John, I understand what you’re saying about interdependence, I just don’t think it applies. The “growing” technologies you mentioned, like any others from previous generations, go to low-cost suppliers as they mature, wherever those may be. There’s nothing of real economic significance you can identify in nationalistic terms.
You asked about MSFT’s (for instance) effect being greater on the US or European economy - my answer, which you seem to be approaching but then shying away from, is that there’s no such thing as a distinct US or European economy, not in terms that matter broadly to the major political actors. There’s a world economy with a lot of very local peaks and valleys. That view is resisted by workers in the developed countries seeing their jobs being underbid elsewhere, sure, but the basic protectionism-vs.-free-trade debate was settled long ago, and this is just a variation of it.
If you’re suggesting that the conditions for incubation of new industries do, or should, exist more in some places than others, so that the job transfers elsewhere as they mature can be made up, then I don’t disagree at all. I do disagree that nationalistic attitudes towards politics or economics help those conditions to exist.
OK, you’ve got me interested. Are you saying that terms such as GDP and per capita incomve have no significant meaning? Certainly they determine a country’s ability to build military strength. And as for production moving to low cost suppliers, while I agree that is the the norm, it’s also the norm that the big money is made up front before the new technology is commoditized.
No argument from me on the free trade issue. You won’t find a stronger supporter than me. As for whether this issue has been “settled long ago” I only wish it were true. I have never heard one significant politician in any country advocate fully free trade, or anything close to it. Am I misunderstanding you here? I doubt you’d even get a group of economists to agree on that.
Agree with this sentiment. I hope this paradigm eventually emerges.
IMHO, I see America slowly loosening the geopolitical and strategic ties to Europe (while still rewarding those European countries that supported us), not only for our sake but for Europe’s as well.
In the end, I don’t fear a strong Europe posing a formidable counterweight. An honest balance of power based on economic and military realities and tempered by basic shared ideals (freedom, commerce, human rights, etc.) might force us both to not take each other for granted, which, IMHO, we’re both guilty of.
And, as an added benefit, maybe the dispirited, dispossessed, and pissed off peoples of the world may blame Europe for their plight instead of us, for a change.
In other words, I hope America and Europe are smart enough to make the “divorce” amicable.
I might be way off base, but have another look at this part: “The answer … was to embrace the ideals proffered by …. Woodrow Wilson: peace, free markets and democracy. Within Europe, under American auspices, they created a supra-national order that stood the classical system on its head. Instead … Europe would have a supra-national authority and a shared commitment to democracy and human rights.” and tell me what you get out of that. Granted it’s a choppy quote but there is a distinction made between supra-national “order” and “authority”, where an order would be (I’m guessing) more of a voluntary process.
I don’t know enough about EU accession to say how much it affects sovereignity. Are they aiming for a complete United States of Europe there?
What about UMTS? The first networks arrived and are accessible in Austria e.g., although they are pretty expensive. But I don’t know who developed the technology.
3D networks are based not exclusively on CDMA, but on both standards. The upcoming UMTS networks in Europe are 3D versions of GSM, and the currently used GPRS is a 2.5D GSM.
Yes, CDMA has been deployed in other countries, but GSM has 70% of the world market, and new third-party features are being released for GSM first, and sometimes exclusively, because CDMA portation is not seen as cost-effective. As such, if you want the newest gadgets, or if you want to travel around the world, there is no skirting GSM.
Yes, there are GSM networks in the US, but it is not really an argument for anything, given that they are largely operated in whole or in part by European companies. Even where that is not the case, the equipment is produced by European suppliers.
Not the least, CDMA is using plenty of European technology, such as Nokia’s new wideband speech coding proposal, which was selected as the CDMA2000 standard.
I think you’re overstating the benefits of having “American” companies dominating a particular sector. As Elvislives states above, in a global economy speaking of a company as being american or british or whatever doesn’t have too much meaning. Ownership changes all the time as shares are traded, they can (and do) move their manufacturing, research capabilities etc from country to country.
What is most important is GDP, productivity etc, and this depends on a lot of factors. While having say IBM based in your country will help your GDP, it won’t be as important as the benefits of increased productivity from IBMs products, which benefits all countries, because they will sell to anyone.
US productivity is higher than Europes. This is down to a lot of factors, but US based companies dominating IT isn’t one of them. If anything its a consequence. Underlying economic fundamentals is what should be concerning Europe, not trying to dominate biotech.
My earlier post got eaten. Thanks, mooka - I agree.
No, only that it is a misconception to see them as the highest, broadest relevant terms. I think the dominant paradigm now is that the world economy is a world economy, not a conglomeration of separate ones interacting along their edges. GDP etc. is a measure of local variations in it.
Only as part of a broader strong economy. The USSR was militarily strong, but at the expense of rather than because of GDP and PCI. Even so, the paradigm of military strength has shifted to the simple ability to inflict damage, and that can be done as easily with a black-market nuke or a set of zealots with boxcutters as with a fleet of bombers, or more so. Economic indicators don’t reflect that at all.
Depends on the life of the technology in the market. It makes more sense to a MNC to move production to low-cost areas if the product is going to be around awhile; the longer, the more profit.
[quoteAs for whether this issue has been “settled long ago” I only wish it were true.[/quote]
I meant for the most part, despite occasional relapses by the neocon neoisolationists the US seems to breed. Even so, the consensus based on experience isn’t entirely for free, totally-unfettered trade, but for free trade with reasonable protections and regulations imposed by governments on behalf of the people they serve. Aberrations like Bush’s wheat quotas or steel tariffs do still exist, but they do not represent the tide of history.
But the OP topic is about the emergence of a fundamental and growing divergence in the industrial world. The forces opposing that are much more solid IMHO than any transitory occupation of a few offices by a determined cadre of ideologues, such as is causing this subject to be discussed.
Hold on there, partner! The Dems are just as much, if not more, likely to jump for protectionist measures. Throwing out that “neocon” reference really doesn’t help the discussion.
And the problem with “reasonable protections” is that they quickly lead to “unreasonable” protections. I don’t trust a politician to determine what is a “reasonable” protection or not.
I’m afraid this’ll just be a drive-by as I’ve very little SDMB time these days.
First, as a general point, nothing succeeds like success – and nothing fails like failure. In this sense, the current situation is self-correcting. Suppose, for the moment, that the U.S. succeeds in installing a stable liberal democracy in Iraq and that peace and happiness descends once more upon Sunnybrook farm. Ten years from now, all the current acrimony will be forgotten – though it will, no doubt be replaced by some new acrimony – just as political eruptions in Europe during the cold war are now considered ancient history.
By the same token, if Iraq turns out to be an unmitigated disaster, America will “learn a lesson” just as it did in Vietnam and will itself repent of its middle-eastern adventure. In either case, the current eruction will have little impact on long-term relations between Europe and the United States.[sup]1[/sup]
This is true because, in the words of Henry Kissinger, “Countries don’t have friends, they have interests.” Europe and America don’t cooperate because they are “friends,” they cooperate because it is in their interests to do so.
It applies equally to the recent war in Iraq. Those countries that opposed America did so because they did not believe that a war was in their interests. Virtually all of the European objections were purely pragmatic. Europeans objected to the American invasion not out of deeply held respect for Iraqi sovereignty but because they did not believe the game was worth the candle. In other words, France & Co. believed that a war in Iraq would cause far problems than it would solve.[sup]2[/sup] But the fundamental goal of the U.S. and Europe remained the same, they just bitterly disagreed on how that goal ought to be achieved. Even France would like to see a stable, democratic government in Iraq.
One thing I will agree with from the OP is this.
**
But take this reasoning a step farther, if the US “transformation” is successful, the Europeans, sharing the same ultimate goals, will be be pleased at the result. In any event, most Europeans are unlikely to seek open confrontation with the U.S… Rather, they’ll seek to “manage” the U.S. to the extent they view the U.S. as a problem.
Nonetheless, those who openly opposed the U.S., especially France, will have to pay a price. Countries do act in their perceived interests but those perceptions need to include the displeasure of those you try and thwart. Despite Collounsbury’s pooh-poohing of games theory, tit-for-tat really does promote the evolution of cooperation.
This does not mean, however, that the transatlantic alliance is dead. The transatlantic alliance, both military and economic, exists because it benefits both parties. The end of the cold war obviously changed the equation of interests. But it’s one thing to conclude that the military alliances of the cold war no longer serve European and American interests. It’s another thing to conclude that European and American military interests are now in conflict.
I also think, by the way, that the extended invocation of Wilson is extremely wide of the mark. First, American foreign policy has often been contradictory. The first set of open door notes were sent in the same year that America formally annexed the Phillipines. Second, the international order that underpined the Wilsonian world view was radically different than that today. Back then, imperialism and colonialism really meant imperialism and colonialism.
Recent American ventures may be ill-considered, but imperialist? It is to laugh. Let’s be clear on our definitions. Setting up military bases at the invitation of foreign governments isn’t imperialist, neither is promoting liberal democracy as a political system. So far, America’s biggest problem hasn’t been being too imperialistic, quite the contrary. It’s been an unwillingness to enage with the intensity and duration necessary for its projects to stand even a fighting chance of success.
It’s also a bit hysterical to argue that America “rejects moral or legal constraints on the sovereign independence of the US.” While the U.S. is increasingly wary of multi-lateral institutions that it sees as being specifically directed at weakening U.S. predominance, this hardly equates to being a rogue state. Invading Iraq might have been a lot of things but you can hardly call it immoral. In fact, I’d argue that since the end of the cold war, American foreign policy has had a significantly greater moral component than at any time since the 1950’s, excluding, of course, the strange interlude of Carter’s presidency.
Neocons may be wrong about both the feasability and desirability of spreading democracy, but they are not amoral. On the contrary, it is precisely their strain of moralism that both annoys and frightens the Europeans. American neocons throw their moral sense into the balance, thereby wrecking what for most Europeans is a calculation based on simple pragmatism. “You can’t get involved in X! There’d be massive casualties! An increase in terrorism! It’d cost a fortune!” “Yeah, but X is wrong!”
That’s why Tony Blair is every neocon’s favorite European. He understands this moral calculus and uses it himself. Many other Europeans, notably the French, consider this naive and even boorish. In other words, current American foreign policy doesn’t resemble Bismark’s, it is merely a robust variant of the activist moral strain traditionally present in American foreign policy. Much modern European foreign policy however, owes more to Richelieu’s pragmatism than Wilson’s idealism.
In conclusion, there is little chance that Europe will seek to “divorce” the U.S. or even, despite French hopes, make a serious attempt create a counterweight to U.S. “hegemony.” The only thing the Europe fears more than an unbound America energetically exerting itself across the globe is an unbound America that doesn’t energetically exert itself across the globe. Europe, much like Japan, has done extraordinarily well for itself by leaving the heavy lifting to the U.S. The U.S. will have to get a lot worse over a long period of time before Europe really sees it in its interest to fend for itself.
[sup]1[/sup]While this is slightly off-topic, I must observe that, of these two, the “happy” outcome is potentially the more dangerous. The current policy in Iraq did not come out of nowhere, it is a logical extension of American experience. 9/11 taught America that it must act. American experience in the Balkans and Afghanistan taught America that it could act. The almost effortless collapse of the Taliban made another, more expansive American adventure inevitable.
The problem is that if you keep rolling the dice, you’re going to lose eventually. If America keeps playing for bigger and bigger stakes, that loss, when it finally comes, will be catastrophic. Yes, Afghanistan was a walk in the park. Yes, Iraq was probably one of the most stunning military victories ever. What does America learn from all that for its upcoming confrontation with North Korea? Hopefully nothing.
[sup]2[/sup]Several countries, especially France, also sought to use these concerns as a vehicle for curbing American power by binding it up in multilateral institutions. But that’s another post. . .
It is precisely here where most Europeans would disagree. It is questioned whether ‘America’ ‘will learn a lesson’, or if rather excuses will be searched and scapegoats be found.
That assumes that the goals are 100% identical, and that they can be reached independently of the way and means.
Tit-for-that does not promote the evolution of cooperation. It promotes confrontation. Regardless how much one considers national interests a factor, by the generally accepted reading of international law, France did nothing but comply with its obligations under the UN charter. It might have done so because doing so was in its interest, but that doesn’t change the fact. Making France pay a price will only serve to undermine that charter further, and erode the credibility of the US further. If the UN charter is meaningless, then Iraq indeed did nothing wrong other than not having the military strength to get away with what it did.
You assume they mean something different today.
Sorry, but precisely where did America promote liberal democracy as a political system? Chile? Iran? You have a very white-washed view of US foreign policy. Imperialism and colonialism are far more broad concepts than you paint them here. They do not require military occupation. Economic dependency works just fine, and ‘invitations’ do not necessarily imply voluntarily open doors. While there sure has been worse in the past, that doesn’t mean that those worst cases define imperialism or colonialism.
You’d argue so, but you fail to support it in any fashion. It is somewhat strange that you would consider treaties drafted largely by the US itself as 'directed at weakening US predominance.
You have a seriously strange sense of morals, I must say. And no, it has nothing to do with pragmatism. It has merely something to do with the basic assumptions about war taught already by Clausewitz, which allegedly are also taught at West Point, but which are markedly absent from all major operations the US has engaged in in the recent past -as you have pointed out yourself, stating that the US was unwilling to engage with the intensity and duration necessary to secure its projects. Such an unwillingness precludes war from a Clausewitzean perspective, since it reduces war to violence for its own sake, rather than the achieval of political goals.
The problem in that calculus is that the Balkan experience was a blunder on part of the US, with its insistence on bombing vs. ground operations, and that both the Balkan and Afghanistan operations were in their forms only possible due to European support. Had other NATO troops not relieved US forces across the world, the troop concentration in Afghanistan could not have been mustered without creating serious security holes elsewhere in the world.
Truth Seeker: It’s an error to think that Afghanistan or Iraq are “over” and can be booked as successes. The fighting is still going on in both countries, including US forces, and the longer-term outcomes are in doubt. Osama and Saddam are not captured or known to be dead. The Taliban isn’t necessarily dead. Al Qaeda certainly is not. The roots of terrorism haven’t demonstrably even been weakened. The warnings made by the anti-war movement and “Old Europe” were most seriously along the lines of what would happen over the years, even decades, to come. Those trends do not point toward a lucky “roll of the dice”.
The “morality” of the neocons is also not a given. Being certain of your righteousness, and of God’s support, does not make it so; it can be simply a cover for basic arrogance and dismissiveness. Refusal to give anyone with a different view than oneself credit for thoughtfulness or their own morality is the natural result of the characteristic you describe, but it unfortunately usually leads to disaster.
I am on an island in Finland, without a dictonary, but this is a very interesting question so I try my best anyhow.
Actually I have written about this in IIdb, but nobody seemed to be interested.
I see it like this:
EU has only one economical problem, immense overproduction. Russia is a free country, even if that seems not be very obvious from the point of view of the common man in US. It has a very big market, the needs are as big as EU total production, not only the overproduction. The problem is more money related, but it has the natural resourses that everyone needs.
Therefore if the Atlantic gap grows wider, EU will automatically come nearer Russia. I am not speaking about next week, but the coming 5 - 15 years.
As it often is when the trade begins to increase, the different partners makes more deals on high level and in the end they grow to a block. On the other side of Russia is Oceania; Japan, South-Korea, Taivan and so on. They also have a huge overproduction.
Russia has a market, but it also has something that neither EU and Oceania has: the world biggest natural resources, and well educated cheap labour. Pres. Putin tries to “lower” the boarder with EU as low as he dares. The nationalistic movement is against “this westerner policy, licking EU in the bottom”, so he can not do everything in a fortnight. But You can bet that he will stay long in power. Every election puts out some of his opponents, but that is another story.
On the other hand Russia and China has now normal relations, also to India. These three powers are culturally very different with a population of 2 billion (a guess, but should come very near). They also all three have nukes, but that does not worry me in this question.
USA as a military superpower does not worry me either, but that the common guy in US believes that this is the question with any significance, worries me. This “we are the most powerful, we can do anything”.
Just try with any future block and You get more than You can swallow. I know that nobody will try.
Whatever blocks are formed and reformed scares the shit out of me, for the reason that it splits this world once again. Into powerful blocks. We have been used to have trust in USA, even if we sometimes are quite critical.
E.g. I have personally never critisized USA in whole my life, my political avakening beginning in August 1968, except from year 2002, but this administration have felled me quite often from my chair and I have shouted likevise.
The Roman Divide et Impera suited me as the second best policy of USA. But now it is pushing us to blocks. OK, I think this is clear now.
The situation after 911 => the whole world was backing up USA.
It meant in reality that everyone agreed that USA will lead the what-ever-military-operation, backing USA with troops etc., but we would decide together. From my point of view it meant that there would be one international army, one block = the world backing up this army.
Naturally every decision needs time, but after “some military actions”, we would have come to a working consept. These consepts would have been workable within maybe 5 - 10 years. We could have thanked binLaden for putting this world together etc.
Now binLaden is laughin as Adolf was 1938 -39.
And do You really think North-Korea would have scrambled their eggs against a world-army?
We would have been grateful to USA for that it at the top of its power was ‘dividing’ its power with us, with the world, in order ‘to strike out the evil’ etc. etc. This would have given USA goodwill much more than the Marshall-plan ever did in Europe. And the goodwill would have stretched over the whole world.
This kind of ‘not so realpolitik-propaganda’ would have touched people. Naturally the Marshall-plan was a very good one for USA also, but who did see that? Adenauer and some other guys, but they were not so stupid that they would have spoke about it, biting the feeding hand.
Same thing if Bush would have gone out with: ’ United we stand, united we win’…etc. The applause and laughter of joy would have been immense and the guy who would have shouted: “The Kaiser is without clothes…” would have been stoned in the street, by the mob.
Unfortenately Bush did not give UN 30 days more, attacked the wrong country and said to the most powerful part of EU: “Fuck You!”
Which USA-questions the guy in the street, here in Finland, reacts on is: Kioto, the international court and most of all; Iraq.
People reacts on that USA makes now everything ‘alone’, without UN.
You have to understand that countries like Finland, whose only international military efforts, stands under the UN flag, is very proud of the achivement of UN. To spit on that flag is taken very hard here. The behavior of USA has been met by disgust from those that are most proud of the Finnish 'military-efforts: the political right.
And Finland is absolutely not alone with these feelings. I think that it is only in USA and maybe some very few other contries that do not appricate UN as the rest of the world does.
Just to explain it as a picture: If USA demands that all their military veichles should have the US flag an the UN-flag, and the rest of us would just have the UN-flag on our veichles, so be it, if You are happy that way.
From my point of view every veichle has my flag, the UN-flag.
How to explain?
The main thing for small countries is to work together in this world. We are not so interested who is the Big Guy this week, except from the point of geopolitical view.
If the Big Guy lives across the ocean, fine. If not, bad, but not so bad if the small countries are allied. We will gladly then ask the Big Guy to take the rudder. And all we stand there on the bridge, smiling.
But if the Big Guy fix a Big Guy-2 (block) into our neighbourhood and we are some kind of half allies through trade, we have to begin to make some balancing moves toward the other Big Guy as well, and we end up between both the Big Guys. We already have had that kind of pressure, thank You all (including ourselves).
Now people and politicians also speak about making an EU defending system, and there is pressure to that Finland would also join. The official standpoint given by the Finnish government last week is:
“We are against a EU military/defence system, if there is only a few countries involved. But if most of the countries want to join, Finland also joins.”
The German defence minister was as a rocket here in Finland and said: “Everyone can join on voluntary basis.” Guess what that means when after 10 months there (most probably) comes 10 new countries to EU, former east-block countries? They will put pressure as much as possible for a militrary EU solution. And now already Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany and France are for this solution.
These countries alone makes a majority.
I think that USA has to make a lot of bending if they do not want this EU-military solution to happen.
And if it happens, NATO is quite out of work. This means that USA can just empty the bases or does it want defend something together with Norway?
Some US diplomat said that the NATO-headquarter can be moved from Belgium. The other NATO members pointed out, quite sarcastically, that maybe USA can’t make these decisions alone, because there are other members in NATO as well. This bully-mentaly is eating up all US good-will very fast.
Everyone, even the man on the street, understand that every nation has it own interests, but that a diplomat or military attasche’ says: ‘We decide, You are just a buzz of a fly in our ear.’, is not the way.
Europe did also not quite understand why France was the big crook in this Iraq drama?
France asked for 30 more days. Naturally they could have asked for more later, but they would have lost their faces. Now it was USA that lost its face, or/and credibility.
USA had very much good-will in Europe for decades.
There is still a chance: The Israeli/Palestinian road-map. Now both parts has agreed. If the solution is achived, it means that Europe plus many other countries will be very grateful. It is not nice to live next to a barrel of powder.
But if one guy decides to pay a visit to Kaba and the other to blow up a old wall, or something, proving that one or both wants more war… well, then people in the street will think that USA “did not even this time want to solve the problem”. If the rumors that USA will make “some corrections” in the road-map, they can just close the discussions.
But if…
Most probably the new boarders, people moving once again, needs some peacekeeping forces, or quite heavy ones and I think Bush is not so stupid that he would not give this task to UN.
I hope, whoever goes there, has brains enough to teach the soliders something about the local culture. What to do and what not to do. Othervise it looks again pathetic when the soldiers on TV seem to be completely out from what is happening when the local guys are carrying stuff in a line, like an ant-army, someone wants to clean his hands (with sand when there is no water) or doing something else that we from west are not used to.
Or when the local guys begins to put their carpets on the street as I saw once in TV. What to do, so that You do not offend their religious prayer? I, myself, have no idea, but I hope the soldiers will know.
Thus peace will finally come and everybody is happy, except binLaden and his gang.
That would be nice!
If Bush then begin to really lift up, even a little bit, the UN flag, those politicians who are very much in favor of the trans-atlantic “pact”, will have something to speak about, and the people has the common sense to play along.
These are naturally very personal views, but here is also parts that different newspapers writes in Finland and Sweden.
Eva Luna wrote:
Hi Eva!
I am 90% sure that I will leave my work, and be a radical freelancer activist, publishing in the Nordic countries whatever for living. I have to move my Russian family to Finland. (As You know, I have a lot of A4-papers to fill.) After 6 years in Russia I’m quite tired.
What to do?
Ring the storm-bell! Shout!Louder! Now the same ting on Your belly on the floor. Good!
Now, publish, sell Your stories and You can pay Your rent!
I agree with everything that Sailor writes. All the facts he presents are very well known in Europe.
Then about the economy.
It is not a question of Europe versus USA. If US have an economical flu, it will infect Europe the next morning. Where do we sell if US economy is “ruined”? Oceania, one of our markets, will also go down the drain. Only Russia will still have a huge market, plus all the raw-material EU and Oceania needs, and because its economy is based, to a big part anyhow, on selling raw-materials and such, it will not go so low in economy than the high-tech selling countries.
And if there is a big flow of raw-material, with long transporting distances, the international money will very fast begin to invest close to the sources, in order to make pre-made products and gain in the cheaper transport. (That is what I’ve been doing in Russia these years. Five cbm of birch equals 1 cbm of pre-sawn products for the parquet & furniture industry).
It can be very good for Russia that it still can’t pump up as much oil as it wish. But within 10-20 years it can and have good rafideneries (is this English?) and what can the prices then be?
The economy in US should be defended, as well as the EU economy, because we are in the same pocket.
If there is a hole in the pocket, it does really not matter where the hole is situated.
About the technical development.
Here it is a clear Europe versus USA-situation. Oceania is the third horse in this race.
Too tired to rewrite this to a more logical essay. I hope You understand my ‘Finglish’ anyhow.
Well the below deserves a long response, but let me correct a serious misapprehension:
Kissinger was not the originator of this obs, a GB PM was, name escapes me. (I would add that the obs does not in any way contradict the importance of having friends, but let me write something about that later.).
My dear fellow, you fundamentally misunderstood me. I was criticizing drawing simplistic conclusions off of game theory, not game theory itself. I am sure you’re aware that there are a variety of models to draw from and that tit for tat may or may not lead to cooperation as an equilibrium depending on the perceived payoffs. I may add that having multiple players also clouds the picture, making it hard for a single player to “tit” multiple defectors effectively.
Not really, hegemon is a term of art in political science. Describes the US power position in the world when it comes down to it. I do believe Eliot Cohen, a neocon who has written a book on leadership and power and it close to the Administration uses it.
It can be I suppose, but in the context of my usage, it’s merely technical, with perhaps a bit of spice.
**
The jury is still out on Iraq, but Afghanistan was and is an unqualified success if only because there is no conceivable way Afghanistan could be any more of a festering cesspit than it was before the U.S. got involved. It’s true that Afghanistan hasn’t yet turned into Switzerland under the gentle tutelage of the Americans. However, that’s hardly necessary since turning into Somalia would be a vast improvement.
**I don’t think you quite grasp the concept here. The issue is whether neocons recognize moral constraints, not whether you agree with what those moral constraints are. (Moral constraints can, of course, impel you to act just as they can prevent you from acting.) You can accuse Bush of many things, but being an amoral cold-blooded pragmatist is not one of them.
**
Imperialism and colonialism are not broader concepts than I paint them. Rather, people who want to whinge have exapropriated these words to give a revolutionary cachet to whatever petty grievance they may have.
Consider, for example, French charges that Americans are “cultural imperialists.” In a nutshell, American producers make movies that French people want to watch. French producers make movies that French people do not want to watch. The French government (which subsidizes most French films) concludes that this is American “cultural imperialism.” Sorry, but in my book, this hardly compares with carving up Africa like a Christmas turkey.
If modern-day “imperialism” amounts to nothing more than being influential, than I guess America would admit to being “imperialist” and proud of it.
By the way, I think HenryB. has a good point about other power blocks eventually arising. If there is going to be serious international conflict in the future, it will almost certainly involve the U.S. and China. I could easily imagine Europe hedging its bets in twenty years or so by playing the “China card” just as France attempted to do regarding Iraq.
You needn’t suppose, I’m informing you. Neither de Gaulle nor Kissinger were original in this. Having looked it up now for precision it was Palmerston who stated the UK had no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. Nota bena his turn of phrase is rather more felicitous and accurate. Friends, indeed, are important, but they may not be eternal.
Yes, a nice simple overview. Very nice. However how tit for tat plays out in actual iterated games depends on a number of factors, including perceived payoffs and where the equilibrium(s) are.
The issue is not that tit for tat can work (and nota bene the conditions necessary) but that it works in a certain context given a set of payoffs, and merely hand wavingly asserting “tit for tat” works is far too simplistic. Indeed one may see French non-cooperation on the Iraq war as a tit against the Bush Admin. playing a false game. Looking at this from a rather navel gazing perspective I believe is rather unhelpful to a clear analysis.
This is possibly one of the most ridiculous statements I have read here in a while.
First, as a pure matter of fact, there are many ways Afghanistan could get worse than under the Taleban. To assert otherwise is to display a fundamental ignorance of the reasons why they came to power. Unrelenting warlordism brought the Taleban to power, as well as Pushtun conservatism. The Taleban, for all their benighted medievalism, did bring peace to a good swath of the country, and ended the petty exactations and murder of the warlords. They were a step up.
Should Afghanistan descend once more into such chaos, and that is entirely possible. then it is indeed possible to see (a) the US ‘solution’ looking worse than the Taleban (b) a return of the Taleban. Such an event is clearly a worse solution, insofar as it is a blow to US prestige, makes the US look ridiculous and a return to warfare and warlordism simply returns the Afghans to status quo ante. I am sure you are aware, btw, that Karzai recently had to threaten to resign to merely extract the promise from the various “Governors” – warlords – to promise, you know cross your heart and hope to die, to remit tax revenues to the Central Government, and also by the way stop the going at each others throats and impeding Central authority (i.e. the Kaboul city state). I’m so sure they will do so, just like good little boys.
Further, Afghanistan’s present slow descent into chaos again, the hitherto more or less complete lack of central authority outside of Kaboul, return of Taleban influence in the Pushtun south, continuing insurgency against the American forces and American inability to locate much of the key al-Qaeda leadership to date are all clear black eyes with real policy implications. One hears in the context of Iraq presently forcefully expressed local skepticism regarding American ability and will to see Iraq through, based on prior lack of will on the part of the Americans (the attention spans of five year olds one might say). That leads to reduced cooperation (don’t get into one night stands in a region where people have long memories, being the jilted slut of the Americans once their attention has wandered can be fatal.), reduced influence.
To call the Afghan situation an unqualified success at present is to engage in a delusional form of optimism without any grounding in reality. It may not turn out so bad, with continued attention and engagement, but it is in no way an unqualified success – in no way at all. It has been a highly qualified partial success to date, in a larger policy picture, and one that may yet be turned around, or it might turn into a longer term failure.
Moral Constraints:
Well, perhaps not. But then I am more comfortable with cold blooded pragmatists as “belief” in one’s superior morality has a long and sordid history of leading to rather more bloody events than mere pragmatism. There is nothing particularly new or novel about the morality part, nor the potential to blind one to one’s immorality as it were.
There is a certain truth to that last part. However that mere fact does not ipso facto make any and every extended usage fall into that category. I believe Wolf’s usage is entirely supportable on both historical and analytical bases, as I have noted above.
Well, the French complaint is perhaps exaggerated, but stems from a certain reality. By accident and dint of history, the American market supports at a very low cost per capita, film production – US film exports to the rest of the world are usually mere gravey to the bottom line. One might characterize this as dumping – and I can understand French cultural defenders’ annoyance on this matter. The imperialist part here is overdrawn to be sure, although the French position is not entirely lacking in merit for all that the cultural imperialist is a somewhat overdrawn phrasing.
‘Being influential’ by invading other countries and instigating regime changes by $ or agent rather gets us to the 19th century British ideal of imperium.
Well, now you get to the nub of what Wolf was actually addressing. It is a sub-optimal future that has Europe, for self-interest, aligning with others than the US out of concern the US pays not a whit of attention to other interests – that is compromise only on US terms. Not friendly this, not in the proper sense of the word, and not a long term optimal result producing habit. France did not, by the way, play an ‘Iraq’ card, it played a Europe card. Didn’t stick quite right, but it was not a bad long term play in my opinion. Some short term pain in relations with the US, but they got props for standing up to the big dude. Once the logic of non-compromise began, it was better in the end to take a tit from the US that was coming regardless, that tits from the larger body of non-cooperators, in terms of losing face and the like. In the same manner that once the Bush Admin. painted itself into a corner it had to go ahead.
Someone once asked Zhou Enlai what he thought of the French revolution. “Too soon to tell,” he responded. Maybe in the long run Afghanistan won’t work out but, like they say, in the long run, we’re all dead anyway. Hell, in the long run, the Louisiana purchase might not work out.
It may be “too soon to tell” in Afghanistan, too. But so far, it’s worked out brilliantly, especially from the perspective of the U.S. Geopolitically, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has brought the U.S. previously unimaginable influence in Central Asia, including bases in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It has also had the salutary effect of putting any countries on notice that might be tempted to turn a blind eye to terrorist groups operating on their territory…
In Afghanistan itself, things are also playing out quite well. You may recall the dire predictions about fierce Taliban resistance turning Afghanistan into another Vietnam. That, obviously, didn’t happen. On the contrary, America has managed the entire operation with only a few thousand troops.
The current prevalence of warlordism in Afghanistan is well-suited to American interests. During the Taliban era, Afghanistan was an American no-go zone where the U.S. had no influence or decent intelligence at all. There may not be any WMD labs in Iraq but there sure were in Afghanistan. The current fluid situation, warlords and all, is far better for the U.S. than was the Taliban era.
America is also playing its hand with an exquisite appreciation of the art of the possible. The Soviets attempted to unify the country by overwhelming force, thereby provoking nationwide resistance… America, however is using a much lighter touch. The American presence in Afghanistan is sufficient to make it clear to all parties who the big dog on the block is but not so heavy-handed as to make the various warlords view America as a common enemy. America exerts influence on the warlords in ways that slowly nudge them towards cooperation with the center but that are, in and of themselves, unobjectionable enough so that no individual warlord is willing to risk a direct confrontation with the U.S… It’s the salami tactic approach to nation building. Do you think Karzai prevailed in the recent confrontation with the warlords solely by virtue of his forceful personality?
As I said, Afghanistan isn’t Switzerland and it isn’t going to be Switzerland. Warlordism or, if you will, tribalism, is endemic to that part of the world. The writ of Pakistan’s central government runs only intermittently in the tribal areas so it’s hardly surprising that Afghanistan, after 23 years of unrelenting, earth-scorching conflict, isn’t a unified state. My comparison to Somalia was intentional. Somalia, also rife with warlordism, is in better shape than Afghanistan was. Some bits of it, such as Puntland, are doing fairly well, all things considered.
Indeed, at the end of Taliban rule, Afghanistan was in such bad shape that it could only aspire to being Somalia. One international aid worker commented that Afghanistan was a development worker’s paradise. Normally, international development programs had to incorporate whatever bits of infrastructure were already in the country. Afghanistan, however, was a clean slate!
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We’ve already discussed the implications of warlordism for U.S. policy. As for the return of the rule of the Taliban, that just isn’t in the cards. If nothing else, the U.S. will be able to keep the pot boiling by supporting factions opposed to the Taliban. As black eyes go, the failure to capture specific individuals hardly makes the U.S. a laughingstock. It would have been nice to capture Mullah Omar and bin Laden. But uprooting their organizations has always been much more important. Anyway, do you think American prestige and influence would have been better served by letting them continue to operate unmolested?
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By an odd coincidence, this is possibly one of the most ridiculous statements I have read here in a while. The Taliban were not a step up. Rather, people hoped they would be a step up. In the end, they manifestly were not, especially in the cities. Their unique combination of medieval sadism and no grasp whatsoever of social and economic principles made anarchy look like Jeffersonian democracy. That’s why the Taliban couldn’t collapse fast enough once the U.S. took a hand in the civil war and why on the order of 2 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan since their demise.
In conclusion, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan has paid big dividends and is playing out as well — or better — than could be expected. Despite continuing chicken littleism, none of the predicted parade of horribles has materialized or is likely to in the medium term. So, yes, Afghanistan was and is a huge success for U.S. policy.
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Perhaps this is a typo. I suggested that France attempted to play the “China card” as indeed they did. Nor is it the first time as the French have been nattering at the Chinese about creating a “multipolar world” for a few years now. This is one of the reasons for U.S. policy makers’ extreme annoyance with France. French foreign policy isn’t structured around influencing American policy, it’s structured around undermining U.S. influence. With friends like these. . .
freelancer activist, publishing in the Nordic countries whatever for living. I have to move my Russian family to Finland. (As You know, I have a lot of A4-papers to fill.) After 6 years in Russia I’m quite tired.