempted to pause to wonder how dictators came to, and maintained, power before the existence of America, but you're not supposed to think about these things.
By the way, the same sort of garbage ("American meddling in the politics of the East Bloc stirs nationalist sentiment and cements the Warsaw Pact's control, so we should stop and/or be nice") was passed off as wisdom during the last stages of the Cold War when Reagan's policy was to support dissident movements like Solidarity. That argument was bovine fecal matter then (all the dissidents say that the support and encouragement they got from America was critical to keeping their spirits and hopes alive in the face of repression), and the usual suspects have, as usual, learned absolutely nothing from it.
Here's another, on a different subject. It's another I've blogged about before - the dreams of the Restored Carolingian Empire to military prominence. An otherwise unidentified "NATO diplomat" is quoted in this FT story about the delusions of grandeur of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany that "It is strange how they call for extra capabilities without any commitment to extra financing".
That would sting, if the targets weren't living in a dream palace.
Update: According to an article found by Eric at Waxtadpole, France wants Russia involved in European defense (it must be said that even during the Cold War France always had more love for the presence of Russian troops than American ones. France misses those times. They might have been bad times for the people of Eastern Europe, but what do the French care about people?), presumably replacing the nefarious Americans in that role.
Jeff at Caerdoria has some apt comments on the David Plotz article I linked to the other day. He focuses on Plotz's invocation of the UN, which I agree was probably the least persuasive point in his article.
Not only because of the points Jeff makes (which are well worth reading), but because even though the UN may be seen as the stamp of legitimacy in other areas of the world, which haven't already had a decade of intimate contact with the minions of that sanctified organizations, Iraq has - and many Iraqis (and I'm not just projecting here, I'm speaking from knowledge derived from a number of reports from within Iraq) see the UN as complicit in maintaining the regime (with the "Oil for Palaces"/UN's Blood for Oil program, among other things). They have considerable direct experience with the UN, and even if one grants Plotz's point that the U.S. would be seen as occupiers, that doesn't mean the Iraqis would welcome the UN as other countries have (until they, too, as in Bosnia and Rwanda etc etc gained knowledge from hard experience with the UN's presence).
The currently growing plan of having a number of countries who have volunteered participate in peacekeeping is better.
Regarding the UN, the same people who before the war said they would oppose everything because they hadn't seen enough gassed Kurds to prove Saddam had weapons of mass destruction are now saying that the sanctions they opposed and wanted lifted when Saddam was in charge cannot be lifted until it is proven to their satisfaction that the weapons they were skeptical existed at all don't exist ("Sanctions can only be removed if there is no suspicion [about the existence of such weapons], which should be subject to a Security Council vote" was Putin's way of putting it, "Perhaps Saddam is sitting in a underground bunker on a case of weapons of mass destruction preparing to blow them up, we simply don't know," Mr Putin said. He stressed there was a risk that those weapons could still be used or transferred to terrorist groups - all the arguments that the Axis of Weasels dismissed with airy handwaves when Saddam was still in charge of Iraq). See Mark Steyn's observations on all this. One can only conclude that the deposing of the murderous Ba'ath National Socialist regime worries them more than it's presence, proving once again that when one talks about "blood for oil", it's the Franco-Russians who are saying "out, out, damned spot!"
Those who take a Panglossian view of international institutions think of bodies like the UN as idealistic enterprises, when really they're the prime locus of cynical manipulation in the world today.
Update: According to an article found by Eric at Waxtadpole, France wants Russia involved in European defense (it must be said that even during the Cold War France always had more love for the presence of Russian troops than American ones. France misses those times. They might have been bad times for the people of Eastern Europe, but what do the French care about people?), presumably replacing the nefarious Americans in that role.
the four countries which gathered in Brussels are prepared to go it alone to begin with, if they have to.
Remember that an attitude of "going it alone if we have to" was considered by these same four countries to be a grave offense against EUropean Unity when done by the EU members who supported action in Iraq. But they've always been most skilled at practicing a double-standard; one for the vanguard, themselves, and one for everyone else.
As for their words about not wanting to do anything to break up the Atlantic Alliance, one should look more at the actual policies and behavior of these people than the platitudes they mutter while looking for a stick.
None the less, though the news reports from yesterday were spurious (the reporters were gulled, I suspect), what I said about their eyes being too large for their stomach remains the case:
The reality for defence is rather different. Belgium and Luxembourg are not spending on improving their military capabilities. And what Brussels is proposing would in fact lead to more duplication to what already exists instead of focusing on the serious shortfalls in military capabilities, such as strategic airlift, logistics and intelligence.
These people are the adolescents of Europe - always talking about how unsophisticated dad is, how stupid he is, how they can do for themselves and dad needs to listen to them more, but fundamentally unserious.
I'm not a libertarian (big "L" or small "l"), though I have considerable libertarian sympathies (inclinations? Whatever it's called). But what can I say? I love a good rant.
For a satirical version of what Daniel Pipes has in mind for Iraq, read his article.
He asserts that this will undercut charges of imperialism, but I think it would confirm them. A strong but elected government would be better. I think what Pipes proposes would soon become indistinguishable from the rest of the regional strongmen that the Middle East is replete with and who always claim they're moving their countries towards democratic institutions but somehow never do. This is a blueprint for failure, as whomever gets the job would eventually just be absorbed into the regional system of interlocking despotisms.
This is not to say everything can and should take root immediately. But implanting the belief in some dude that he is the indispensable man for several decades - well, Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe as a committed democrat, and ended up seeing himself as the key figure. Resulting in what they have now.
At minimum there should be a series of people with limited terms, and I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that their authority come from the consent of the Iraqi people. It may indeed need to be a strong (but limited and federal) government, and exclude certain types (Ba'athists are already right out, that's a given. Why not other anti-democratic forces as well?).
But I think, along with conservatives going back at least to Burke, that anyone, even a good person, can succumb to the temptations of power. Setting up someone and saying he will rule for essentially the rest of his lifetime (whoever is picked is unlikely to be younger than 40 and Pipes suggests he reign for ~30 years) and we'll support whatever strong tactics he takes to keep control and prevent infiltration by, say, Iran, will be something we'll support - well, I would hope we can do better. Especially since if things go as they should, I don't expect Iran will be a theocratic despotism ruled by the Ayatollahs for another generation - that is, so long as we don't encourage it to be by setting up a strongman in neighboring Iraq and thus undercutting the democracy movement in Iran by giving ammunition to the theocrats.
The argument that to avoid a despot we should appoint one of our choosing seems a little weak to me. This is much better.
The French and Germans are backpeddling on the idea of creating a military force among themselves, and Italy is being critical of the concept, as is Holland. the Franco-German axis is watering down the plan, which was already too ambitious compared to what they're willing to spend.
Germany, which expected an economic spurt after the end of the Iraq war, is experiencing the reverse, while consumer income and spending are up in America.
Chaos and factional discord in the aftermath of a war of "liberation" continues. Perhaps the French shouldn't have intervened militarily to help free people when they weren't able to foresee the long-term consequences of their intervention.
Dieter van Skeeter sends a link to an essay on why the UN failed by Michael Glennon which is very much worth reading. But of course I have a few comments on, and a couple quibbles with it. Glennon usefully and correctly makes the point that those countries who were insisting on the primacy of the UN and the necessity of explicit UN authorization were doing so not for reasons of principle, but for their own interest. He also highlights the fact that though France claims to oppose "hegemonism", they are perfectly willing to act as a hegemon themselves when they are (or feel they are) able to do so - for example, within the EU, or in their colonial activities in Africa. The same can be said for Russia and China in their relations with smaller neighbors.
Glennon, while criticizing the fantasies people engage in, engages in some of his own. The main example of this is that his article is based on the premise that the UN Security Council rules only recently broke down (as a result of the Iraq crisis, or maybe the Kosovo crisis, when powers violated the UN charter restricting the use of force). But that premise is founded on ignoring a raft of earlier military actions that took place without reference to the UN. Here are just the ones I can think of:
Arab - Israeli War (1948) Indeed, launched by Arabs in explicit opposition to UN sanctioned partition.
China's Invasion of Tibet (1949). ("Regime change" - annexation).
North Korea Invasion of South Korea (1950). (Attempted "regime change" in the form of annexation).
China's intervention in the Korean War - in direct opposition to the UN forces, at that (1950).
Suez War (1956).
Russian Invasion of Hungary (1956). ("Regime change").
NVA incursions into South Vietnam (1958 on). ("Regime change", annexation).
India - China War (1962)
Dominican Intervention (1965)
Kashmir Crisis (1966).
Six Week War (1967). (arguably pre-emptively defensive on Israel's part, thus permitted by the UN Charter, but that would mean the machinations of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were violations).
Russian Invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968). ("Regime change).
Sino-Soviet Border War (1969).
El Salvador-Honduras "Soccer War" (1969).
India - Pakistan War (1971).
Egypt - Israeli War (1973).
Turkish Invasion of Cyprus (1974).
Syrian Occupation of Lebanon begins (1975).
Angola Invades Zaire (1976).
Vietnam Invasion of Cambodia (1979). ("regime change").
Tanzania Intervention in Uganda (1979). ("regime change".)
Soviet Union Invasion of Afghanistan (1979). ("regime change").
Rwanda and allied African countries invade Zaire, eventually resulting in the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko ("regime change"). (1996).
NATO intervention in Kosovo (1998).
Note that these are only conflicts that violated the UN charter. In a number of them, regime change was or became a goal (a rejoinder to those who say that this was an innovation of the Bush Administration, unheard of in modern history). Of course, a number of these were at least arguably good (someone had to depose Idi Amin Dada, Mbutu Sese Seko, and Pol Pot), none of them had the UN stamp of approval. It's important to remember all of these, because for some (apparently including Glennon), only actions engaged in by Western countries, in particular the U.S., "count", with the rest being conveniently ignored. This rather tends to stack the deck, I would say.
All the litany of conflicts that violated the UN Charter undermine Glennon's central premise that:
It was the rise in American unipolarity -- not the Iraq crisis -- that, along with cultural clashes and different attitudes toward the use of force, gradually eroded the council's credibility. Although the body had managed to limp along and function adequately in more tranquil times, it proved incapable of performing under periods of great stress. The fault for this failure did not lie with any one country; rather, it was the largely inexorable upshot of the development and evolution of the international system.
Firstly, I'm not sure what he means by "adequately" - if the Security Council should have kept things within the agreed international legal framework (functionality), it certainly didn't do that in the era it was designed in, either. The Security Council was as impotent in the face of all these earlier conflicts as it was now. There were, indeed, only two occasions when it functioned as often assumed to have been the "norm" before Kosovo - in Korea (when the Soviet Union was boycotting) and in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Consider first the changes in power politics. Reactions to the United States' gradual ascent to towering preeminence have been predictable: coalitions of competitors have emerged. Since the end of the Cold War, the French, the Chinese, and the Russians have sought to return the world to a more balanced system.
This invokes one of the "force of nature" theories of international relations: when a strong power emerges, coalitions of competitors will form in reaction. However, the flaw in that is that it essentially assumes that this is automatic, reflexive, with no underlaying reason. It is based on the "rational actor" premise to the exclusion of everything else (which effectively holds that all rational actors in the international system would behave identically, for the same reasons, if in the other's shoes - which Glennon supports rather explicitly in his article). But this is a blind spot when it is carried to this degree and does not take into consideration that even rational people can arrive at different positions. Thus it allows important questions to be sidestepped (and Glennon's article skirts and flirts around some matters without directly confronting them). It doesn't address, for example, why some countries respond by alliance with the great power (in this case the U.S.) rather than joining the "coalition of the unwilling". Put the way it is here, and indeed usually is, such a coalition is as likely to contain Britain and Australia as China and France - but we know that's not true.
Because what matters here is ideas - the Chinese, Russians, and even French and Germans have their own reasons and ambitions for opposing the U.S., and using metaphysical language to mask those reasons (talking about opposition to unipolarity and preference for multipolarity elides the reasons why they would prefer the latter to the former). Note here also the invocation of "more balanced system" which also ignores the central question: even if one grants, for example, that the Cold War was "more balanced", was it a better situation? By that I mean better for actual people (a question, by the way, that Glennon does touch on; I don't mean to be entirely negative about what is, overall, a good essay). Why, for example, does France want "a multipolar world in which Europe is the counterweight to American political and military power"? The "force of nature" theory cannot explain, but someone who looks at what French ambitions are with respect to Europe (and France's place in directing it) will see. Likewise, accepting such a premise means accepting flawed assertions, such as this one from Chirac: "any community with only one dominant power is always a dangerous one and provokes reactions." That sounds fine on the face of it, but then one asks themselves - was the situation with two great powers without it's own grave dangers and provocations? What about the multipolar cockpit that was pre-1945 Western Europe? Europe from, say, the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the conquest of NAZI Germany? That displayed a situation with many powers, all of whom then felt that if they could get things to go there way, then they would achieve dominance, a goal they all strove for, leading to endemic conflict. By contrast, I'm more than tempted to say, Western Europe in recent times, dominated by the presence of the American military, has enjoyed its longest sustained period of peace since the Pax Romana. So why does France push to sideline the U.S.? Desire for stability? Or desire to return to the pursuit of old ambitions?
It certainly cannot because empirical experience with multipolarity has lead anyone to the conclusion that such a situation is more naturally pacific and stable than unipolarity. Which is probably why no one who makes such assertions ever provides any evidence (besides their own subsequent misbehavior) to back up such remarks. We're just supposed to nod our heads and consider it a profound observation, without skepticism. Glennon himself doesn't fall for this line. As I noted at the top of this post, he points out that if it were France or Russia or China that were the dominant power, they would not have their current obsession with producing multipolarity. He also says the U.S. would then be opposed to the dominant power. I agree. However, again, he doesn't touch on why that might be the case.
This is an important subject, because it matters why. I would argue that judging by the patterns of behavior that if it were China, or even France, that were in a position of dominance, they would not be using their strength to liberate people or to try to protect them from massacre (as in Kosovo, a mission primarily of U.S. instigation, which other participants said afterwords that they didn't want to repeat). The problem for a country like China isn't what the U.S. does with it's power, but with what it prevents China from doing with its (like invading Taiwan). The problem for the U.S. should the shoe ever be on the foot will be precisely what China, if it's current government continues, will do.
Glennon reminds me of one more interesting thing. In 1999, Kofi Annan was talking about the limits of sovereignty and the need to "forge unity behind the principle that massive and systematic violations of human rights -- wherever they take place -- should never be allowed to stand." - this was related to the intervention in Kosovo by NATO, an activity that lacked any (much less 18 or 19, depending on what you count) supporting UNSC Resolutions. This time, the people talking that way, Annan foremost among them, were notably on the other side, talking about the sovereignty of Iraq and how, under the system of international law, Iraq's internal affairs were it's own business (this argument invoked whenever someone mentioned the humanitarian reasons for "regime change" in Iraq). Glennon notes reactions to this statement by Kofi Annan back in '99, but fitting with the narrowness of his vision, he leaves out one thing - the states that reacted in opposition weren't simply "mostly Latin American, African, and Arab states" - they were mostly states with horrendous human rights records, who stood to lose most from a policy that allowed intervention in the case of "massive and systemic violations of human rights". They weren't just poor, third-world nations. They were nations with reason to fear such a policy. Glennon then touches briefly on the growing divergence in attitudes between America on the one hand and (Continental) EUrope on the other, which has much to do with Transnational Progressivism, though Glennon doesn't put it in quite those terms and moves away from the issue quickly, as with anything touching on philosophical concepts. However, later in his piece he provides what is essentially a cogent refutation of the (European) belief that "democratic legitimacy as flowing from the will of the international community" of the consent of dictators (Syria, Libya) and oligarchies (China). See this post of mine for some thoughts on that belief. Glennon is particularly apt in this paragraph:
There is, moreover, little reason to believe that some new and untried locus of power, possibly under the influence of states with a long history of repression, would be more trustworthy than would the exercise of hegemonic power by the United States. Those who would entrust the planet's destiny to some nebulous guardian of global pluralism seem strangely oblivious of the age-old question: Who guards that guardian? And how will that guardian preserve international peace -- by asking dictators to legislate prohibitions against weapons of mass destruction (as the French did with Saddam)?
Glennon also provides some choice quotes, these two in particular:
"We have to keep defending our vital interests just as before; we can say no, alone, to anything that may be unacceptable"
- French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, 2001
"I do not feel obliged to other governments"
- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, 2003.
I do have to comment on where Glennon says:
In drafting the U.S. Constitution, Madison and the other founders confronted very much the same dilemma that the world community confronts today in dealing with American hegemony. The question, as the framers posed it, was why the powerful should have any incentive to obey the law. Madison's answer, in the Federalist Papers, was that the incentive lies in an assessment of future circumstances -- in the unnerving possibility that the strong may one day become weak and then need the protection of the law. It is the "uncertainty of their condition," Madison wrote, that prompts the strong to play by the rules today. But if the future were certain, or if the strong believed it to be certain, and if that future forecast a continued reign of power, then the incentive on the powerful to obey the law would fall away.
Actually, I do not think American pre-eminence will necessarily continue indefinitely. But paradoxically, that's one reason why I resist efforts by China, among others, to limit us now. I'm under no illusion that, as is implied above, if we allow certain limits to be placed on us now, a country like China will observe them in the future. Nor am I confident that a EU following the Franco-German vanguard would (their behavior indicates quite the opposite, indeed; that the rules they want us to follow are rules they do not see as applying to themselves, like all good Tranzis, really). Thus we have a limited window in which to create a more hospitable world, not through inaction at the behest of those who want to benefit from preventing America from toppling their favorite client-thugocracies, but from the opposite. A Middle East that is as it is now when America is not as relatively strong as we are now is not acceptable. Putting pressures on dictatorships and forcing them to transform or cease to exist is. Indeed, it is much more likely that a world with fewer such regimes, and thus fewer for places like France (or America for that matter) to rely on as clients will actually be a world that will come closer to the rule of law. That renders this statement of Glennon questionable at best:
Any system dominated by a "hyperpower" will have great difficulty maintaining or establishing an authentic rule of law.
Given that he's analogizing between a situation within a nation (Madisonian Constitutionalism) and the international system, this is rather strange, because within their own borders governments are certainly "hyperpowers" in establishing and maintaining the rule of law.
Also, this demonstrates the same lack of historical vision emblematized in the Chirac quote (above) - bi-polar and multi-polar worlds did no better (and arguably worse) in maintaining or establishing an authentic rule of law in international affairs. This lack of historical awareness also shows up when he asserts that there is more disagreement now than ever on underlaying premises of international behavior (which forgets the last hundred years), and also that the UN as designed was suitable to its era but things changed. The UN as designed was even at its inception what was politically possible among countries with competing, rather than shared, visions. But despite those things, Glennon's ultimate conclusions are, in my opinion, correct, and he's particularly resistant to the impractical temptations of transcending the nation. :
the United States will likely confront pressures to curb its use of force. These it must resist. Chirac's admonitions notwithstanding, war is not "always, always, the worst solution." The use of force was a better option than diplomacy in dealing with numerous tyrants, from Milosevic to Hitler. It may, regrettably, sometimes emerge as the only and therefore the best way to deal with WMD proliferation. If judged by the suffering of noncombatants, the use of force can often be more humane than economic sanctions, which starve more children than soldiers (as their application to Iraq demonstrated). The greater danger after the second Persian Gulf War is not that the United States will use force when it should not, but that, chastened by the war's horror, the public's opposition, and the economy's gyrations, it will not use force when it should. That the world is at risk of cascading disorder places a greater rather than a lesser responsibility on the United States to use its power assertively to halt or slow the pace of disintegration.
In moving against the centers of disorder, the United States could profit from a beneficent sharing of its power to construct new international mechanisms directed at maintaining global peace and security. American hegemony will not last forever. Prudence therefore counsels creating realistically structured institutions capable of protecting or advancing U.S. national interests even when military power is unavailable or unsuitable. Such institutions could enhance American preeminence, potentially prolonging the period of unipolarity.
Given that he argues the U.S. should resist certain efforts, this obviously doesn't mean sharing power with opponents (or would-be "counterweights"). As Glennon points out in his critique of the UN, a functional "realistically structured" institution must be dynamic and flexible rather than rigidly structured. It would thus approximate the Anglosphere, especially over time with, hopefully, India and a democratic Iraq, and even a post-Ayatollah Iran. At minimum it would exclude dictatorships (Angola, Syria, Libya, Cuba and others of that ilk that have bejewelled the UN's Security Council and Human Right's Commissione) and oligarchies (China in particular).
But the main point is that sharing power with those who are cooperative doesn't mean sharing it with those who are not, or even moreso those who are oppositionist. That means that the people making the mistake were not John Howard and Tony Blair, but Putin and Chirac. The former two earned a seat at the table when decisions are made, the latter two proved they couldn't be trusted in such councils.
(this article on the rise of ethics in foreign policy is also worth reading and I might comment on it later).
"I don't want to see a situation develop again in which either Europe or America sees a huge strategic interest at stake and we are not helping each other. And I think there is a difference of vision. Some want a so-called multi-polar world where you have different centres of power, and I believe will quickly develop into rival centres of power; and others believe, and this is my notion, that we need one polar power which encompasses a strategic partnership between Europe and America." . .
The prime minister adds a warning to Mr Chirac: "Those people who fear 'unilateralism' - so-called and in inverted commas - in America should realise that the quickest way to get that is to set up a rival polar power to America."
