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Which Wise Man of Conservatism is Correct?
I have been struck this week by the divergent opinions of two wise men of conservatism, George Will and Victor Davis Hanson. Will thinks Americans are too mired in pessimism:
The world might currently seem unusually disorderly, but it can be so without being unusually dangerous. If we measure danger by the risk of violence, the world is unusually safe. For this and other reasons, Americans should curb their pessimism.
He points out that terrorist groups in the past have been more lethal, and, though ISIS is nasty, he agrees with President Obama that it poses no existential threat to the US or the West in general. Even its beheadings and other atrocities echo those found in public executions in Shakespeare’s London. With time, this kind of barbarism recedes as cultures mature. Russia, as a nuclear state, is a more worrisome problem, but its ramshackle economy makes sanctions likely to be effective. So we should not be so worried about the state of the world.
Worldwide, violence has been receding, unevenly but strikingly, for centuries. Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist, ascribes the steep decline in violence to numerous factors — governments supplanting anarchy; trade supplanting plunder; rejection of “cruel and unusual” punishments; the decline of interstate war since 1945; the collapse of Communism; the pacifying effect of prosperity and its pursuit; cosmopolitanism, meaning the decline of hostile parochialisms due to literacy, travel, education, popular culture, and mass media.
Additionally, Will suggests that some worrisome situations might have an upside. Greece’s financial troubles might serve to highlight the follies of the European Union and the euro. Foreign policy failures, particularly in Libya, might serve to highlight how unsuitable Hillary Clinton is for the presidency, though it unfortunately also shows how unforced errors in foreign policy are the result of panic. That being the case, Will urges us to buck up and take a more reasonable view of the current state of the world.
Victor Davis Hanson agrees with Will that panic causes problems, but he parts ways when it comes to the state of the world. He compares contemporary conditions to those of the 1930s:
The panic from the ongoing and worldwide Depression in the 1930s had empowered extremist movements the world over. Like-minded, violent dictators of otherwise quite different Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and the Communist Soviet Union all wanted to attack their neighbors.
Hanson argues that had the West been willing to band together to deter Hitler, they could have avoided World War II, but instead Europeans appeased him, the US turned isolationist, Japan and Italy joined Hitler, and anti-Semitism became rampant. Hanson asks if all this doesn’t sound depressingly familiar.
He goes on to catalogue the similarities between that time and our own. Europe is still reeling from the 2008 financial meltdown. The situation is exacerbated by the ill-conceived euro and unwise European immigration policies in recent years. Anti-Semitism is again rampant. The US has turned inward as a result of the Iraq and Afghan wars and an unwillingness on the part of the left to be honest about the nature of the enemy. Hanson argues that
The 1930s should have demonstrated to us that old-time American isolationism and the same old European appeasement will not prevent but only guarantee a war. And the 1930s should have reminded us that Jews are usually among the first — but not the last — to be targeted by terrorists, thugs, and autocrats.
Which of these wise men is on the right track? Can they both be right in some sense? In a way, yes. Both compare the current moment to the past using different signposts. Looking at the bigger comparative picture in terms of levels of violence, Will concludes that things aren’t so bad. VDH compares current trajectories to a particular historical period and suggests that the United States should have learned from history in formulating current policy. Which argument seems more cogent to you?
The comparison is perhaps not quite fair to Will. I don’t think he favors isolationism nor Obama’s policies in general, and panic is not usually the best spur to sensible action. Still, I’m inclined to agree with VDH. Now is not a time to downplay the perilous state of our nation and the world. Policies of appeasement and winking at virulent anti-Semitism lead to very bad places. These things do not heal themselves. The left, with its ironically rosy view of humanity, can’t quite get its collective mind around these realities. After all, if we could just provide jobs for everyone in the world there would be no problems. So, while I agree with Will that panic is not the best response to anything, I still think we have a paradigm from the past that could guide our actions at the current juncture. We should use it.
Published in General
That is a key point, Merina. Radical nations (or organizations) with nukes is a possibility that Will consistently ignores in his various analyses.
I side with VDH. It’s better to be pessimistic and prepared than to be optimistic and underprepared. Will seems to think it’s OK to let the robber into the house because we have insurance and he’s just taking stuff that can be replaced anyways. And Harf would say the robber just needs a better job.
Man with an Axe: I suppose I’d disagree with you somewhat. I don’t think the problems we face today are existential, meaning that if things were to continue by status quo, we would not have major threats to our country’s existence. ISIS, while certainly a significant problem, could not mount a major attack on an American military base or city like Japan did in 1941. There are certain key advantages to being a sovereign nation as we understand it today, and although ISIS is growing, the problem today is not overly severe.
You’re right that al-Qaeda was not an existential threat, but we attacked them after they attacked us. That tends to be how foreign affairs work today. We can argue whether Japan (and the Axis as a whole) directly posed an existential threat to the US, but it follows the same pattern: they attack, we respond. Conventional wisdom about when to go to war seems to go out the window in the wake of a direct attack due to patriotic fervor.
…On second thought, don’t disagree with you. We seem to have an understanding that the world requires American military force, either in general or in response to growing threats. Not to start a fracas, but this is a huge problem I have with libertarianism. They seem to be fine with threats metastasizing until it’s too late.
I don’t think he ignores them per se, but rather that he considers their impact less significant in the grand scheme of things along a long-term timescale.
Let’s assume the following:
What’s the likely result?
It’s a cold calculation when talking about human lives, but in the grand scheme of things, over a long enough timescale, compared to a planet of 7 billion people, it’s a blip.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to prevent it from happening, because it would indeed still be horrible. But strategically-speaking, it’s still a blip.
That is, if I am interpreting Mr. Will’s line of reasoning correctly.
I see a problem with Mr. Pinker’s ‘better angels of our nature’ book that Mr. Will is fond of–it has little to do with angels & does not say that peace & nature are the same. In short, there is no compelling reason to believe a catastrophe has become inevitable or that the trajectory of declining violence will continue on its path or not get worse. It is an attempt to explain phenomena without a coup de l’oeil…
So also with Mr. Will–his dismissal of VDH doom’n’gloom depends on assuming no catastrophe in the world or collapse in America will occur. I like the confidence, but is it an argument?
Mr. Hanson’s concerns are not that Muslim terrorists will bring America down, but that America will collapse. Worst comes to worst, terrorism shows that America is weaker & forces America to reckon with a weakness of which it is not the cause. Or am I getting him wrong?
In a kind of theoretical way, I’d say the quarrel is about political virtue. Mr. Hanson notices it is waning & worries that America will go the way of all human things; Mr. Will is suggesting, great political virtue is unnecessary–things are working out fine without it, because of human institutions, mostly, but maybe also because of new facts, like worldwide prosperity–in short, because the fruits of modern science have been excessively good for us.
True, but there’s also little-to-no evidence that catastrophe has become unavoidable or that the trajectory of declining violence will not continue on its path or that it will get worse (over the long term in a statistically-significant way).
What’s needed is a good robust analysis of the causal forces which have been the impetus for the downward trend in global violence (along with the forces that have had little-to-no causal effect) and to ensure that society keeps them up (while being free to abandon those which had no effect).
One can argue that the split between VDH and GW is a question of faith in humanity’s ability to meet the challenge over the long term, rather than a question over what must be done.
One could also argue that another split between them is in what motivates humanity to take action. VDH seems to believe that humanity can only take action if pundits and activists compel it to be terrified of negative possibilities, which GW seems to believe that humanity will act when the evidence of negative probabilities are indisputable.
If my analysis is correct, GW kinda reminds me of Harry Seldon from the Foundation novels, who calculated that his descendents would resolve each crisis as it presented itself and therefore it wasn’t necessary for them to obsess over the question of when the next crisis was going to present itself.
I don’t know if you’re getting VDH wrong, but I disagree with the idea that terrorists alone can “bring America down” (assuming we define terrorists as non-state actors using violence to achieve an ideological rather than a political/territorial end), any more than the IRA ever had the ability to “bring Britain down”.
Terrorism can be useful for achieving limited, local goals, like carving out a piece of territory to create a new state for example, or replacing the leadership of a state. I’m not aware of any instance where terrorism alone was able to destroy a great nation.
For an analogy, let’s go back to ancient Rome. The Western Empire didn’t collapse thanks to ideological terrorists trying to convert it by force to their ideology. It was brought down by a national alliance of Germanics trying to gain control of Rome’s territory.
Islamic Fascism can gain territory and influence in the middle east, and correspondingly reduce America’s influence there, but that’s not nearly the same thing as “bringing down America”.
In order for Islamic Fascism to truly “bring down America”, it would have to form an alliance with America’s other competitors (Russia, China, the US Democratic Party).
That (IMHO) is highly unlikely considering a) how much Islamic Fascism hates them just as much as it hates America, b) the experiences those powers have already had with Islam in the past, and c) the likeliest end result would be M.A.D.
The future will be messy, and violent, and unpleasant, but I’m not seeing Islamic Fascism winning any war against America (without help from America’s other enemies).
I mostly agree with you on the terrorism problem. It is a symptom of American weakness, exploited by ruthless types, not some great insight into how to bring America down. America can outlive it, as well as just wipe it out–which is not to say whether it will or not. I guess people do sometimes die because of a fishbone…
Now, as to the other questions. First, let’s get to the geeky stuff–Asimov not only has that really clever guy turn to a fanatic who starts a cult, but he then turns around & shows you this kind of thinking is good for Founding, not for Saving. There are simply unpredictable things that set limits on control & calculation (Mule)–also, there are things you do not know that would be necessary for calculation (2nd F.). A Founder does need to see things in a way so clearly that he can set everyone under his care in motion while creating a groove in which they move. A Savior is a guy who thinks the end is near & it’s time to start boxing clever. I think maybe modern people just think a savior is better than a founder, because he has at least as big a problem with far fewer advantages… There is something to this view.
Secondly, the really ugly problem of predicting the future of horrifying & evil things. My problem with descriptive science is that it’s only worth something after the fact. If you can win WW2, go crazy on the quant. But if you hadn’t won it, what then? It’s not quant. that gets you there, it’s Patton. You want an Achilles at the right time, not a brainiac. Is there any way around that? You’d have to have a cause for peace–you’d have to get nature to work around to eternal peace or to get around nature to get to eternal peace. Otherwise, you want to underestimate what science can do, at least on prudential grounds: Americans are looking for reasons to believe everything is peachy, not pitch-black. Europeans seem to believe it is all peachy, never mind what’s happening on the wrong side of the continent… At the same time, if the greatest likelihood is, it’ll be peachy, why would any future Patton bother & who would give him any support or loyalty? So, peace-bias may be imprudent.
Alright, let’s get this party started. Fair warning to Sal that I will be on the site only intermittently today.
External military pressures is not a particularly great excuse for what befell Rome. They faced far greater threats in the early days of the Republic from Hannibal, the Gauls, and Pyrrhus. They faced down these threats at a time when they were vastly poorer, less organized, and lacking a professional military.
It is a culture that went soft that led to their inability to face down threats in the twilight of the empire. Sal will dispute this point, but we can delve into that after he has made his case.
Roman political disunity was also driven from changes in their culture. A clock was ticking on Rome from the moment Marius broke numerous traditions regarding the army, and was granted consecutive terms as consul which violated the Roman constitution.
A people who once jealously guarded their freedoms grew to accept being ruled. All of the political assassinations and civil wars that followed stemmed from this moment when Rome didn’t think it all that important any longer to guard against power hungry men consolidating power.
I think you underestimate the ever-present potential for willful blindness. But I generally agree.
Remember, however, Germany’s seizure of tanks in Yugoslavia and Japan’s decimation of our mighty Navy in a single surprise assault. Resources can change rapidly. How quickly would our military adapt to a sudden loss of satellites? We rely on many things which can change quickly, like alliances for staging areas. And who is to say we will face only one enemy nation at a time?
The USA has the clear strategic advantage. But so did Spain before their armada was devastated in the 16th century. Nothing is certain.
More important than our resources is our will to fight. Putin might correctly judge that he will not wake the sleeping lion. It’s not enough to say that Americans are invested in Europe and want to protect it from Russia. Our leaders might want to protect Europe and yet fail to do so because they determine that the price of war with a nuclear power, allied with China and/or whichever other nations, is too high a price to pay for intervention.
I’m going to push back a bit about whether the Axis threat was truly existential.
That very same Germany that actually commanded the resources of the continent from 1940 to 1944 couldn’t even invade England, a mere 21 miles away, and who had only 2 million men under arms in 1940. Imagine an actual invasion force crossing the Atlantic. We could have wiped most of them out at sea, and easily defeated the ones who managed to land. This became more and more obvious after Germany invaded the Soviet Union months before Pearl Harbor. That fact alone made the threat less than existential, as it was no longer Germany, Japan, and the Soviets against the West, rather, it was Germany and Japan against the rest of the world, even before we got into it.
And even if the Axis powers intended to invade the US, wouldn’t we have had a huge advantage in defending our coastline against a German or Japanese invasion by creating a much larger navy than they could create, and using our entire army of, say, 30 million men to defend any landing they would attempt? We would have had air supremacy and the advantage of taking all defensive precautions. Our population was much larger than theirs, and about equal to the combined population of Germany and Japan. Do you seriously think that we were in existential danger? The total number of men who served in the German army during the entire war period (1935 to 1945) was 18 million or so. We had about the same number who served from 1941-45. If our homeland were invaded we could have tripled that, at the very least, and the Germans knew it. Such an invasion would have ben stupider than invading Russia turned out to be.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have done what we did in WWII. I’m simply saying that a threat doesn’t have to be existential to demand a response.
I agree with VDH, (and Mark Steyn), being mindful of demograhic shifts and the fact that 2 or 3 nuclear weapons exploded high over the atmosphere of the U.S. would put the U.S. back in the stone age. I read last year that Iranian ships have been spotted in the Atlantic cruising around for some unknown reason close to our shores. It would be easy for them to launch a few nukes over us and make us dead, unless we hardened our infrastructure to resist EMP attacks, or severe solar storms for that matter. I don’t see us doing that, and it is the thing that worries me most. It is a relatively easy way for a poor but crazy entity to destroy us.
Very good question. I’ve been struck by George Will’s position on this too. Now I agree ISIS does not pose an existential threat to the US, and while I agree with Hanson that this feels like the conditions of the 1930s I just don’t see the process from which ISIS gets the military capability of Nazi Germany, and therefore creates a world war. Now it could be that I can’t visualize the possible sequence of events, such as Saudia Arabia falling under ISIS and the rest of the Muslim countries following suit. That just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. So on the surface I’m actually closer to George Will. Where I disagree with Will is that what ISIS is doing right now is bad enough and unjust to the people in Iraq. We abandoned Iraq and left it to be picked at. We have an obligation to the people (both Muslim and not) there to stabilize the country and bring it back to a decency. Now it could be that Iran jumps in the middle and causes all Muslims to cohere, but I doubt it. Sunni versus Shia, and they won’t align. But world instability is not a good thing, despite it not being an existential threat. We need to stop ISIS because if they stabilize the country under their rule, they can cause all sorts of trouble across the world.
You’re absolutely right. Germany was an existential threat to the US — Japan wasn’t. Which is why we (wisely) adopted a “Germany First” strategy.
US grand strategy is to prevent the emergence of a single dominant nation on the Eurasian land mass. Only such a dominant nation could challenge US economic and military supremacy. WWII Germany had that capability, if it had either defeated the USSR, or avoided the mistake of attacking the USSR in the first place. Before the attack on the USSR, Germany either ruled, or was allied with, virtually the whole of continental Europe from Poland-Romania eastward.
I’m not convinced that Islamic Fascism, in and of itself, is the direct result of American weakness.
Using the word “weakness” implies a failure by America to perform a duty, and I don’t think it’s America’s duty to be the saviour of all other nations or peoples.
Also, Islamic Fascism existed before America existed, so I don’t see how it can be the result of American inaction.
Furthermore, the currently dominant Islamic Fascist factions(i.e. not Al-Qaeda) haven’t attacked America, so how can they be said to be operating against America more-so than they are operating against the peoples and nations they actually do attack and oppress.
I could be persuaded that it is a result of the limits of American power. It’s simply a mathematical impossibility for America to protect the entire planet from the possibility of violent conflict.
I could also be persuaded that the expansion of Islamic Fascism is the result of a failure of Western power.
It is not America’s fault that Islamic Fascism is on the rise in Europe. It is not America’s fault that Islamic powers hate and conspire against Israel. It is not America’s fault when powers in other parts of the world wage war against their neighbours.
America may choose to act to counteract these events when it’s in America’s best interest, and it may choose not to act when it’s not in America’s best interest, but choosing not to act to counteract events elsewhere does not make those events the result of American inaction.
There are over 75 million people in Iran, so I wouldn’t say that their annihilation would be a “blip.” However, given the anti-Israel stance of the Democratic party, I don’t think that the US would respond to an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel by annihilating Iran. I’m not sure how we would respond, and it’s certainly a nightmare scenario, but I don’t think that we would crush Iran unless they directly nuked the US.
On the major question, but for the nuclear danger, I would side with George Will. Disregarding nukes, even if ISIS succeeded in uniting the Muslim world under a new “Caliphate” stretching from Morrocco to Pakistan, such a Caliphate would be enormously economically and militarily inferior to the US and its principal allies. Similarly, disregarding nukes, Russia lacks the economic, military or population resources to present an existential threat to the US and its principal allies.
The real problem is that when Iran becomes a nuclear power, many other nearby Muslim states will believe it necessary — correctly, in my view — to follow Iran’s lead. Large number of nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf region, which is the hotbed of Islamic radicalism, is a recipe for disaster.
The nightmare scenario is a nuclear attack on a number of US and allied cities, from an unknown source — perhaps a state actor, perhaps a radical terrorist group that managed to get their hands on several nukes. I suspect that the US response would be WWIII, launched against virtually all of the Muslim world.
I guess that, in the final analysis, I agree with George Will even in this terrible scenario, as I believe that the US-led alliance would prevail in such a struggle. But the losses on our side would be enormous, and the death and suffering on the other side would be catastrophic.
I agree, however, how big a disaster depends on how many nuclear weapons qualify as a “large number”.
There are all sorts of terrible, awful, nightmare scenarios that could happen which fall way, way, way short of “the fall of America”.
Hypothetically-speaking, any small-scale nuclear exchange in any part of the world is clearly “a disaster” and the West should certainly work to prevent such an occurrence, HOWEVER, I do not believe the West should prevent such an occurrence at all costs.
From a cold-hearted cost-benefit analysis, the goal of preventing a small-scale nuclear exchange elsewhere on the planet isn’t worth bankrupting or destroying one’s own nation.
If Iran uses a nuclear weapon without devastating nuclear retaliation, the probability greatly increases that some other nuclear power will use them.
I’m not sure what Israel’s capability to respond would be after suffering a nuclear attack. But this is assuming Obama in the White House, or at least a Democrat with similar views.
Basically, and to sum up, I think George Will is talking about America’s ability to prevail in any probable crisis which threatens its existence, and VDH is talking about America’s ability to prevent any probable crisis that threatens its existence.
If I’m right, and that is the fundamental difference in their positions, I think I fall on the side of George Will.
Indeed, while I’m not convinced that the Iraq War was necessary, as soon as America was committed to regime change in Iraq it clearly (IMHO) took on the responsibility of defending the new regime against Islamic Fascism.
I believe that nations should avoid foreign entanglements, but I also believe that, once entered, they have a duty to take responsibility for the results of those entanglements and to follow through on their promises.
That’s why my current feeling is that the US has a duty to defend Iraq from ISIS, as well as a duty to defend Turkey from ISIS (for as long as Turkey is a NATO member), but no duty to defend non-allies (like Syria, for example) from ISIS, and no duty to destroy ISIS as an entity (though it would probably be a benefit, it’s not a duty).
If Syria were to meet some sort of larger scale quid pro quo, like recognizing Israel’s right to exist for example, then I could be persuaded that defending Syria from ISIS was in America’s best interest.
Our pacific fleet was hardly mighty at the start of the war. It became unbelievably so by the end. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but despite the fact that the U.S. and Japan started with a similar number of carriers, Japan was only able to build 1 more over the course of the war, while the U.S. built something like 27.
We could have suffered numerous Pearl Harbors and still had a massive advantage.
Frank- I too will be on the site intermittently due to the fact that I have to take the Indiana bar exam in a few days. Now, on to the substance of your argument:
I think the question of timing should be addressed. You have stated that the moral decline which caused Rome’s fall commenced with the Marian reforms to the Roman legions. This took place in the late second century B.C. Rome continued to increase in power until at least the beginning of the third century A.D. It is quite a stretch to claim that an abandonment of republican virtue on the part of Rome waited four centuries before having an effect on Roman power.
Basically, I think the cultural change you mentioned is too temporally removed from the actual onset of the decline in Roman power for you to assert proximate causation. I am, however, perfectly happy to address additional examples of cultural change closer to the onset of decline, or an alternative date from which Roman decline should be deemed to have started.
As for my affirmative case, I would point to the fact that the Germanic invasions commencing in the third century were of an unprecedented scale and frequency making comparison to the Republican Roman altercations with Carthage, Pontus, and Epirus of limited applicability. I would also note that the rise of Sassanid Persian power at the same time had nothing to do with changes in Roman culture.
Finally, I would dispute the notion that the frequent civil wars of the late Roman Empire were caused by the abandonment of the republic and Roman political culture focused on the rights of free citizens. Instead, I would attribute them primarily to a combination of of factors including the generally low quality of emperors who succeeded to the purple via biological inheritance, the geographic extent of the empire which allowed commanders of frontier armies dangerous levels of autonomy, and the structure of the tetrarchy which inherently set up multiple centers of power which could make competing claims to supremacy with some legitimacy.
As an aside, I would ask what you mean by cultural decline? My initial comment arguing against cultural decline as the explanation for Rome’s fall was in response to Merina, who specifically referenced cultural debauchery. This led me to believe that her emphasis was on moral decline and decadence. I actually do believe that the political disunity of the late empire was significantly increased by a cultural shift, but I don’t think it is one to which she was referring to. The cultural change I would say most negatively affected the Roman Empire’s political unity and ability to maintain power is the rise of Christianity and the subsequent abandonment of religious pluralism throughout the Empire.
Islamic Fascism, seriously talking, cannot precede Fascism–the Muslim Brotherhood, I think, is the first relevant example. What do you mean?
Every major development in the Middle East is America’s fault in a narrow sense, not in a Wilson & the League, FDR & the UN sense. Ask yourself two things? When did the petty tyranny of the House of Saud get control over such great oil resources? Why did America get blackmailed like a little schoolboy–remember the oil shocks? They took your lunch money, pal, & you did not notice?
Weakness is the opposite of strength–it has nothing to do with duty. Americans & America do not profess or practice world-saving. It’s that Muslim terrorists slaughter Americans that should matter to America. (Syrian slaughter did not really seem to shake your countrymen, however many thousands of corpses piled, quite like a few Americans graphically dispatched. To some extent, this is blamable–people are all people; but I think it is reasonable: No one can really care for everyone & feel attached to everyone…) This slaughter of Americans goes back three generations. America was, for better or worse, involved in the Middle East in WW2 & afterward. It failed miserably, or else the Middle East’s favorite form of foreign policy, terrorism, wouldn’t exist.
American failure is not judged, I don’t think, by how many democracies sprout up or how many hymns are sung or how peaceful people become. It’s things like, do Americans get targeted & slaughtered? Do American politicians get respect & some measure of obedience–or are they used or humiliated or both? Is America feared too much to be abused? Does the threat of extinction persuade her enemies to cease being enemies?
I think I agree with you on most things you’ve said, but I think you are not taking into account America’s reputation & the history of meddling & failure on which it is based–your enemies hold you in contempt.
Of course, terrorism & slaughter in the Middle East are not your problem or your doing as such & you are not their main victims.
But you meddle so much! The examples are endless! Was it really Eisenhower’s burning problem to save your country by threatening to bankrupt England & France in ’56? What interest did that serve? Why did you help Egypt–not really a big ally–& humiliate allies?
How about Iran? If you had interests there that mattered, from the end of WW2 to Mossadegh to the Shah–why not defend them? When you end up with a bunch of morons committing acts of war against you & you piously are humiliated by them & they kidnap your political creatures & you let them get away with it… It’s that silly little tyrants get to do this to you–you give them the opportunity. Only Americans forget these things. Only Americans forget the reputation your fathers have earned for you…
You just cannot seem to keep your hands to yourselves as a nation. & then you do not win wars. Terrible combination. America should act rarely & with terrible strength. Her cause is just, her people are not mad for blood or conquest, & her regime is incredibly long-lived. These things in themselves are far more than a model of civilization–they are civilization pure & simple–& they champion it. Your foreign policy should add to that, not completely undermine it.
When your last president started wars against people who had sinned against you, the world was ready to learn fear & respect. Then he proved that neither he nor you know who your enemies are or what to do to them. So you could not gain allies, because you could not be trusted. Your current president seems to think this is a desirable state of affairs…
Not to mention that the US only permanently lost two ships during the attack on Pearl Harbor (three if you count the Utah, but it was merely a training/target vessel anyways). Every other ship damaged in the attack was returned to service.
Two ships lost doesn’t even meet the original Roman definition of “decimation” (one out of every ten).
Man- “That very same Germany that actually commanded the resources of the continent from 1940 to 1944 couldn’t even invade England, a mere 21 miles away, and who had only 2 million men under arms in 1940.”
Germany invaded Russia instead. I think it a bit unreasonable to argue that, because Germany could not muster the resources at its disposal to conquer Britain between the fall of France and the invasion of Russia (during which time it was still actively at war), that a Germany which, victorious in Europe, could draw upon the the resources of the territory between the Pyrenees and Moscow would be unable to use several years of peace to develop the ability to threaten the U.S. directly.
So, just how far back to we go when assigning “blame”?
Why isn’t it the result of “Ottoman weakness”? After all, they’re the ones who lost the territory.
(Also, I’m Canuckistani, not American, but that’s neither here nor there…)
That’s much my feeling. We’re in a position of strength and need to be vigilant, but America and the West are generally pretty well-positioned.
As much as I admire VDH — Carnage and Culture is a superb book — he’s essentially been arguing that it’s been 1939 since September 2001.
One other thing: there’s a tendency — Prager has been particularly bad on this point — to equate the wicked intent of our enemies with their potential to actually cause harm. Al Qaeda and IS are (roughly) as evil as the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, but they’re not nearly as good at accomplishing evil as their predecessors.
Hello, Misthiocracy–thanks for letting me know about the Canadian thing. I can’t change all my mistaken pronouns to reflect reality, but if I could continue to presume on your kindness, could you donate your PM to the US?
As for the blame–it is American doings that should be blamed on America. The oil shocks stole the West’s lunch money, not the Ottman Empire’s. Now, if we’re talking who was too mindless to wipe out the Wahab sect when first it waged war in what is today still called Iraq–that’s the Ottoman Empire, for you. But it’s thankfully a thing of the past & I never much liked it anyway. The best thing it ever did was take the brunt of the Mongol wrath.
The problems with Iran & Iraq were caused by America. The Shah was an American creature whose creators sort of pushed him to ruin. This may be dastardly, but it is somewhat distinct from the other question, about Americans allowing their men to be kidnapped & their embassy attacked & conquered. By barbarians whose basic grasp of politics seems to have been superior to all Americans running foreign policy since 1979. They’re still around to humiliate Americans & to get them killed in Iraq. Apparently, that’s tolerable to Americans & a veritable pleasure to many Europeans & others around the world. & maybe it’s just the way it is. You do not nuke Tehran over the revolution… But it ain’t wise policy-
I’d agree that Marius was the beginning of the end of the Republic, but I also agree with Sal that you can’t draw a straight line between him and the Fall of the West.
I’d agree with all that, though I’d add that Roman citizenship slowly lost its coveted status among ambitious barbarians. That was always the carrot the Romans had to offer and — once it lost its flavor — it was only a matter of time (albeit quite a lot) until its sticks failed them.