Thursday, May 02, 2002
Robert Kaplan paints a realistic contrarian world
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
"Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos," by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 2002, 197 pp, $ 22.95) is a skinny book that sends one searching for meanings and sources. The Atlantic Monthly’s star political observer (his "Balkan Ghosts" of 1993 has been quoted here) in his newest analysis advocates Realpolitik, and hints at targeted, selective suppression of the ideals of democracy and personal morality in the 3rd World as desirable, in the greater interests of mankind.. It is a startling thought. If this review is somewhat in the manner of Cliff Notes, it is to give you the roots of the thoughts expressed. Read the book itself for a better reach. Notes and bibliography are provided.
He starts by reminding us that the populist social reformers of the 20th century, motivated by ideas of social renewal, industrialization and technology, were responsible for 118 million deaths - 21 million for Hitler, 35 for Mao and 65 for Stalin. Incidentally, our Founding Fathers were smart, they provided for the impeachment of a President before they elected one.
The reasons for the murderous reformers’ success are present today, ever more so. This is an age of social unrest, driven by the elements of overpopulation, resource scarcity, income disparity and information technology that makes the poor aware of the differences. Badly underpaid young workers with cell phones and Internet access do not make for more stability in North Africa and the Mideast. Liberalization and democracy in such places as Egypt, Syria and Algeria just unleash extremist unrest. Do not expect ethnic reconciliation in such areas - see India and .Afghanistan. The post-Colonial Era is in the early stages of collapse. .Next decade may wither Pakistan and Nigeria. Cities overshadow nations, and city-states are run by oligarchs if not criminals. While elites babble about globalization, new class struggles arise, tied to religious and urban tensions.
Globalization exists in that states do not war with each other. Today’s successful warring is asymmetric, the post-industrial era empowers anyone with a Nokia and a bag of explosives. Only foolish dictators like Saddam Hussein arm for a straight-on war. Technology increases barbarism, by breaking the emotional link between decision and performance. Modernization made feasible such actions as Auschwitz, air warfare and massive corporate downsizing. Electronic communications facilitate cruelty. The vaunted meritocracy encourages competition among millions of employees. Cultures that fail to compete technologically resort to violence, including rape and pilferage (Serbs and Croatians, Kashmiris, Chechens, Russian soldiers). Some recover, some remain unstable.
For clues of morality Kaplan looks at Plutarch, Seneca, Cicero and particularly Livy’s History of the 2nd Punic War, a 17-year conflict, when the peace-breaker Hannibal kept conquering territories until Rome woke up to the dangers. This was not unlike the Germans and Japanese before WWII. Afterwards the Romans chose a more activist dictatorial form of government (Kaplan’s modern parallels include Fujimori, Chavez and Musharraf)..
Roman attitudes parallel those of the Chinese of strategist Sun-Tzu. The latter’s "Art of War" ascribed the highest excellence to avoidance of fighting, and saw battle as a failure. His advice -:planning strategically, as a hungry man, ignoring public opinion, not shunning deceit in conducting intense politics - also included using good spies as a way of avoiding bloodshed. Here Kaplan lays the groundwork for morality based on results, not good intentions, a "tough love" that eventually advances the objectives of Judaeo-Christian mortality. That view is supported by Machiavelli, the realist, in an Italian city-state environment, comparable to today’s Sao Paolo, Karachi, Beirut, Bangalore.
Thucydides, the failed Athenian general and excellent historian, saw fear, self-interest and honor as the drives, causing action based on instinct that overwhelms law, with resulting anarchy. Hubris - Melian atrocity - sets seeds of disaster, as the Spartans learned. Uncontrollable allies are a liability.
Machiavelli saw heavy-handed treatment of opposition as leading up to meaningful peace effort, e.g. Rabin suppressed the 1st Intifada, then engaged in the Stockholm agreement. Clinton vs. China was sanctimonious, and vs. Milosewich in Kosovo was late (by 6 years), and the UN, in its Timor action, was inadequate. Power to hurt is a bargaining chip, exploring it is diplomacy.
Virtue is of questionable value. Pressing for human rights would have weakened Jordan’s King Hussein when he threw out the PLO. Our world supports or condones Mubarak’s Egypt, Musharraf’s Pakistan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, even China. Weakening such transgressors would cause anarchy, war potential and more human suffering. You get the drift.
Our Founding Fathers followed Machiavelli. Hamilton distrusted men, Madison saw the republic as filtering the whims of the public through agents and representatives. Machiavelli saw that competing self-interests drive politics and lead to compromises, while stiff moral arguments lead to wars.
Intervention is matter of judgment. Chamberlain was a classic determinism case, not interfering, vs. Churchill, the unstable and overbearing drinker and hater. He and Isaiah Berlin abhorred determinism, as fatalism.. Using statistical studies - Raymond Aron’s "probabilistic determinism" - is another matter. What this discussion leads to is how to decide when to interfere, say, in Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone. "Virtue is good, outstanding virtue is dangerous." Media will trigger virtue by seeking to show blood and atrocities,
In explaining why Sierra Leone, Haiti and Congo are hurt by democracy and need dictatorship, Kaplan brings in Hobbes’s Leviathan, primitive peoples’ choice of a powerful protector. As to sources of the atrocities, the Malthusian theories of overpopulation and scarce resources (the modern "limits of growth") come into play...A "balance of power argument" comes on with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Moral arguments fail in face of the necessity of arming the Croatians. Kant’s "universal law" loses out.
Eventually we come to the warrior politics. The crude Greeks’ attack on the civilized Trojans, on a whim of the gods, is the basis, with comparisons to Islamists, Russian/Albanian mafiosi, Latin American drug kingpins and West Bank suicide bombers. In terms of US, Kaplan sees the insertion of armed brigades in 96 hours in response as the attacks as virtuous. Here we come to the "virtual war," bloodless (i.e. not US blood), conducted by air attack The enemies are not soldiers but "warriors," from among the poor unemployed young, angered by the economic disparity which is highlighted by communications Such are created in Islamist schools in Pakistani slums, or come from ex-convict skinheads, backwoods "patriots," cashiered ex-military, and drug and crime mafia. Media drive emotions. Suffering with the poor and accepting injury will invite attack. Ancient codes of honor will prevail, feudal relationships of protectors will arise more than ever.
As an idealistic solution, Kaplan presents a Sumerian (3rd Millenium BC) or Chinese Han Dynasty (2nd Mill BC) scheme of independent and interdependent fiefdoms that coexist for fear of worse if they pull out. Is EU or UN qualified? Maybe.If you are looking for direct answers, Kaplan maintains that he is demonstrating how to think, not what to think. Neat but not believable. Read for yourself.
"Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos," by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 2002, 197 pp, $ 22.95) is a skinny book that sends one searching for meanings and sources. The Atlantic Monthly’s star political observer (his "Balkan Ghosts" of 1993 has been quoted here) in his newest analysis advocates Realpolitik, and hints at targeted, selective suppression of the ideals of democracy and personal morality in the 3rd World as desirable, in the greater interests of mankind.. It is a startling thought. If this review is somewhat in the manner of Cliff Notes, it is to give you the roots of the thoughts expressed. Read the book itself for a better reach. Notes and bibliography are provided.
He starts by reminding us that the populist social reformers of the 20th century, motivated by ideas of social renewal, industrialization and technology, were responsible for 118 million deaths - 21 million for Hitler, 35 for Mao and 65 for Stalin. Incidentally, our Founding Fathers were smart, they provided for the impeachment of a President before they elected one.
The reasons for the murderous reformers’ success are present today, ever more so. This is an age of social unrest, driven by the elements of overpopulation, resource scarcity, income disparity and information technology that makes the poor aware of the differences. Badly underpaid young workers with cell phones and Internet access do not make for more stability in North Africa and the Mideast. Liberalization and democracy in such places as Egypt, Syria and Algeria just unleash extremist unrest. Do not expect ethnic reconciliation in such areas - see India and .Afghanistan. The post-Colonial Era is in the early stages of collapse. .Next decade may wither Pakistan and Nigeria. Cities overshadow nations, and city-states are run by oligarchs if not criminals. While elites babble about globalization, new class struggles arise, tied to religious and urban tensions.
Globalization exists in that states do not war with each other. Today’s successful warring is asymmetric, the post-industrial era empowers anyone with a Nokia and a bag of explosives. Only foolish dictators like Saddam Hussein arm for a straight-on war. Technology increases barbarism, by breaking the emotional link between decision and performance. Modernization made feasible such actions as Auschwitz, air warfare and massive corporate downsizing. Electronic communications facilitate cruelty. The vaunted meritocracy encourages competition among millions of employees. Cultures that fail to compete technologically resort to violence, including rape and pilferage (Serbs and Croatians, Kashmiris, Chechens, Russian soldiers). Some recover, some remain unstable.
For clues of morality Kaplan looks at Plutarch, Seneca, Cicero and particularly Livy’s History of the 2nd Punic War, a 17-year conflict, when the peace-breaker Hannibal kept conquering territories until Rome woke up to the dangers. This was not unlike the Germans and Japanese before WWII. Afterwards the Romans chose a more activist dictatorial form of government (Kaplan’s modern parallels include Fujimori, Chavez and Musharraf)..
Roman attitudes parallel those of the Chinese of strategist Sun-Tzu. The latter’s "Art of War" ascribed the highest excellence to avoidance of fighting, and saw battle as a failure. His advice -:planning strategically, as a hungry man, ignoring public opinion, not shunning deceit in conducting intense politics - also included using good spies as a way of avoiding bloodshed. Here Kaplan lays the groundwork for morality based on results, not good intentions, a "tough love" that eventually advances the objectives of Judaeo-Christian mortality. That view is supported by Machiavelli, the realist, in an Italian city-state environment, comparable to today’s Sao Paolo, Karachi, Beirut, Bangalore.
Thucydides, the failed Athenian general and excellent historian, saw fear, self-interest and honor as the drives, causing action based on instinct that overwhelms law, with resulting anarchy. Hubris - Melian atrocity - sets seeds of disaster, as the Spartans learned. Uncontrollable allies are a liability.
Machiavelli saw heavy-handed treatment of opposition as leading up to meaningful peace effort, e.g. Rabin suppressed the 1st Intifada, then engaged in the Stockholm agreement. Clinton vs. China was sanctimonious, and vs. Milosewich in Kosovo was late (by 6 years), and the UN, in its Timor action, was inadequate. Power to hurt is a bargaining chip, exploring it is diplomacy.
Virtue is of questionable value. Pressing for human rights would have weakened Jordan’s King Hussein when he threw out the PLO. Our world supports or condones Mubarak’s Egypt, Musharraf’s Pakistan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, even China. Weakening such transgressors would cause anarchy, war potential and more human suffering. You get the drift.
Our Founding Fathers followed Machiavelli. Hamilton distrusted men, Madison saw the republic as filtering the whims of the public through agents and representatives. Machiavelli saw that competing self-interests drive politics and lead to compromises, while stiff moral arguments lead to wars.
Intervention is matter of judgment. Chamberlain was a classic determinism case, not interfering, vs. Churchill, the unstable and overbearing drinker and hater. He and Isaiah Berlin abhorred determinism, as fatalism.. Using statistical studies - Raymond Aron’s "probabilistic determinism" - is another matter. What this discussion leads to is how to decide when to interfere, say, in Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone. "Virtue is good, outstanding virtue is dangerous." Media will trigger virtue by seeking to show blood and atrocities,
In explaining why Sierra Leone, Haiti and Congo are hurt by democracy and need dictatorship, Kaplan brings in Hobbes’s Leviathan, primitive peoples’ choice of a powerful protector. As to sources of the atrocities, the Malthusian theories of overpopulation and scarce resources (the modern "limits of growth") come into play...A "balance of power argument" comes on with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Moral arguments fail in face of the necessity of arming the Croatians. Kant’s "universal law" loses out.
Eventually we come to the warrior politics. The crude Greeks’ attack on the civilized Trojans, on a whim of the gods, is the basis, with comparisons to Islamists, Russian/Albanian mafiosi, Latin American drug kingpins and West Bank suicide bombers. In terms of US, Kaplan sees the insertion of armed brigades in 96 hours in response as the attacks as virtuous. Here we come to the "virtual war," bloodless (i.e. not US blood), conducted by air attack The enemies are not soldiers but "warriors," from among the poor unemployed young, angered by the economic disparity which is highlighted by communications Such are created in Islamist schools in Pakistani slums, or come from ex-convict skinheads, backwoods "patriots," cashiered ex-military, and drug and crime mafia. Media drive emotions. Suffering with the poor and accepting injury will invite attack. Ancient codes of honor will prevail, feudal relationships of protectors will arise more than ever.
As an idealistic solution, Kaplan presents a Sumerian (3rd Millenium BC) or Chinese Han Dynasty (2nd Mill BC) scheme of independent and interdependent fiefdoms that coexist for fear of worse if they pull out. Is EU or UN qualified? Maybe.If you are looking for direct answers, Kaplan maintains that he is demonstrating how to think, not what to think. Neat but not believable. Read for yourself.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:42 PM 
