That was a beautiful day!
Posted on 08/05/2003 6:29:24 AM PDT by dead
The author seems to have missed the point that the "collective response" approach (a la the UN) has FAILED UNEQUIVOCABLY WHEREVER IT HAS BEEN ATTEMPTED.
But there are a couple of issues I'll be thinking about. First, that the author is on the right track with the "hard power / soft power" dichotomy, but the bulk of the references to international relations in the article revolved around hard power. In fact, it is the soft power that will prove more significant, IMHO. We are, in essence, trying to set up a worldwide system, a structure for relations, rather than a government, and the sort of thing that is evolving may best be illustrated by the fact that I'm typing on a Sony computer and I have a Nokia phone on my belt. Nor is this restricted to large multinational corporations - these two grew up within the system that predates them.
Will Gulliver remain a giant? For the time, but in age one shrinks and the others grow. The trick is to set up a system wherein we may shrink comfortably and the others grow without attempting to do so by picking the bones - this sort of thing is not a zero-sum game and never has been; it's just that that's the easiest model for the unsuccessful to understand.
Lots of issues - more later - gotta go...
We don't, and these leftist-leaning "experts" know it.
I don’t believe you even read the article.
No country that respects the rule of law is in danger from us. We do however want and have to destroy our enemies, and we finally have a president who understands that.
That was largely this “leftist-leaning expert's” point.
Why yes, I am concerned about the privacy ramifications of RFID technology. Can we be sure the stores will turn the chips off when we leave the store? Or will we be walking radio beacons, trackable by any government agency that feels like monitoring us?
I'd dispute that the 'Rumsfeld strategy' and the cooperative strategy are mutually exclusive. The first reflects our military policy and the second our economic policy. They are complementary.
Another quibble is that 'international opinion' is not de facto legitimate. If the global elite consensus is venal, short-sighted, foolish, and undemocratic, as is quite often the case, we have no obligation to accept it.
We 'dominate' because we value freedom and rationality. Our republican government has a strong democratic counterweight while permitting individual rationality to prevail over mob rule. We are threatened by tyranny and irrationality and the folly it generates.
When the rest of the world accepts human rights (freedom), we will have little need to dominate them. That's the only way out of the current situation -- to derail the most dangerous and irresponsible states while encouraging freedom elsewhere to reduce the incentives for bloody confrontation.
True, although he does recognize that the United States -- and not just the U.S. but "English-speaking nations" -- are attracting the best and brightest from all over thanks to "the wealth of opportunity and the speed of advancement", which is a roundabout way of saying that when people are free, they will be most productive.
It is hard for continental Euro intellectuals like Joffe to speak the words "liberty" and "freedom" without irony. In essence, they are still hoping to build Plato's Republic, in which "social harmony" takes precedence over the freedom of individuals to make choices.
The author mentions "public goods," an economic notion of a good that one person can benefit from while not taking away from another. Television broadcasts, for example, or national defense.
Unfortunately, he neglects to note that when there are public goods people tend to free-ride. And so not only can other powers get away with lower defense spending in the Pax Americana, they far more importantly can be secure that global malefactors will target their ire entirely at the hegemon. When Al Qaeda or North Korea wants to upset the international order, they don't threaten France or Britain, they threaten the U.S. The flip side of being the global cop is having a unique set of enemies that second-tier powers don't have to worry about. This is what Sept. 11 has taught us.
The only way the U.S. can accept this unique burden is to have unique freedom to attack its unique enemies. This is the essence of the "pre-emption" strategy we've heard so much about. The U.S. government, to fulfill its most elementary obligation of defending its citizens, can't afford to be constrained by the Security Council, the ICC, etc.
But this is unacceptable to second-tier powers, who have their own national interests to defend, interests that an unconstrained US will be able to override. They are compelled to tie Gulliver down. This clash between the interests of the hegemon and of the second-tier powers is irreconcilable in the existing system. Sooner or later, most of the second-tier powers, perhaps even Britain, will find it necessary to oppose the U.S.
In short, the present situation – unchecked U.S. dominance outside the international legal framework combined with its inability to protect its security within it – cannot stand.
There are only three ways out of this conflict as I see it:
1. Remake the international order. International disputes will have to be moved out of arenas where the likes of France and Russia can stifle the U.S. Since some second-tier powers, e.g. India and Japan, feel cheated in the existing system, the U.S. might be able to draw them on board for some modification of the international security system.
2. Coalitions of the (anti-American) willing. This is the drive France and perhaps Russia have launched. For all the U.S. might, it couldn't possibly defy the will of most of the planet's other powers, secondary though they be. A more aggressive coalition of secondary powers would force the U.S. to back down, in the process drawing away some of the anger of global malefactors toward them.
3. Little America. U.S. withdrawal without being forced to from some of the global policing job, allowing (indeed forcing) secondary powers to assert their interests in their spheres. I rate this as much less likely, but if enough attacks on the U.S. result from the existing unstable system, I could see us leaving the Middle East and East Asia to fend for themselves.
But no matter how it turns out, we are living in interesting times.
If there was ever a blueprint for one world government...we have it...the Constitution. It could easily be projected into The United States of the World, or The United Individuals of the World. We are moving in that direction as more and more people understand the concept of freedom.It is not of course a blueprint that favors those who seek authority without responsibility...which means such people, regardless of what they want to do with said authority, will oppose it.
Our culture is so popular not because it is American, but because it is a culture based upon popularity, not the tastes of the elite. This guarantees that the "cultural elite" wannabes both here and around the world will oppose it. Indeed, for all its occasional crassness it is the secret weapon that spreads our influence. Which is only fair because it could only have developed in a place that supports individualism, liberty, and capitalism.
-Eric
That was a beautiful day!
We value those but our freedoms are being taken away by every PC group that comes down the pike and rationality has flown out the window. Of course I'd rather live in the good ol' US of A but someday it will fall. Our demise will not be from another country but we'll do ourselves in.
On your second point (Coalitions of the anti-American willing) - I do not worry about such a thing. Second tier countries may decide that they have an interest in banding together to fight against American hegemony, but any alliance they form will be toothless and fragile.
Their anti-Americanism aside, France's interests do not mirror Russia's, nor do Germany's goals coincide with Canada's. And so on.
Jealousy and envy are not bricks with which to build a lasting alliance. They'll unite on issues from time to time and cause us headaches and PR problems, but that's about the best they'll muster. Plus, we can always peel one of them off an issue with some sugar-coated trade deal or aid package. Their "bedrock principles" run only a couple of hundred million dollars deep.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.