Posted on 06/26/2006 6:45:49 PM PDT by curiosity
Earlier this month, Jonah Goldberg declared, “The truth is that failed states are a direct threat to American and global security.” With respect to nation building, Goldberg looked back to the debates in the 2000 presidential election and concluded that “Gore was right and Bush was wrong, though neither quite appreciated why.” He concluded by advocating that the United States attempt to create a “League of Democracies, perhaps with NATO as its military wing and a souped-up version of the Peace Corps as its political wing, to shrug off charges of imperialism and to start doing windows.”
That packs a lot of bad ideas into a pretty short column.
The first problem with Goldberg’s argument is his claim that failed states are a threatening to American security. They almost always aren’t. Moreover, when failed states do present threats, it is something other than the “failure.” that is threatening. Attempting large-scale nation-building projects would do nothing to eliminate threats, and could bog the United States down in civil conflicts far removed from its national interests.
Goldberg points to the Foreign Policy/Fund for Peace Failed States Index for evidence that state failure is threatening, but one wonders whether he’s looked at it himself. Just culling through the top 10 ten most “failed” states, we find strategic backwaters like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Chad, and Haiti among the ranks. Is Goldberg in favor of sending U.S. servicemen and women to attempt to implant good governance in Kinshasa and N'Djamena? Why on Earth would we want to do that? More to the point, what makes us think we could succeed?
Goldberg doesn’t tell us, but rather argues that recent events in Somalia and the Afghanistan example force our hand. Even the historical track record of nation-building failures isn’t sufficient to cast doubt in his mind. Embracing the liberal explanation of terrorism (which, unfortunately, the Bush administration has largely embraced as well), Goldberg tells us:
If all the rhetoric about the “root causes” of terrorism — poverty, disease, political instability, hopelessness, etc.— are to be taken seriously, then the morally compelling position on Iraq (and Afghanistan) should be to spend whatever it takes to get Iraq and other crucial failed states up and running on the path to normalcy and decency.
Trouble is, all the rhetoric about root causes is wrong. It should not be taken seriously. It isn’t poverty, disease, and political instability that cause terrorism; if it were, all of sub-Saharan Africa would be awash in terrorism. The 9/11 hijackers came from middle- and upper-middle class families, not impoverished or diseased ones.
Much as it hurts to say it, our enemies by and large don’t hate us because they’re poor, or because they’re hopeless; they hate us because they believe that we are hostile to them. As a recent report from the Government Accountability Office put things, “U.S. foreign policy is the major root cause behind anti-American sentiments among Muslim populations and…this point needs to be better researched, absorbed, and acted upon by government officials.” Mucking about in Chad isn’t going to help our position in the war on terror, and could well serve to make it worse by strengthening Muslims’ beliefs about American foreign policy.
Moreover, the Somalia example doesn’t demonstrate what Goldberg thinks it does. Although the news remains far from conclusive about the implications of recent events in that country, attempting to build a coherent state in Somalia is going to do little to eliminate any threat that may exist there. Attacking threats rarely involves paving roads or establishing new judicial standards. It may be the case that the now-ruling factions in Somalia are too cozy with Islamic terrorists. We may even need to go in and kill some people. But sending Goldberg’s “souped-up version of the Peace Corps” is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.
And it is here where Goldberg veers wildly off course into the mushiest liberal idealism. He acknowledges that we can’t go it alone, and proposes his “League of Democracies” in order to take up the nation-building cause. Trouble is, there are only a few democracies with military and constabulary forces which could make any meaningful contribution in failed states. The even bigger trouble is, none of them seem to want to. France, India, Japan, and Germany didn’t seem too inclined to accompany us into Iraq, and Russia and China would not be members of the League of Democracies. So that leaves America and England.
But the article is a sign of a much deeper problem than just one commentator’s views on failed states. Since the invasion of Iraq, Republicans have been on a reckless binge in foreign policy. Aspirations of empire even came into vogue, with pro-empire pundits invading the pages not just of the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal, but making appearances even on the pages of this esteemed magazine. This tendency is a worrying sign for American conservatism — and the country itself.
As a hangover cure to this foreign-policy bender, we offer George Will’s remarks about nation building, given in an address to the recent dinner for Cato’s Milton Friedman Award:
[W]hen you hear the phrase "nation building," remember, it is as preposterous as the phrase "orchid building." Nations are not built like Tinker Toys and erector sets. They are complicated, organic growths, just as orchids are. And they are not built, either.
We agree. Conservative skepticism about government action should not be limited to domestic policy. If the American government is smart enough to figure out how to make a coherent state out of Chad, what is it not smart enough to do? Surely it could run an education system here at home, where it speaks the language and understands the culture. Surely it could run a health care system.
But it can’t, and neither can it build good government abroad. The 2000-era Bush had it right, and the current Bush (and Jonah Goldberg) has it just wrong.
You might find this interesting.
HERE is what we are up to in Iraq Afghanistan et al. Time for this 9-10-01 Do Nothing dogma die the same death Appeasement and Isolationism did.
Counter Insurgency is a strange bastard style of war. It is not total war but it is also more then the Leftist" Police matter". The other thing most old Cast Iron Conservatives forget is the political aspect. Iraq was doable. We had the political consensus to do it. So since we needed a kill zone we could suck the terrorists into and we needed to get the American people to support the cost, there was no other choice BUT Iraq.
Want to really blow the Leftists minds? Tell them this. Even if Al Gore won in 2000 and 9-11 happened the USA would STILL be doing the same thing now in Iraq. Iraq was doable militarily and politically. There was no other place for the US to go. Iraq is basically the same deal as the invasions of Italy was in 1943
Here in a nutshell, is the military reason for Iraq. The War on Terrorism is different sort of war. In the war on Terrorism, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone. Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is hostile to guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).
There are other reasons to do Iraq but that is the military reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.
Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. I often worry that the American people have neither the maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" then to actually THINK. Problem is these people have NO desire to co-exist with us. They see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. They think their "god" will bless them for killing Westerners.
So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest realize we are serious. See in the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it.
That policy was tried by the Russians in Afganistan, the US in Vietnam and the Nazis in Russia and the Balkans. Sounds all macho, only problem is it doesn't work. Counter Insurgency is as much about building a political structure as it is about war. Problem too many of the Freeper Generals have is they cannot seem to grasp the concept that Total War and Counter Insurgency are two completely different types of missions.
Hmm intresting. I read it again and still find NO solutions despite your claims. Just more empty bitching. Typical Do Nothingism. By wsing this "logic" Clinton decided we had NO compelling reason to do anything in Afganistan in the 1990s. The end result of that policy of Do Nothingism lead directly to the 9-11 Atrocities and the global spread of Al Qeda cells.
That is not to say that each failed-state is a threat right now, of course, but so what? It's like neighborhood liquor stores and crime; having a corner liquor store can lead to higher crime but that doesn't mean that if you go look at each and every liquor store right now you'll find crime taking place! You will not. But that doesn't negate the correlation.
Besides that, the author has noted (as if by way of criticism) that few democracies seem willing at present to contribute to Goldberg's "democratic peace corps". Well, that is true, but irrelevant: Goldberg's trying to make the moral and strategic case that they should! That they do not is to their discredit, if Goldberg is correct.
Finally, I cannot let this statement slide:
"Much as it hurts to say it, our enemies by and large don’t hate us because they’re poor, or because they’re hopeless; they hate us because they believe that we are hostile to them."
Sorry, not quite. They hate us because they adhere to a millenialist-utopian fascist theocratic ideology (part of which necessitates a pan-Arab-Muslim empire) and they believe our continued existence and prosperity stands in the way of their vision coming to fruition. (Which, by the way, is correct.) But to summarize this viewpoint of theirs as "they believe we are hostile to them" is like summarizing Hitler's feelings about Jews as "he believed Jews were hostile to him". This was true, in a way (they existed and he wished them not to), but it's a very perverse angle from which to view things. It places the emphasis on us and such pedestrian things as our "foreign policy" when from any proper perspective you'd think would be placed on the people who are megalomaniacal, bloodthirsty xenophoboes.
Nor am I particularly happy with the formulation that the foreign policy of the United States is to blame for injured feelings on the part of the Islamists - I think it's fairly obvious that nothing of the sort is actually the case. They hate us for what we are, not for what we've done, and taking umbrage at our support of Israel while we are busy filling their pockets with incredible wealth strikes me as short-sighted, just the sort of attitude someone who is intent on portraying an injured loser adopts. In point of fact, the injury to the "Arab street" isn't the fact that we've failed to fork over the oil money, it's that their own rulers have failed to split the take. That isn't really our problem.
I am in broad agreement that the act of nation-building is fraught with peril and just as often a failure as a success. It isn't an activity that we have embarked upon in Iraq (or in Japan or Germany either) for its sheer nobility, it's one that presents the least odds of a catastrophic outcome - a Communist post-WWII Germany or Japan, a sundered Iraq under contending groups of rival radicals. Nation-building is a crapshoot and some of the time we're going to lose, but it is, as the punchline of the old joke goes, the only game in town. Just my $0.02.
The only thing I could add, and often have, is that this campaign resembles Guadalcanal more than any other action in our past.
As you stated, and as we did then, we manuevered the Japanese into a fight at maximum disadvantage to them and maximum advantage to us. And like in Iraq, we boxed them in politically so that they couldn't quit, without critical loss of face.
If we survive as a nation... we will look back on Iraq and marvel that so many people could not understand the necessity of forcing a stand-up fight, in a place where we could employ our strengths. And what it would have cost us if we hadn't.
Excellent post on your part.
I think it's consistent with both conservatism and libertarianism that "government should only do what only government can do". Individuals cannot, but governments can -- and should -- defeat the evil "isms", making freedom possible for individuals.
What are they advocating then? Undoing things?
I think it is a good refutation of Goldberg's premises and proposals. I'm glad to see it came from NR.
They're critiquing the failed state theory of terrorism. This article is a critique, not a prescription.
I agree. One of our biggest problems next to directly fighting armed terrorists is not only the backstabbing liberal media but also the ignorance of the American public. I doubt most Americans fully understand what we are up against. Many peoples minds are still in a 9/10 way of thinking rather than a post 9/11 as they should be. Islamo-fascism is as big a threat as was Nazism and communism. It cannot be coexisted with.
Because for a insurgency to survive it needs the support of the local population.
To defeat a insurgency we need the support of the local population.
I agree, but I will also point out that the fault also lies with the Right as well.
We are all responsible for selling this war, I do it everyday with workmates and friends, and we do not sell it buy coming out with glib kill them all, statements either, of the type many freeprs come out with, such as the statement I have just replied to.
How can we explain counter insurgency to the left when many who support the war have no idea what it involves.
As an aside everyone I have talked to on fighting the war, why we are fighting, tactics involved and why we have had setbacks have seen the point of view I have attempted to present.
IMHO, "nation building" is clearly in our self-interest. As the worlds' population grows, opportunity for all is clearly dependent upon functioning democracies. The UN currently fails at this precisely because the majority of countires in the UN still are NOT democracies.
hurting*
Uh huh. So, given that our government can't even run a decent school system, what makes you think it can suceed in turning backward, tribal societies into democracies? And further, even if could do it, what evidence have you that the benefits would outweigh the costs?
I must say, our record in this regard isn't very good. And no, Germany and Japan don't count. They were modern, industrialized societies with all the institutions of capitalism and civil society firmly in place before we even got to them. They were nothing like Iraq or any other country in the mid East or Africa.
You missed the point. The authors do not deny that failed states can be threats. They are merely denying, with considerable support, that state failure is the "root cause" of terrorism. The fact that there exist many failed states unconnected to terrorism, and plenty of non-failed states that sponsor it proves their point.
Nor am I particularly happy with the formulation that the foreign policy of the United States is to blame for injured feelings on the part of the Islamists
Given that the terrorists themselves say our foriegn policy drives them, I hardly see how you can deny this point. BTW, I'm NOT suggesting that they are justified in hating us because of our foreign policy. The policies that offend them are good policies, and we should continue with them. But let's not be idiots and ignore reality.
They hate us for what we are,not for what we've done
And your evidence is...
I am in broad agreement that the act of nation-building is fraught with peril and just as often a failure as a success. It isn't an activity that we have embarked upon in Iraq (or in Japan or Germany either) for its sheer nobility, it's one that presents the least odds of a catastrophic outcome - a Communist post-WWII Germany or Japan, a sundered Iraq under contending groups of rival radicals.
I am so sick of these Germany and Japan anlogies that the neocons keep repeating ad nausium. GERMANY AND JAPAN WERE NOTHING LIKE IRAQ. Germany and Japan were modern, industrialized societies with the all the insitutions of capitalism and rule of law firmly in place. Iraq is a pre-modern, backward, tribal society. There has neven been a single case in which we have successfully transformed such a society into a democracy, and plenty of examples where we failed. See Haiti.
Futhermore, you're positing a false dilema: Iraq need not be ruled by rival radicals if it is not turned into a democracy. There is the third possibility: rule by warlords, monarchs, or strongmen uninterested in Islamic ideology. Such countries are actually better at suppressing Islamic terrorists than are democracies. See Jordan, Kuwait, and Uzbekistan for examples.
Goldberg argued for an international organization tasked with going around the world systematically cleaning up failed states, which would include chad. Hence your accusation of a straw man argument is without any basis.
It's difficult to see how/why someone would argue against the (obvious) observation that state power-vacuums make appealing locales for terrorists to form havens, corrupt the local power structure, and train up brainwashed-robots to come kill us.
They're not arguing against that. They're arguing against the assertion that state failure is the "root cause" of terrorisim, something which many leftists and neocons have argued.
Sorry, not quite. They hate us because they adhere to a millenialist-utopian fascist theocratic ideology (part of which necessitates a pan-Arab-Muslim empire) and they believe our continued existence and prosperity stands in the way of their vision coming to fruition.
This is what motivates the leadership and the most extreme members of Al Qaeda. The vast majority of Al Qaeda supporters (which would include most Muslims), however, do not believe this. They still sympathize and support Al Qaeda largely because they don't like many of our (appropriate) foreign policies, (supporting Israel, maintaning a military presence in the Mid East,exporting our culture, etc.).
We "re-culturated" Japan....7 years of american governorship after WWII -quite successfully. If you imagine 5 people on top of a hill, with 95 around them, looking up...thinking about pulling you down...you'd better figure out a way to extend to them the same opportunity you and yours were able to take advantage of. There are 300 million of us americans...6 Billion people out there. The lives of your grandchildren depend upon doing so successfully.
Ugh, please, not the Japan analogy again (same goes for Germany). It's really stupid, and really tiresome. See my other posts on this thread for my refutation of this silly argument.
If you imagine 5 people on top of a hill, with 95 around them, looking up...thinking about pulling you down...you'd better figure out a way to extend to them the same opportunity you and yours were able to take advantage of. There are 300 million of us americans...6 Billion people out there.
Funny how it's not people from poor countries who are attacking us. Every single one of the 9-11 hijackers was from a rich family.
The lives of your grandchildren depend upon doing so successfully.
What a drama queen you're turning out to be.
I am quite aware that there are other explanations for terrorist states other than those of "failed" states - the Soviet Union was, after all, the mother of them all. Goldberg was aware of it as well. But to suggest that a more proper alternative than nation-building is to devolve on the old model of setting up dictators, thugs, and tyrants who have fewer scruples about putting down Islamism is, if you will forgive me, both outmoded and outrageous. Saddam was such a fellow before he found it advantageous to add the Koran to his flag. It didn't help Kuwait one bit.
I do find it curious that you swallow so uncritically the claims of the terrorists that they are merely responding to U.S. foreign policy. In fact, Sayyid Qutb, al-Wahhab, and even Osama bin Laden were quite upfront about their aims, and response to U.S. foreign policy was nonexistent for the first two and a distant excuse for the third. Osama's casus belli, if you recall, was a non-existent U.S. "occupation" of the Arabian peninsula. It's a little hard for us to reform a foreign policy we don't actually possess and didn't actually follow.
There have certainly been failures in attempts at nation-building - Somalia comes to mind. What has evolved since that failure is something rather worse, both for the unfortunate inhabitants and for the world at large. But after the failure in Somalia we did, in fact, pursue the course of action you recommend and depend on the warlords to keep the Islamists down. They have failed to do so.
Iraq is, contrary to all the doom-saying and gloom-gloating, beginning to look like a nation again. I'm willing to await a little more data before declaring it a failure, because I don't think it's going to be. Your opinion may differ and you're welcome to it.
The organization Goldberg envisions, if it ever came to fruition (it will not - this discussion is academic :), would do one (or a few) things at a time. It would have its mission(s) selected on the basis of the particulars. And it would be tasked with various "security" type operations.
It's conceivable that at some point Chad would appear on its radar and the organization would be dispatched there, yes. (Now, it must be stated: if it got to that point, the hypothetical Chad operation might actually make sense! It would depend! And to argue against it you'd have to argue against the particulars!) But what is not conceivable is that the organization would say to itself "well damn, we got this list of Failed States, and Chad's on it, so we gotta go to Chad. And what we're gonna do there is muck about".
Hence, Goldberg is not, in point of fact, Arguing In Favor Of "Mucking About In Chad". He's arguing in favor of creating an institution which could - if necessary - perform useful security operations, in places like (yes) Chad. There's a difference, and the difference lies in how determined one is to characterize what Goldberg's saying in the worst light possible. Your mileage may vary I guess.
They're arguing against the assertion that state failure is the "root cause" of terrorisim, something which many leftists and neocons have argued.
I've honestly never seen anyone argue that "state failure" is a root cause of terrorism. Goldberg doesn't do so in this article, for example.
[ideology motivates v. our foreign policy motivates] This is what motivates the leadership and the most extreme members of Al Qaeda. The vast majority of Al Qaeda supporters (which would include most Muslims), however, do not believe this.
Your detailed in-depth knowledge, broken down by extremeness, of what motivates the various members of Al Qaeda is fascinating.
They still sympathize and support Al Qaeda largely because they don't like many of our (appropriate) foreign policies, (supporting Israel, maintaning a military presence in the Mid East,exporting our culture, etc.).
There is a phenomenon that occurs in the Middle East, in which some tyrant or charismatic or another, for reasons of his own, decided to give fiery speeches or stir up public sentiments about how the U.S. shouldn't have troops in such and such backwater place, or something. And some % of the listeners fall into the demagoguery, and some % of those end up becoming terrorists, and perhaps some of those would say, if asked, "I'm doing this because U.S. troops are in such and such backwater place."
It would be a mistake, I believe, to summarize or even describe this phenomenon as "they're angry at our foreign policy".
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