Perpetual War and Perpetual Stupidity

John Quiggin thinks that Dan Drezner is cuckoo:

John Quiggin: Perpetual War: In the course of a controversy with Glenn Greenwald, Dan Drezner offers the following rewording of Greenwald’s critical summary of the orthodoxy of the US “Foreign Policy Community”

The number one rule of the bipartisan foreign policy community is that America can invade and attack other countries when vital American interests are threatened. Paying homage to that orthodoxy is a non-negotiable pre-requisite to maintaining good standing within the foreign policy community.

and [Drezner] states:

I suspect that anyone who accepts the concept of a “national interest” in the first place would accept that phrasing. As a paid-up member of the Foreign Policy Community (FPC), I certainly would.

Quiggin thinks that this is nuts. I agree. Here's what Quiggin says:

Unless “vital national interest” is construed so narrowly as to be equivalent to “self-defence”, this is a direct repudiation of the central founding principle of international law, prohibiting aggressive war as a crime against peace, indeed, the supreme international crime. It’s more extreme than the avowed position of any recent US Administration--even the invasion of Iraq was purportedly justified on the basis of UN resolutions, rather than US self-interest. Yet, reading this and other debates, it seems pretty clear that Drezner’s position is not only generally held in the Foreign Policy Community but is regarded, as he says, as a precondition for serious participation in foreign policy debates in the US...

I would add that there is an alternative wording that members of good standing of the FPC endorse:

The number one rule of the bipartisan foreign policy community is that America can invade and attack other countries when some nutboy vice president convinces some unbriefed slacker president that vital American interests are threatened.

What realists--maybe we should call them "unrealists," because they spend most of their time in fantasyland or out in the Gamma Quadrant--ignore is that America is far stronger when it binds itself not to invade other countries when some NSC clown thinks its national interests are threatened, but rather to obey the guidance of the U.N. security council. By binding ourselves to obey rules and the consensus, we make ourselves stronger. By seeking freedom to take discretionary action, we make ourselves weaker and less able to act effectively. It's an elementary point that even an unrealist should be able to grasp.

Comments

[jerry]

Truly meaning no disrespect Professor, but you are to Dan Drezner in terms of Foreign Policy being his field and not yours, as I (and others) are to you in terms of Free/Fair Trade.

Come back from the Gamma Quadrant Brad DeLong.

[Charles]

There are examples of great relevance that do not constitute self-defense, are probably illegal under international law, but most Americans would accept as valid reasons for unilateral intervention. For example:
1. We determine that Iran plans to supply highly enriched nuclear material to Al Qaida. Although there is no imminent threat to the US, it is deemed too risky not to pre-empt.
2. Thanks to American intervention in Pakistan, the army mutinies and provides access to nuclear weapons to the Taliban.
3. Supply lines for American troops are severed by Iranian-backed militias. If they succeed, American soldiers will be faced with a Dien Bien Phu-style defeat.

None of these things are happening or are very likely to happen. But we will be told they are happening to justify the attacks the Administration plainly wants to make. And Americans who don't believe in international law and multilateralism will accept it.

[bo]

> By binding ourselves to obey rules and the consensus, we make ourselves stronger.

Our fearless leaders are businessmen.

- Everything is allowed unless forbidden.
- Nothing is truly forbidden unless that can be enforced.
- Nothing can be enforced on US Government right now.

[John Bignucolo]

I don't share Jerry's deference towards the Foreign Policy priesthood. Look at the outcomes achieved by the mandarins of the Foreign Policy claque over the years, especially since the current crew swaggered into town, and a rational, informed citizen wouldn't trust them to manage to get laid in a brothel. (Errol Morris's "Fog of War" offers a wonderful example of why the Dan Drezner's of the world are full of shit. See Robert McNamara's despairing admission that within his lifetime we've come within an inch of nuclear annihilation on at least three occasions.)

Foreign Policy is hardly Quantum Physics or Engineering (or anything grounded in Science and Mathematics). It's just opinion and ideology and no one is ever wrong, no matter how many corpses lie in the streets. Seriously, the intellectual entry barrier for discussion of Foreign Affairs is as difficult as negotiating a suburban speedhump in an SUV.

[derek]

"The number one rule of the bipartisan foreign policy community is that America can invade and attack other countries when [...] vital American interests are threatened."

Following the old newspaperman's trick of excising adverbs, it seems to me that "vital" can go. What does "vital" even mean? America invades when some American interest is threatened, i.e. when some powerful businessman thinks his stock price is threatened.

[Scott Martens]

By contrast, the Brezhnev doctrine seems positively restrained.

During the Cold War, people used to say that US foreign policy was as bad or worse than that of the Soviet Union. Whether or not that was true then, it's stuff like this that convinces me it's true now. For all the other flaws the Soviet Union had, it did not possess a foreign policy predicated on a right to arbitrarily pursue aggressive war.

During the Cold War, no soi-disant foreign policy expert who wanted to remain outside of a mental health institution would have said such a thing. The idea that the US could invade other countries without even *considering* legality or at least the appearance of legality of its actions would have been deemed either patently ludicrous or psychotically and suicidally violent. Goldwater was dismissed with "in your guts, you know he's nuts" for less than that.

The world either has one superpower too many or one too few.

[James Wimberley]

Charles' examples fall under the self-defence exception in Article 51 ofthe UN Charter. Hasn't Israel always been careful to claim that its actions were justified by international law? Bending the rules is one thing; claiming that they are toilet paper is (insert insult of your choice).

[RKKA]

Yes, Scott, the collapse of the USSR truly was a disaster, for the United States, which patently requires a power to restrain our warlike nature, for the world, which must now manage a rogue elephant, and not least, for the citizens of the Soviet successor states, who are now much less numerous, and getting more so, than they were in 1991.

Admitting these truths also is sufficient to exclude one from "serious" discussion of US foreigh policy.

[rea]

What is this "bipartisan foriegn policy community"? Some kind of neo-Nazi cult? 60 years ago, we hanged people at Nurenburg for starting a war on exactly this type of rationale.

[Slocum]

"America is far stronger when it binds itself not to invade other countries when some NSC clown thinks its national interests are threatened, but rather to obey the guidance of the U.N. security council."

Oh, c'mon -- let's be serious. The "guidance of the U.N. security council" includes the vetos of the unelected, communist-party ruled China and the increasingly autocratic, increasingly hostile Russia. It also includes the French. No U.S. politician of either party could conceivably win on a platform of "obey the guidance of the U.N. security council in all decisions regarding the use of U.S. forces".

And looking at it from another perspective, there's really little point in the U.S. maintaining a costly military with global reach if it has no freedom of operation. It's much more plausible than that, I think, to imagine a candidate winning on an isolationist platform of "return to fortress America (and let everybody else start paying for their own defense and sorting out their own problems)".

[anne]

Brad DeLong:

"What realists--maybe we should call them 'unrealists,' because they spend most of their time in fantasyland or out in the Gamma Quadrant--ignore is that America is far stronger when it binds itself not to invade other countries when some NSC clown thinks its national interests are threatened, but rather to obey the guidance of the U.N. security council. By binding ourselves to obey rules and the consensus, we make ourselves stronger. By seeking freedom to take discretionary action, we make ourselves weaker and less able to act effectively. It's an elementary point that even an unrealist should be able to grasp."

Precisely and bravely stated, when we need just such affirming comments on who we must be. Thank you so much.

[Q the Enchanter]

You just don't get it DeLong. They are trying to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

[Ken Muldrew]

'What realists--maybe we should call them "unrealists," '

The phrase you are looking for is "post-realists". As per Karl Rove (supposedly), the empire now creates its own reality.

[rilkefan]

"but rather to obey the guidance of the U.N. security council"

So you think our intervention in the Balkans was wrong? You would have opposed an intervention in Rwanda without SC blessing?

[Cranky Observer]

Excellent observation by Matthew Yglesias today:

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/better_clerisy_needed.php
"This was my plan for a blog post. I was going to observe that there are certain circumstances under which it might be a good thing indeed to have a "foreign policy clerisy." In particular, a bipartisan, yet also non-partisan, group of experts would be a useful thing to have on hand if, for example, both the President of the United States and a leading Republican candidate for President were to endorse a lunatic revisionist view of the Vietnam War. Members of this clerisy, Democrat and Republican alike, could set the country straight on the facts.

Then I was going to observe that the clerisy we have has done no such thing and has, in fact, stayed utterly silent on this small question that happens to rest at the center of the Bush administration's justification of its policies."

[anne]

"The 'guidance of the U.N. security council' includes the vetos of the unelected, communist-party ruled China and the increasingly autocratic, increasingly hostile Russia. It also includes the French."

Ah, the French, the French, always the French. Me, I am all in favor of leaving Iraq and attacking France. Who needs Boston when there's Paris, and I would make no pretence of looking for French weapons. Me, I would occupy Paris simply for the shoes.

[anne]

No matter how how bizarrely militaristic and war-mad the Administration becomes, all that is needed for a goodly number is more war-madness. We are losing the ability to know ourselves. Introspection is only for others.

[andres]

anne: "Ah, the French, the French, always the French. Me, I am all in favor of leaving Iraq and attacking France. Who needs Boston when there's Paris, and I would make no pretence of looking for French weapons. Me, I would occupy Paris simply for the shoes."

God bless you and the French. Strictly speaking, the French have the most potent WMD's on earth: good food, wine, taste in clothes and shoes, and lack of hangups about sex. One good doze of that brew, and no country can hope to remain a military superpower. The jerks in this country fear France not because of its foreign policy but precisely for its capacity for cultural subversion.

[andres]

slocum:

"And looking at it from another perspective, there's really little point in the U.S. maintaining a costly military with global reach if it has no freedom of operation. It's much more plausible than that, I think, to imagine a candidate winning on an isolationist platform of "return to fortress America (and let everybody else start paying for their own defense and sorting out their own problems)".

Ah yes, I can almost hear Napoleon ponticating, "The one thing you cannot do with bayonets is to sit on them." Of course, the world would have been much better off if Napoleon (the world's first genuine neocon) had actually sat on one prior to being packed off to St. Helena.

But of course, the whole argument is a straw man. Isolationism is not the only alternative to current US policy. And constraining the US freedom to operate would be a good thing--certainly the whole runup and aftermath to the Iraq invasion has shown that Chirac and Schroeder, and even Putin and Jiang Zemin, were wiser than the entire US Foreign Policy Community.

There is also the minor point that US foreign policy is _not_ waged in terms of the best interests of the American people, but rather of a narrow business elite with a preconceived ideological agenda. It was this agenda that caused us to overthrow Iran's democratic government in 1954 (same year as Guatemala, the worst year in US foreign policy; I hope there is no hell, but whenever I think of John F. and Allen Dulles, I almost reverse myself) which has had no end of negative consequences for the US.

One cannot analyze US foreign policy starting with the preconception that such policy as advocated by the President, CIA, State Department, Pentagon, and their cheerleaders in the FPC is beneficial in the long run to the American people. This preconception has led to no end of disasters for the US.

[andres]

Brad is opposing Drezner on utilitarian grounds, but this is much too polite. Scott Martens and rea have the right reaction: those who support the invasion of foreign countries for reasons that do not bear on unquestionable self-defense are simply accessories to a crime against international law, and should be prosecuted as such.

[Gwailo]

It appears that little has changed in the last 2400 years, since the time the Athenians told the citizens of the island of Melos that:

"Well, then, we Athenians will use no fine words; we will not go out of our way to prove at length that we have a right to rule, because we overthrew the Persians; or that we attack you now because we are suffering any injury at your hands. We should not convince you if we did; nor must you expect to convince us by arguing that, although a colony of the Lacedaemonians, you have taken no part in their expeditions, or that you have never done us any wrong. But you and we should say what we really think, and aim only at what is possible, for we both alike know that in the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where there is equal power to enforce it, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must." Thucydides, The Melian Debate, at
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/MELIAN.HTM

(For "Athenians" read "Americans", for "Persians" read "Russians", and for "Lacedaemonians" read "Islam".)

[jerry]

I don't share Jerry's deference towards the Foreign Policy priesthood.

Not that it matters, but I wasn't arguing we should defer to the foreign policy priesthood, I was arguing Brad shouldn't defer to the foreign policy priesthood and Brad should get the hell out from the free trade economics priesthood.

Hard to know which one is worse for the average American.

[bigTom]

"Foreign Policy is hardly Quantum Physics or Engineering (or anything grounded in Science and Mathematics)"

Although some serious study of the cultures involved, and of human nature should be a requirement for having one's opinion respected. There can be no ideological shortcut for the application of good old fashioned elbow greese.

Much as I don't like what slocum said, I have to agree with his reading of the American polity. Notice how all the first tier Democratic candidates are trying to demonstrate that they have enough testosterone to threaten military action. The real source of the illness arises from the superficial understanding, and attitudes of too large a segment of our population. Until that changes, we can expect politicians to pander to our baser instincts.

[John Bignucolo]

[Off topic]

Jerry,

thanks for clarifcation; apologies for my careless reading of your post.

cheers,

[George J. Georganas]

"The number one rule of the bipartisan foreign policy community is that America can invade and attack other countries when vital American interests are threatened. Paying homage to that orthodoxy is a non-negotiable pre-requisite to maintaining good standing within the foreign policy community."

"I suspect that anyone who accepts the concept of a “national interest” in the first place would accept that phrasing. As a paid-up member of the Foreign Policy Community (FPC), I certainly would."

The weakness in this argument is that is fails to state one hidden condition, namely, that the countries to be invaded and (sic) attacked be weak enough to make the invasion or attack feasible.

Other than that, the Drezner doctrine has been practiced with success by Stalin in maintaining his rule over the Soviet Union : Pick a minority, brand them enemies of the state and pack them off to untold misery.

[assman]

"the collapse of the USSR truly was a disaster, for the United States...and not least, for the citizens of the Soviet successor states, who are now much less numerous, and getting more so, than they were in 1991."

So basically you are a fan of imperialism and fascism.

[assman]

"The jerks in this country fear France not because of its foreign policy but precisely for its capacity for cultural subversion."

Ah no, people in America hate France for the same reason that most people in Europe hate America: because they come across as arrogant, insufferable, self-righteous assholes. And actually most people in Europe hate the French too. Its not just Americans.

[Alexander Nekvasil]

International law has always suffered from lacking consensus on what precisely constitutes an aggression. (The obvious, narrow territorial interpretation does not allow for the concept of strategic resources, and did not prevail for this reason.)

That George Bush has in the mean while claimed magical powers complicates matters further, but they were complicated from the outset.

[assman]

"Brad is opposing Drezner on utilitarian grounds, but this is much too polite. Scott Martens and rea have the right reaction: those who support the invasion of foreign countries for reasons that do not bear on unquestionable self-defense are simply accessories to a crime against international law, and should be prosecuted as such."

Your statement is kind of funny. I see almost no cases where an invasion of a country could be justified on the basis of self-defense. Its the equivalent of saying "break and entering should never be allowed except in cases of self-defense". I would say that the whole idea of defending yourself by invading another country is questionable.

Furthermore your argument completely excludes intervention in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan. I actually fully agree with this position but I wonder whether you do?

[assman]

"But of course, the whole argument is a straw man. Isolationism is not the only alternative to current US policy."

What's wrong with a policy of isolationism?