September 11th wasn't merely an attack on the US. It really does mark a watershed in terms of how the US will deal with the world.
At the blog ut supra, the blogger - who calls himself simply "A Jacksonian" brings the following description of the Defeatocrats:
Major Symptoms
- An individual constantly criticizes the current Administration for conduct in conflicts in Afghanistan and/or Iraq.
- An individual constantly criticizes the Secretary of Defense for having *shaken things up* or *gotten rid of future systems* or *pissing off long-term careerists in the Pentagon*.
- Takes *any* opportunity that may look even a smidgen bad upon soldiers to indict the entire effort to fight to victory.
- An individual states that Vietnam has proven that all wars are unwinnable and wrong, contrary to centuries of won wars that have established the basis for Nations, liberty and freedom.
- An individual states that NOTHING is worth fighting for, ever, using force of arms.
First the last: radical pacifism of the Quaker ideal, where indeed violence is eschewed as being fundamentally a sin, regardless of the situation and of the consequences. The Quaker philosophy works fine as long as the Quaker can count on others, sinners, to take care of evil: evil cannot be transcended by good works and prayer. And the completely naive idea, coupled with such radical pacifism, that wars are unwinnable and fundamentally wrong, is exactly that: naive. Wars do settle problems between countries: more often than not they create more problems than they solve (see Iraq), but wars do serve a purpose. The whole field of conflict resolution has been perverted by radical pacifism into conflict avoidance: the two are not the same. Conflict resolution is the attempt to avoid war by resolving the conflicts inherent in international relations: conflict avoidance is the attempt, doomed to failure, of avoiding having conflicts come to the point where there is a war. The one solves the problem, the other tries to pretend that it does not exist, or can be dealt with without resolving the problem. This has been the problem in the Middle East since 1948: conflicts there have rarely been resolved, only postponed via cease fires. The conflicts remain and fester, resulting in the Hobbesian chaos we now see.
But go back up that list to the criticism from the Defeatists: that changes after September 11th, 2001, have failed to serve their purpose and it would have been better to have not changed anything: this is the position of the entrenched establishment anti-Rumsfeldoids, who would have followed the book after September 11th, playing directly into al-Queda's game plan.
You see, the enemy studies us, and studies us well. The attacks on 11 September weren't merely designed to kill as many Americans as possible in an act of random terror, but were also aimed at generating a reaction, one that followed logically from past US reactions when attacked in such a manner. The US didn't declare war and go after the perpetrators, but rather exercised an ultimately futile conflict management scenario, where cruise missiles were fired at targets of opportunity in order to revenge attacks on US personnel, buildings and the like. Works fine in the metaphysical space of escalation management from the Cold War, fails miserably in the War On Terror.
The Taliban and al-Queda expected the US to attack Afghanistan with major armored assets, brought in over 6 months to 1 year, made very difficult by the position of Afghanistan and the terrain. They wanted to suck the US into a repeat of the Soviet experience there, or, in an equally attractive scenario for al-Queda and the Taliban, they wanted to expose the US as a paper tiger, unable to respond to such an attack. In both scenarios, the Taliban and al-Queda win, since on the one hand a massive invasion would have generated the same resistance as the Soviet invasion did, which they consider to have been won by the Islamic movement in Afghanistan, and on the other hand by failing to respond in such a way as to generate deadly danger to the continued existence of the Taliban and al-Queda, the US would have lost face.
Now, as we all know - or should know - the US chose option 3, which was to enlist Afghan forces by hiring them as mercenaries and to use massive air power to decimate the Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Hence the Afghan gambit failed for the Taliban and al-Queda, but less because they failed to get a US response, as much more the US failed to react in the way that they had expected.
Which gets us back to a Jacksonian's point: without having shaken things up, by instituting a revolution in military affairs, Rumsfeld and his approach to US military power was successful in confounding the intents of the enemy.
Critical, that.
The Jacksonian's secondary criteria is also illuminative:
Secondary Conditions
- An individual offers NOTHING BETTER to achieve victory in any conflict or war that the Nation is involved in.
- An individual states that leaving Iraq before it is stable is 'the only thing we can do' to save the troops or that it is 'unwinnable' or a 'quagmire'.
- An individual states that the United States is *the problem* in anything that happens anywhere.
- An individual states that 'free trade' will bring liberty to the world and NOT give cheap arms and armaments to the enemies of the Nation.
- An individual states that Nations cannot achieve 'peace through strength' and that is just another guise of militarism.
- An individual states that there are no individuals trying to establish an Empire that would endanger Free People.
- An individual states that money spent on the military is a *waste* of money.
- An individual states that 'mounting death tolls' indicate defeat and will not use that for *anything* else in any other circumstance to indicate same.
- An individual constantly asks - 'Why do they hate us?'
I'd expand this list with a small extension: that complete and total ignorance of the military is a prerequisite for making recommendations regarding the military.
One meme that is starting to appear in the discussions, albeit rarely, is the fact that it took the US decades to fight for its independence and to create this "more perfect Union", not a matter of mere months. To demand, as the Defeatocrats do, that everything be nicely tied up in a matter of months is to set an impossible goal that per definition cannot be met.
Iraq is a broken country, a failed state, a debilitated and destroyed society. But it was that way before the US intervened.
That is what no one seems to realize. The US didn't march on a lively and healthy society, one that was dedicated to the betterment of Iraqi culture, but one that was centered, by deadly force and torture, on worshipping the worst kinds of thugs and criminals. It didn't invade a functioning economy, but one that had been destroyed not by sanctions, but by rapaciousness and greed. It didn't conquer a unified, civil society, but rather one that had been deliberately radicalized against itself in order to divide and control the frustrations and anger of the population against crushing poverty and despair.
The challenge in Iraq - one that the President has richly documented and always emphasized that would require hard work and sacrifice - is to transcend the catastrophic situation under SH and his Ba'athist thugs and to create an Iraq that actually has a future. Achieving that would be the greatest turning point in the Middle East since the building of the temples in Jerusalem.
That is what the Defeatocrats say must be defeated.
They still do not understand it. At all.
5 Kommentare:
My thanks for dropping by and the thoughts!
I have done my best to differentiate between the religious belief systems that keep pacifism as a core tenet and those mental construct systems made without primary or secondary religious basis to put forward pacifism in the context of Nation States. The committed, pacifistic individual is one thing. Those that suggest same for societies is something else again, in this world of Nations.
After two World Wars, Western liberalism had put forth that Nationalism was not only a driving cause of those wars, more or less correctly, but that it was the inherent nature of Nation States to cause wars, which is incorrect. Not being able to discern the function of Nation States, namely to separate peoples into self-discriminatory settings (by and large with Empires forcing much of things in some places on the planet) and that the accountability function of Nation States is to hold each other accountable for respect of Sovereignty. That is a highly useful function and allows an orderly basis between Nation States to operate.
Western liberalism, in attempting to remove the Nationalism also moves to remove the Nation State system. This was a related drive via International Socialism of the late 19th century and inculcated into the early Communist movement, although it had to soon live with Socialism in one Nation. Neither of these strains of Western thought saw utility in the Nation State system and their fusion in the 1960's and 1970's then put forth what we now call Transnationalism.
What the West does not recognize is that the Nation State system, by being one that allows different internal organizational structures that have only exterior accountability *yields* is a wide panoply of government types. They range from Warlords and Despotism to Strongman rule to Oligarchic rule to Monarchy to Republic, plus a wide spectrum that is not so easily addressed by the varied cultures involved. The very foundations of liberty and freedom are within the Nation State system as no externally ruled system has ever yielded that nor democracy. That is inherent in the power structure involved in such large States: top down heierarchical rule with enforced restrictions and adherence to them.
The drive to Pacifistic Multiculturalism is *not* a drive towards liberty and freedom, but one towards Elite rule and enforced views with rights accruing by birth and not by character nor merit. That is a drive to destroy cultures, Nations and have a select class decide who gets what within society and that people will be ruled over by that selected class. Transnationalism then segregates itself out to: Progressivism, Capitalism, Terrorism. Or rule by the priveleged in knowledge, in finance or in brutality.
The education system is so enthralled by Progressivism and its attendant Passive Multiculturalism, that the very basis for why Nation States are the way they are, what their function is, and what reciprocity externally between Nations is, does not get taught. That, too, is a divorce of the useful function of military organizations as enforcement of agreements and Treaties from the society that those same organizations defend. When one does not support their armed forces nor the right to actually bear arms to uphold social organization, the entire culture is put at risk from internal dissolution. In the US this started to gather steam in that period I characterize as 10 years that changed America. The social movements and change in direction of attitude towards the responsibilities of cultures and Nation States are ones that are radically different from their 19th century predecessors. Mind you these changes happened before and just in WW I. When these ideas gained steam in ongoing decades, due to Communism and a stagnation of the liberal tradition in the West, the change from adhering *to* one's culture and Nation no longer allows for a Nation State to be held accountable *for* those People. Throw out the Nationalism and the especial feelings of those inside a culture to have a culture in common and what one gets is *not* freedom nor liberty, but anarchy and lack of upholding any standards for individuals.
In Iraq, when we got there, we got a first hand look at a Nation that had been under the yoke of tyranny and have had no comprehension of accountable self-rule for generations, that in many sections of Iraq there was no civil society at all. In putting my Mosaic of Iraq article together, the absolutely abysmal conditions in sections of Iraq brings home that these are peoples who had learned to distrust and fear each other for generations. de Atkine looks at the result of that for Arab Armies, but the driving factor for those things are societally driven. To get Iraq standing up requires building, often for the first time ever, the social contacts and trust networks that are necessary to have a functioning society. Only *then* can the folks there actually figure out how much they *want* to live together and what that means *to them*. That is not 'Nation Building': it is helping to stand up a society so they can figure out if they ARE a Nation. The common background of so many being under the same sorts of tyranny for so long will lead to common background and affiliation. The number of Sunnis that actually *benefitted* from Sunni rule was, actually, tiny as it was a ruling class of a minority within the minority Sunni population. And if those *Kurds* can figure out self-government, then that looks bad on the *Arabs* if they can't, either.... that process of gaining more localized self-government that addresses more localized needs becomes something known as: federalism. If the peoples there want a common government that will not impinge upon the differences of people in different regions and yet still defend everyone from some pretty vicious neighbors, then a federal government of divided powers and accountability is what results. And since this all starts at near enough to Zero as not to matter, this could prove to be one of the major turning points in world history where the first understanding of what Western liberty is and how it works in a Middle Eastern setup is tried out.
That process in not quick, not easy, and not clean. Getting folks to learn that what they make today is *safeguarded* by government is unknown in that region of the planet, outside of Israel. It is up to the people of Iraq to decide if they are finally fed up with: tyrants, strongmen, warlords, jihadis and just plain thuggish killers trying to rule them.
Pacifist Multiculturalism will fail *there* as it is failing the West at home. There is a wide difference between respecting differences between cultures and according individuals due space to adhere to what they want, so long as it does not harm others... and asserting that one's own culture is worthless and absolutely equal to every other culture on the planet. One gets you accountable society, with internal self-guided accountability and a drive to harmony. The other gets you strongman rule at best... and usually this thing known as Empire.
Well, that's enough of your time taken up!
Again my thanks for dropping by!
Hi -
Wow. Best comment ever. :-)
Seriously, your point can be summed up, as you do say, in the point that pacific multiculturalism will fail.
I can't remember where the quote came from, but there is one which goes along the lines of "fear not the warrior or the king, but rather the scholar in his tower, as he is the one who with the turn of a page destroys kingdoms and empires..."
Will have to check on that one to document it...the point being, of course, that unfettered, undisciplined academics are dangerous, not so much because they come up with dangerous ideas, but because they come up with stupid, deadly ideas that people think are great.
John - Thank you! That is a common complaint about my comments...
I do not begrudge intellectuals their ability to often put forward good ideas. That is a necessary part of advancment for society. Unfortunately such ideas and ideals also need firm foundation in this actual, physical world, and they are often the very worse individuals to do that. In the book "Accidental Empires" going through the early technology boom years, the authors put forward three stages for a company:
1) A good idea, which catches on.
2) A rapid expansion phase in which new markets can be looked at, and the company expanded.
3) The phase of entrenchment and becoming the established player.
Each of those requires different mental outlooks and skill sets, and they tend to be self-exclusive of each other. The rare individuals are those that *can* build a company from nothing to world established power. Academia serves as the starting point in (1), but that academic and didactic outlook that may give great, singular insight, is rarely one to build a Nation or company upon. They are very good at starting a process out, but very, very poor on building upon it or continuing it beyond the original goals and outlooks.
Pacifistic multiculturalism is a degeneration of Western thought, which is also seen in companies that get so entrenched that minor changes can dramatically alter them or just deconstruct them totally. IBM was able to successfully negotiate that by a process of ordered decohesion of its business units. Fairchild, Texas Instruments, Hewlett Packard and other tech businesses had to radically alter themselves and not all succeeded to become as good in new areas as they were in old. Others like Altair, DEC, and Osbourne just died or were absorbed and abolished as business units.
Because Pacifist Multiculturalism has no inherent dynamics to it and is more interested in dictating rights downwards from academic views, it has no good solid basis in real world experience to build upon. That makes it no less deadly for the temporary gains for groups involved, but the final endstate is tyrannical and authoritarian without freedom nor liberty. That is Transnational Progressivism as described by Fonte in The Ideological War Within the West and in Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism.
Because these are emergent behavior concepts, one cannot pin down single ideological basis for them, but their common thematics merge over time to form Transnational Progressivist views. They are a deadly threat to the Nation State as formed post-Westphalia and for the ability of Nations to have internal systems that are differentiated and different from each other so that humanity can have suitable government for its diversity.
Fonte has also expanded on that to include the Transnational Right which I paraphrase as Transnational Capitalism. It is capitalism that is no longer adjoined to culture, to Nation nor to adhering to any goals derived by societies but only for those goals derived for itself. It, too, is an emergent behavior system from the roots of international companies. Transnational views from Capitalism are not empowering to individuals nor are they applicable to goals of social separateness and differences.
I try to address the final, exogenous outlook of Transnationalism, which is Transnational Terrorism. The goals of Transnational Terrorism is to remove the Nation State as a viable vehicle for defense of peoples and so removes it as a serious threat to Terrorist organizations. All Terrorist organizations have the weakening of the Nation State as a goal and a large number of them are aiming to destroy the system of Nation States. While organizations do have different goals, that common theme across them yields a mix which the modern Nation State cannot address with 20th century tools. It is a system that is person-to-person for contacts, allows for cross training between groups and the spread of know-how outside of restricted organizations. It also shares contacts for weapons supplies and person-to-person banking, like the hawala and peso exchange systems, which fly under the modern banking 'radar' and sees unrelated activities as singular points that have no internal banking connectivity to them. These also mix with traditional, international organized crime groups like the Sicilian, Russian and Eastern European Mafias, Far East Triads, and the drug cartels and kingpins in South America, Africa and Asia. This is an unofficial system that works in a dark mirror to civilization, constantly exploiting the flaws in legitimate trade and banking and utilizes all of those to conduct business. The net result is that gangland violence has gotten harsher and nastier from the 1970's onwards with the old 'unofficial codes of conduct' now gone. Terrorism now spreads globally and at low price for spin-up of new cells and groups.
Terrorism was thought by all military thinkers up to the last few years to 'have no end game', as Gwynn Dyer pointed out, but served to de-legitimize Nation State militaries. That has changed, and it is here that original and fantastical thinking have combined to give the first stated means and end-goal capability to terrorism. The source is captured and translated documents from al Qaeda written in the 1990's. I give the brief summary as, like all didactic texts that tend not to understand the real world, it gets lost in details. As a reader of military outlook and thought it was absolutely blood curdling for its starkness. It has many false bases, but that does not mean that it cannot work as a short term concept and it is tailor made for the Middle East, parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is not only deadly because of the things it gets right, leading to short term successes,but the long term failures of understanding economics and industry and what that would leave as an aftermath. Yet it serves as a viable template for not only Islamic outlook, but Communist and Capitalist, as well as for other religious concepts.
So, when I described the emergence of common viewpoints amongst the political elites, I can see the basis for their formulation within the decadent ideological views of the failed 20th century and the trivialization of freedom and liberty during that century. We have forgotten that liberty and freedom creates economics, not the other way around. We have also gotten too far into Nation State warfare to even remember other viable forms of warfare from the 18th and 19th century that were respected and regularized. Because of that self-imposed ignorance and blindness we get blindsided by Transnationalism. Many refuse to even see that this has happened, so comfortable are they in ideological constructs that exist in no part of the real world but are mental only.
I wryly point out that the 19th century version of America would implicitly understand this modern threat and know how to deal with it in a way to survive and even thrive and overcome. What we have today will not.
Hi -
Very interesting.
My take on academics is a tad different, as I am an academically trained economist who decided not to become an academic, but rather to go out and hawk my skills in the business world. I come from an academic family, so I grew up in that environment.
The meme that you mention in "accidental empires" may be true for some situations, but not for others. Like I said, I work as a business economist: we don't simply sell consulting/modeling services, but are very successful by listening to what customers want - what a concept! - and providing services to meet those needs. I shan't get into details, but suffice to say that at least one of our customers, via portfolio management aided by what we do, avoided making bad loans to the tune of several hundred million Euros that they would of otherwise have made. He's a customer for life.
Hence the idea/expansion/entrenchment is a model that applies for only one segment of the economy: consumer goods products. But that is only a very small proportion of value creation in society, and the real innovation is not coming up with the Next Big Idea, but rather by providing value.
You don't keep on going to the cheapest hair cutter because they're cheap: you do so because they're the best value. If that hair cutter gives you a Mohawk cut one day because it's what they're offering, you'll never go back, because of the negative value of that experience.
Hence, while I do agree with you that intellectuals have their place in society, the problem is that many intellectuals are, ultimately, lazy: they create a realm within which they work and never leave it, separated from general society and in many ways fundamentally unable to understand how value is actually created.
It is that separation from reality that is so dangerous: the academics - note that I did not say intellectuals, but rather academics - are the ones who, in their mistaken belief that a piece of sheepskin makes them "better" than their fellow man, have actually no idea of how the world really works.
Transnationalism is such a phenomenon: there is no such thing as transnationalism, no such thing in the sense that it is an academic construct, laid out as part and parcel of the "progressive" belief structures, one that those who despise and hate the existing system of sovereign states want to use to gain a position where they can become proper parasites to the system: the Tobin Tax, for instance, on international transactions, is nothing less than the attempt to attach themselves to the life of the system like a parasite (and Tobin himself is not happy with the misappropriation of his ideas!).
Hence I don't think that there really is a transnational capitalism: it is simply capitalism, international and manifested in the international corporation, whose purpose, after all, is to make money. I simply do not see any empirical evidence that any of the large international corporations that everyone loves to hate has ever acted except as a rational capitalist would act: the people who make up the company, after all, are nationals somewhere. I've lived too long abroad to see it any other way, and while I'm not from Minnesota, I still take the position that empirical evidence is needed, not a theory. And I simply don't see it there. The capitalism criticism of "transnational corporations" simply doesn't hold water in the real world. But that wasn't really your main point, was it?
But what you say of the transnationalists otherwise: there we have no differences. But I see the failure of the 20th century, as you call it, not to be a general failure of society, but rather of only the elites. They truly have squandered their existences, and their failures are trending to turn the modern society back to that of the 17th century.
And what we are seeing right now in the Middle East is their version of the 30 Year War: it will probably take 100 years to work out their problems, given the barbarity of the current generation.
Thanks for your comment!
John - Good points, all!
The basic thesis I am trying to get across is that of emergent behavior that has systemic properties that are similar across a spectrum of activities. Transnationalism is one of these: it has no underlying body of work, but has mind set that is separately inculcated via systems of education and has received further entrenchment via political activity and the media. As a broad movement, it is one that acts to disestablish the Nation State as legitimate actors for peoples and that. To that requires a delegitimization of it along basic venues of activity:
1) International relevence - by the institution of a larger, overarching concept above Nations to rule them. The Progressivists push for a group of organizations based on societal outlook to do that. Capitalists look to do that through international trade organizations that seek to harmonize laws without respect to individual populations. Terrorists are scattershot in their outlook, thus have different ideas of that organization, with Communists preferring their formation as a ruling body and the Islamic sort trying to re-instate the Caliphate. Those are end-state goals, but they each have common necessity between them to get to those end states.
2) Internal adherance - As these movements require a removal of Sovereignty concepts externally, internal adherance to Nation States must also be accomplished. The highest form of that has been the concept of societal equality, in which all societies and social outlooks are exactly *equal* and none are better than any other. This is aided by the language used by capitalism and communism to turn individuals into economic units, be they 'consumers' or 'proletarians', the objectifying of individuals reduces the stature of individuality within the societal system. Terrorism attacks directly at the heart of social bonds by going after individuals and demonstrating how horrific a few individuals can be to assert tyrannical goals. Each of these, for separate reasons to be sure, weakens internal societal underpinnings for the concepts of individuals making societies and having legitimate government amongst them. Individuals who can no longer get societal protection, feel no special affiliation for their society and perceive of themselves as economic actors are no longer individuals able to assert individuality nor especialness of culture and society. These basic bonds are directly attacked by the ethos of each of these outlooks to remove individuality as a viable perspective for humans to come together and have different societies and cultures.
3) Amongst many things, the final removal of concepts of Nation State rest upon Nation to Nation accountability via Treaty. This is part of the first goal, but deserves mention as it is a main venue for activity to remove National Sovereignty by all three outlooks. Progressivist views put forth that 'international law' is a law above Nations, not amongst Nations, and thusly acts like National law. This has no basis in fact nor supposition as any higher basis in law requires support and adherance by those under it, and that has not happened: Nations get sovereignty from their people. The Capitalist venue uses this venue to force through a meme that 'free trade frees people', ignoring that freedom has been garnered in absence of modern capitalism and that only free people, safeguarded from government, can act in such a way to have free trade amongst them. Those that see their rights coming from government have no safety in their posessions nor their freedoms, and enriching individuals only ensures that repression continues on for the sale of goods at low costs. Terrorism hits at the diplomatic/military side via direct force, acting as a non-Nation State threat that is not amenable to the powers of 20th century Nations to address them. The gamble is that modern Nationals will no longer want to return to earlier forms of warfare and will, thusly, weaken the validity of military means by Nations to protect their peoples. Terrorists, by using the means of war and being unaccountable to National means of reprisal, can not be safeguarded against due to their distributed means of activity. Each of these three main vectors coalesce to undermine Nation to Nation accountability and the ability of Nations to put forth Sovereign outlook free from outside intereference.
On the Capitalist side, if these are qualities of capitalism, to act in an emergent way so as to weaken Nation State Sovereignty, then it is part of a threat to the ability to *have* trade as the long-term effects, as we have seen, is that freedom has not been offered where trade has gone on easily, be it the Middle East for 90 years or China for 30 years. If it had these places would be some of the freest places on the planet. If Capitalism looks to be held unaccountable to societal and cultural outlook so that it reinforces culture and does not diminish it, then the threat of it is just as bad as the one from Terrorists. Once companies begin to put forward that they may make contracts and work outside of the boundaries of Treaties and do so solely in their own interest, they are infringing upon the rights of Nations to represent their Peoples without interference from non-Nation State sources.
I see the good that Capitalism can do and often does, there is no doubt of that. When it seeks to remove constraints of society upon it and, instead, dictate to society what society should be constrained to do to meet the needs of Capitalism, then I do have a problem with it. That is the emergent phenomena we are seeing to make trade 'easier' and 'robust' and 'equalize laws'. Nation States by being culturally different have different viewpoints on trade and its societal and social utility and can, as Nations, set up their own restrictions upon trade and commerce. The liquidation of that at an international level is just as bad as the Progressive outlook to equalize all cultures so that honor killings are just as bad swearing.
I have no especial love for any of these three systems of outlook. Progress, as an ideal, when constrained by social outlook and societies is of great benefit to mankind as concepts of individualism, liberty and freedom come from it. Capitalism, again constrained by social outlook and society, is a boon to mankind that allows individuals to garner much from the fruits of their labor and offers those individuals support and sustenance so as to find a way to lead their own lives. Warfare is a necessary part of accountability as is civil violence to keep criminal and violent aspects of human nature in check. When well regulated by society that allows useful social rights to uphold society, warfare serves a societal good to channel energies to protect societies. When each of these three has their context removed, then the ability to sustain the good part of them evaporates, and they then look to dictate to society what the needs of each of those outlooks is. The result of each of those does not look all too free, to me at least. And the results for individuals looks horrific.
But then, I do have strange thoughts.
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