THE END OF CLASSICAL SOVEREIGNTY?

March 11, 2003 8:00 PM

Is hypocrisy essential to the New World Order?
Whilst I appreciate the seductive insights and plausible analysis offered by Lee Harris in this lengthy and generally intelligent essay, I worry that the linking of themes in the intellectual form here merely provides, if not more ammo to the hawks in GWB's Cabinet, the justification for his unending 'war on terror'. There's thinly veiled xenophobia, I'm sure; but also some self-limiting principles compatible with a new kind of 'liberal hegemony' - called 'neo-sovereignty', viz., "It (neo-sovereignty) will only be viable if the U.S. scrupulously refuses to intervene in the self-determination of any state except for the purposes of maintaining the double standards in respect of nuclear weapons... At the heart of the dialectically emergent concept of neo-sovereignty is precisely the double standard that Mr. (Richard, the Chief Arms Inspector of the United Nations) Butler denounced - a double standard imposed by the U.S. on the rest of the world, whereby the U.S. can unilaterally decide to act, if need be, to override and even to cancel the existence of any state regime that proposes to develop WMD, especially in those cases where the state regime in question has demonstrated its dangerous lack of a sense of the realistic." [More inside]
posted by dash_slot- (30 comments total)

I'm not intending to start an 'Evil Empire'/'UN Must Prevail' duality here [tho' I admit the possibility of a descent into Mefi Hell is possible]. Mefi'ers have shown some capacity for sensible discussion, with due respect, enlightenment & complexities acknowledged. This piece takes some while to read, I concede, but for an openminded, but generally anti-war bloke like myself, it is worth the challenge - in time, in stretching my personal impulse for consensus, in trying to understand two forces which I want to oppose equally: so-called Islamofascism and hyperpower wilfulness. Some select quotes:

"None of our currently existing ideas and principles, concepts and categories, will fit the new historical state of affairs that will emerge out of the crisis. We can only be certain of our uncertainty"...
"The liberal world system has collapsed internally: there is no longer a set of rules that govern all the players. "...
"And the only way to avoid this horrendous end is to bring the Islamic world back to sanity sooner rather than latter."...
"This limited negation of the principle of national self-determination, however, does not mean an abandonment of the liberal world order. On the contrary, it is the only way of saving this order from its own internal contradictions."...
"Classical sovereignty is the basis of the classical nation state. Its defining characteristic is the de facto achievement of a monopoly of physical force under the control of a single central authority"...
"We must preserve what is still viable in the old concept of classical sovereignty, and yet we must not allow the unrestricted principle of national self-determination to permit the destruction of the liberal world order. How do we achieve this goal? "...
"There is only one solution, and that is for the United States to consciously adopt a policy of what might be tentatively called neo-sovereignty."...
"Indeed, neo-sovereignty is entirely compatible with less, rather than more, U.S. involvement in matters like the internal disputes of the Balkans. "...
"We must not set about trying to convert them in believing in our principles and accepting our values, however noble and lofty these values might be."...
"Our aim is simple. It is to make the Islamic fantasists respect the dictates of reality. If they wish to compete with us, if they wish even to be our enemies, we will accept that, as we accepted this situation with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But they must be made to accept the basic rules of play - rules that are accepted by the rest of mankind, from the U.S. to Communist China. "...
"Until they are willing to play by our rules, we must be prepared to play by theirs. "...
posted by dash_slot- at 8:07 PM on March 11, 2003

We must learn not only to exact a price for those who murder our citizens - but for those who, though technically innocent of the crime, dance in the streets to celebrate its consequences. This thirst for the indulgence of bloody fantasies at our expense must be brought to an end by whatever means it takes.

If we don't, the terrorists have won! If we do, they've won, too! Makes sense to me!
posted by y2karl at 8:29 PM on March 11, 2003

Make a coherent point!
posted by effer27 at 9:24 PM on March 11, 2003

Interesting article, especially since I just hit the link and skipped the FPP commentary. A different perspective than what I've seen lately.

I tend to agree with the author: we are entering something new and altogether different. How it'll play out is anyone's guess. Although it gets a bit pedantic at the end. He had the enlightened self-interest angle throughout the whole thing, and then he ends with a hand-wringing "they'll murder our children" dud of a climax. B-.
posted by solistrato at 9:31 PM on March 11, 2003

Oh, and he fails to draw the obvious conclusion from his article: that in this brand new world, concepts of nationalism and statism are pretty much useless.
posted by solistrato at 9:34 PM on March 11, 2003

Dash_Slot - re: "It (neo-sovereignty) will only be viable if the U.S. scrupulously refuses to intervene in the self-determination of any state except for the purposes of maintaining the double standards in respect of nuclear weapons" I think this principle is already out the window in Iraq. For an example, see Specialk420's recent "Who is this Richard Perle guy, anyway?" post and thread discussion.

One more thing - this damn stylized text formatting meme........watch out! - It'll colonize your sensibilities. It's just so tempting.... Pretty soon you won't be able to Stop.........

[I think you did it more judiciously than my insanely over the top "Flinging Garbage" post]

I wrote this on another thread; "Walrus - thanks, though your comment was pretty tame....I wonder about the "choppy text style" effect.......I have a theory! - choppy style=visual clutter/chaos=complex visual stimulae which can hide (as in the jungle)......Predators!! So, the ("reptilian" and sub-liminal parts of the) brain react:...DANGER DANGER - RELEASE ADRENALINE - DANGER - SCAN FOR MOVEMENT - DANGER.........Visual clutter evokes anxiety, supresses thought!
posted by troutfishing at 1:58 PM PST on March 11"

posted by troutfishing at 9:37 PM on March 11, 2003

Playing devil's advocate here:

This doctrine, however, can be only coherently implemented if the U.S. is prepare to negate the other basic principle of the liberal world order, the refusal to use unilateral force, except in those cases of the "straightforward, conventional unprovoked aggression." And this next logical step was taken by the present administration in its declaration of the policy of the pre-emptive strike. But this in turn, if it is to be carried through coherently, necessitates yet a final negation of the principle of the right of national self-determination: the U.S. must be willing to discard the Clausewitzian goal of making another nation state merely fulfill its political will. It must in fact be prepared to dismantle and reconstruct the other state, if, like Iraq, its behavior poses a threat to the general international system.

Who here trusts the US to do this reconstruction? Certainly, given the history of US foreign policy and nation-building efforts, from the Bay of Pigs fiasco to the current administration's forgetting to fund Afghanistan reconstruction, I for one wouldn't nominatre them for the job. And one of the central points of the essay is that nations that are created by fiat, or whose wealth and power comes through fortune as opposed to struggle, are unable to become realistic, rational actors. Seems to me that'd apply to any US-installed (or for that matter, UN-installed) postwar Iraqi regime.
posted by arto at 9:47 PM on March 11, 2003

MetaFilter: Home of the Big-Ass FPPs.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:48 PM on March 11, 2003

ack. hit "post" instead of "preview". look before you click, arto!

One further thought: Even if it does pan out as Harris would have it, with the US as unilateral alpha male cop of the world, sooner or later somebody's gonna come along and unseat them in this position. Might not happen in my lifetime, but it WILL happen.
posted by arto at 9:51 PM on March 11, 2003

arto: Good points but I would offer the following counter points:

I'm biased and of all the nations on earth right now, I would pick the US over most (if not all) others. But the reality is, you don't get to nominate anyone. That's the point of the article. Someone has to stand up and face this challenge head-on. Someone who has both the will and the ability to see it to its end. The candidates thin considerably, don't they? Who else? Germany? I believe they had to catch a ride from the US even to get to Afghanistan. France? Not if past military history is any indicator of future results. Russia? Only slightly removed from third-world status. China? Not exactly the human rights record you might be looking for in a new world-cop. No, really, the only party able to do it is the US and Sept. 11 gave us the will. You can't manufacture that kind of will, it has to be earned through great loss.

Also, just to nitpick, I'm not sure the US forgot to fund the Afghanistan reconstruction. That was part of a joint effort to which many nations are currently kicking in for. I wish the US would have taken a larger role in helping Afghanistan in the post-war environment but at the same time I can also understand why, for political reasons, it's better that the effort appear to be UN directed than US directed (hint: think Pakistan).

On the point of the postwar installed Iraqi "regime", I would argue that they will have to struggle as hard as Israel struggled to form a nation. First it needs to be dismantled and then it needs reconstructed. The US seems mostly concerned with the dismantle portion of that equation. The rebuilding will be left up to them once stability is restored. I don't think the article ruled out a helping hand which the US will hopefully supply if needed but it will not do *everything* for them.

Lastly, I don't think Harris attempted to argue that the US would be the world cop for all time. I can't even think of a scenario where that would even be the most likely outcome. Does that mean that the US will become a third-world nation? Not any more than it means that Germany is a third world nation, or Italy (Roman Empire), or Greece, or the British, or the French. I think all Harris was attempting to argue was that since the US is the biggest kid on the block it will attract the attention of those who wish to take its place. If those other kids play by established rules (for instance, if China were to become a dominant economic and military force) then all is fair in love and war. If they play by rules we don't understand then the US must reply in like force to whip them back into playing by the rules until someone else who does play by the rules comes along and takes the title of biggest kid on the block. It doesn't mean that that will always be the US' role only that if order is to be kept *someone* has to play that role. Which is one of the reasons I think Harris makes the point about the fact that we have to play by their rules until they play by ours. If we don't protect the rules by using any means necessary to defend them then once we are defeated the next biggest kid on the block becomes the new enemy of radical Islam. Our actions, though motivated by our own interests, in effect, offer benefits to all who play by the rules.
posted by billman at 10:47 PM on March 11, 2003

The article is excellent at articulating the problem of terrorism, especially hyper-empowered terrorist actors, and some of the theory behind it. But there's at least two points that are really tenuous, and perhaps dangerous:

(1) The fact we're not certain about connections with al-Qaeda and Iraq demonstrates how hard it is to find such connections. The terrorists could be anywhere, therefore any isolated state can be a target, proven connection or no.

It's appealing, but no. Afghanistan: there was little dispute about its ties with al-Qaeda, so we at least know a nation can graduate to observable status rather than imaginary ties constructed out of a political theory.

(2) The idea that the effort to stamp out those with dangerous fantasies and get everyone to play by the rules has to be done (or even simply spearheaded) by a single actor:

but the reality is, you don't get to nominate anyone. that's the point of the article. someone has to stand up and face this challenge head-on. someone who has both the will and the ability to see it to its end. the candidates thin considerably, don't they? who else? germany? i believe they had to catch a ride from the us even to get to afghanistan. france? not if past military history is any indicator of future results. russia? slightly removed from third-world status.

Here's the question: why not everybody this time, with Iraq as with Afghanistan? Or at least , most of our western civilization industrialized democracy allies? I realize there may be some reasons why our interests don't align perfectly, but it seems to me the biggest factor in the non-cooperation of Germany and France and Russia is their concern that the U.S. is taking too large a role in policing things.

The article argues convincingly about the problem, but not about why any single player going alone has to be the solution.
posted by namespan at 1:02 AM on March 12, 2003

Great essay, however the author asks a bit much of us when he expects us to believe that nations in the middle east have been allowed to flourish unheeded by dint of our liberal good will.

Sure, we've abstained from conquering Saudi Arabia wholesale, but the West meddled very actively in the region throughout the 20th century. The very borders of most Middle Eastern nations were carved up by the English and the French early in the 20th century. The British puppet king of Iraq was overthrown by popular revolt in 1958, which means that a lot of parents and grandparents in Iraq have memories of living under de facto British rule that was initially imposed when the British occupied them in 1917 (making use of aerial bombardment to suppress the opposition, which was a new treat to enjoy at that early date). Next door in Iran, in the early 1950s we didn't appreciate Mossadegh declaring that Iran was going to control its oil resources from then on out, so we helped bring in the Shah, who showed them a nice time for the next few decades. And so on.

So really the sovereignty the author claims we've granted them so liberally appears to have been highly conditional, and superficial, and perhaps completely bogus in some cases. Which makes me less surprised that there should be some resentment of the West in the region, and which I think calls into question the author's contention that radical Islam is the only force behind anti-Western sentiment there (that's the only force he mentions, anyway, so far as I recall). It seems an odd strategy to offer these folks a choice between annihilation and "the dictates of reality" when realism essentially means not doing anything that subordinates Western interests to their own. It's odd in the sense that these countries are then supposed to be able to suppress the terrorism that the resulting anti-Western sentiment produces when it's coupled with poverty, radical Islam, lack of sufficient power to wage a conventional war, and whatever other factors I've neglected to think of.

I also wonder how the author thinks we should go about attacking the problem militarily, given that we're not talking about fighting nation-states here. We're talking about lots of little pockets of terrorist activity spread all over the region (and all over the world, in fact). Shall we simply carpet-bomb the entire Middle East?

My solution? Shit, I dunno. This is the second article I've read that has called the situation a Gordian knot. Sadly apt metaphor I'm afraid.
posted by boredomjockey at 1:27 AM on March 12, 2003

'course, just because all the other players are either too poor or just as historically evil as the US in dealing with other nations doesn't imply that the US should go ahead with the regime change.

I think our "uncertainty" stems not so much from fear of seeing an unprecedented historical act unfold so much as the moral problems that many of us have with carrying out the action in the first place.

At the risk of being a philosophy troll: didn't Hegel say that history ended with Napolean, anyway? And is his assertation that we are seeing a "world-historical event" at all supported? Couldn't we as easily say that "nothing under the sun is new?" The whole article seems like something of a troll to my ears, though...

I'm going to stop here. I'm not following this guy's argument at all; every other paragraph I'm hitting some statement that I tacitly disagree with, so there's little chance of the final logical structure gelling. I don't agree that we're witnessing a world-historical event, where everything we once knew becomes instantly irrelevant (apparently because it doesn't fit the twisted un-logic of the hawk camp). I don't agree that there is, or has ever been, some all-seeing, all-dancing "Liberal World Order." I don't agree that "cognitive anarchy", where nations are unpredictable, is anything new at all. And so on.

blegh. the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:29 AM on March 12, 2003

Since 9/11, Americans have been subjected to the most intense propaganda campaign from their government since World War I. Much of the mainstream U.S. media have been intimidated by the Bush administration into unquestioningly amplifying its party line.

Or, in the worst tradition of yellow, jingoist journalism, they act as cheerleaders for war.

I am reminded of the sycophantic Soviet media during the days of Chairman Leonid Brezhnev.

The American public, often wobbly about geography, history and international affairs, has been alternatively terrified and enraged by bare-faced lies that Iraq was about to attack America with nuclear weapons or germs, and was a secret ally of al-Qaida.

A shocking two-thirds of Americans mistakenly believe Iraq staged the 9/11 attacks.

A surging wave of anti-Islamic hate, promoted in part by Bush's allies on the loony far right, and administration repression of Muslims, frighteningly recalls Europe's growing anti-Semitism of the early 1930s.

These are the reasons why a majority of Americans still support a war of aggression against Iraq, though more and more question the president's motives.

Bush's War is Not About Democracy by Eric Margolis
posted by y2karl at 1:40 AM on March 12, 2003

is their concern that the U.S. is taking too large a role in policing things.

Let's pretend for a moment that the interests of France, Germany, and Russia were aligned.

Germany nor France is in any position to be much help in a military sense. Their contributions, in recent years, have always been more just so they could claim to have helped. I don't say that in a negative sense. That's just not been their thing.

What is a bad thing is that Saddam was supposed to begin disarming Apr. 1991. It's been 4293 days since then and in that time *at least* 9 UN resolutions (not counting 1441) specifically condemning Iraq's failure to comply with the disarmament terms of the 1991 cease fire agreement. Inspectors have been kicked out, allowed to return, and then thwarted from doing the job they were supposed to do. Only now, with 300,000 troops massed on his border has Saddam been moved to begin reluctant compliance.

One of Harris' arguments is that the one who undertakes this task must have BOTH the ability and the will. With France and Germany unconvinced that 12 years is enough time for Iraq to disarm, I'm afraid I am highly skeptical that they have the will. Neither has the ability without the US footing much of the cost anyway but neither, most certainly, has the will.

Russia is simply too broke. They can't afford it.
posted by billman at 1:48 AM on March 12, 2003

So really the sovereignty the author claims we've granted them so liberally appears to have been highly conditional, and superficial, and perhaps completely bogus in some cases.

Yes, but one could make the same argument about many other nations. Many of the lines drawn on the map have been imposed on one party or the other. One could even go so far as to point out that most of those lines were drawn during the era of the British, French, and Spanish empires. While the US has been no saint and has tooled around far too often in the Middle East region, your reasoning does not explain why all of the hatred is directed towards the US. I think the liberal good will of which he speaks is the fact that the US is the only nation probably in the history of man who has had the ability to conquer the world and hasn't made a run for it. We had a brief colonial period but we pretty much gave what we had back in exchange for an open port or an airstrip to use for our military. I know that's an oversimplification and people can debate whether or not stationing military troops someplace is actually giving it back but the bigger point is that the US has never shown a overwhelming tendency to want to go and plant our flag in some nation and call it our own in the same way that most other nations with our might have done.

The moral problems that kaibutsu mentions are not about right and wrong rather they are about the fact that the US has never wanted to have to do this. They US has always hoped that putting the right guy in here or there would keep the problem at bay. Instead, those puppets have terrorized their people and brought nothing but pain and suffering while they build bigger and bigger castles to house the riches they steal.

What is the alternative? Should we just cut these nations loose and try to lock the door to our own home? I think Harris' point is that justified or unjustified the anger is real. We can sit back and watch the anger manifest itself into more attacks against the US or we can go in and cut out the tumor and help these nations by removing the repressive regimes. A realization, completely new realization, that we can no longer measure our success in the region by loyalty to our interests but by loyalty to their own. We succeed when they succeed. As Harris pointed out, you can view it in the most cynical terms and claim we're doing it so we can import more American culture and commerce into their societies but if the end result are nations who have hope, a future, and a reason to look forward to the future the bin Laden's of the world are going to have a hard time recruiting followers. As he said, you don't win this war by putting down the opposition, you win when they quit cheering in the streets when planes fly into our buildings.
posted by billman at 2:41 AM on March 12, 2003

billman - 'We can sit back and watch the anger manifest itself into more attacks against the US or we can go in and cut out the tumor and help these nations by removing the repressive regimes. '
Alternatively, the US could support societal change through promoting democratic solutions to the problems of totalitarian regimes. To use your analogy, the cancer has left the tumor and now resides in every cell in the body. Only the holistic approach can have a lasting result.
This is of course impossible as it requires both parties show restraint and humility. Not politically expedient in the short term, with tempers being enflamed as they have been. Maybe a calm approach might have been the better path all along.
Considering the record of US foreign involvement, I would be very dubious if America offered to 'help' my country out of it's Monarchist cul-de-sac. My country being the UK.
posted by asok at 3:41 AM on March 12, 2003

On the disinterested, altruistic nature of US foreign policy:

A timeline of CIA atrocities

CIA commits 100,000 serious crimes a year around the globe


"From "The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century" by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, US House of Representatives (1996):


The CS [clandestine service] is the only part of the IC [intelligence community], indeed of the government, where hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in countries around the world in the face of frequently sophisticated efforts by foreign governments to catch them. A safe estimate is that several hundred times every day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO [Directorate of Operations] officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law) that not only risk political embarrassment to the US but also endanger the freedom if not lives of the participating foreign nationals and, more than occasionally, of the clandestine officer himself. "
posted by troutfishing at 5:44 AM on March 12, 2003

In other words, the gulf between past behavior of the US around the world (see links above) and this new call for "scrupulous" behavior can only be called a yawning chasm. Shut off the ideological rhetoric-generating machine and look merely at the human toll of US foreign policy, and such calls for chaste self control (as below) on the part of the US look quite bizarre, as if written by a martian.

["the U.S. scrupulously refuses to intervene in the self-determination of any state except for the purposes of maintaining the double standards in respect of nuclear weapons..."]
posted by troutfishing at 5:57 AM on March 12, 2003

the US could support societal change through promoting democratic solutions to the problems of totalitarian regimes.

asok, have you been hanging out with management consultants recently? Because that sentence has no meaning that I can discern.
posted by gd779 at 6:15 AM on March 12, 2003

several hundred times every day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO [Directorate of Operations] officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law)

Umm, troutfishing? Spying is a highly illegal activity, and each attempt at accessing classified information in a foreign country would clearly violate local law. Probably multiple times. (Breaking and entering, espionage, etc.) I'm not sure what this proves, other than the obvious: spying on a foreign country is a dangerous and illegal business.
posted by gd779 at 6:19 AM on March 12, 2003

The past does not equal the future.

Bush was not exactly the guy most people would have picked for this job. His foreign policy seemed to have been you play in your backyard and we'll play in ours. Sept. 11 seems to have changed that in a dramatic way. Bush himself has said that the events of Sept. 11 had a profound change on his outlook.

Now, you can say the guy is fos but since you would be purely speculating, to some degree you would also be fos. :-)

Believe me, I don't usually buy into the ephiphany thing very often but knowing the fundamental change in outlook that occured within my own thinking as a result of Sept. 11 I'm willing to give the guy at least the benefit of the doubt.

asok: Can you outline how you see this plan evolving? I just can't see the US going into countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran and undermining the existing governments while still pretending to be friends with the governments. Iran's government is really not interested in democractic reform. They seem quite intent on putting down a democratic revolution. Saudi Arabia is another government who might object to the US talking crazy democracy talk to its people. Any overt attempts to modify the existing regimes in the area would most likely be seen as acts of war by those governments. Think about it, if your neighbor came over to your house and started telling your kids that you were a bad parent, exactly how long would it take before you were booting them out of your house?

So asok, if you have details, please provide them because I just don't see how you make change without doing a little invasive surgery. Even if the US were to back pro-democracy movements within those countries, the US has to back the leader who has the most likelyhood of winning thus putting us right back on that merry-go-round of setting up puppet regimes and hoping for the best. If the change is complete and total, the US can encourage the best leaders not simply the ohe with the most guns.
posted by billman at 8:07 AM on March 12, 2003

" I just can't see the US going into countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran and undermining the existing governments while still pretending to be friends with the governments."

Whu? The US has a history of doing exactly that. What on earth makes you think that it isn't going to happen again?
posted by five fresh fish at 9:16 AM on March 12, 2003

Nice commentary, billman, but can you realistically envision a time when the U.S. would relinquish its role as voluntary world cop? Perhaps when every threat of this nature is eradicated, but this threat is so diffuse, when will or could that ever occur?

Wipe out militant Islam and its sympathizers today and something else will pop up to take its place. Nature abhorring a vaccuum and all that.

I'm also skeptical that the U.S. would ever permit anyone else to steal out title of "biggest kid on the block" even if they WERE playing by the rules. A century from now, the vast, as-yet untapped human and perhaps material resources in a place like China may afford that country an opportunity for the type of global superiority we now enjoy - if the Chinese could find a way to harness those resources. Do you honestly believe we would permit this - particularly if China remains communist at that point?

Rather, I think we are entering into an age when we act - militarily, when necessary - in order to bring about a unified, "globalized" world bound together by commerce, if nothing else, whose leading player is and will remain the United States. We are going to remake the world in the image we wish to see, for our own national security but not just that.

I'm telling ya, it's the one-world government that hard right wing nuts still have nightmares about.
posted by kgasmart at 9:36 AM on March 12, 2003

Germany nor France is in any position to be much help in a military sense. Their contributions, in recent years, have always been more just so they could claim to have helped. I don't say that in a negative sense. That's just not been their thing.

Largely true. However, they're in an very good position to be quite helpful in a political sense. There's an enormous amount of capital in the goodwill of our allies. If our current administration was good at that diplomacy, chances are we'd be picking up pieces in Iraq right now rather than arguing about it. Not to mention that if any of several European countries pick up the 1/20th of the tab/resources, that's a significant relief on the burden to the U.S.

What is a bad thing is that Saddam was supposed to begin disarming Apr. 1991. It's been 4293 days since then and in that time *at least* 9 UN resolutions (not counting 1441) specifically condemning Iraq's failure to comply with the disarmament terms of the 1991 cease fire agreement.

No argument there. I would, however, question whether this makes it a state likely to simply collapse and become a terrorist. It could become a terrorist actor itself, but that's questionable, especially since it doesn't really operate under the Islam fantasy, it just uses it. Although the arguments that its recalcitrance and fantasy of invulnerability make some sense.

In any case, however, nothing I can think of justifies doing it alone as a superior option, much less doing it with the animosity of the world....

US: You're either with us or against us. We'll do whatever we damn well please and we don't need you or your counsel.
Others: Well, I guess you don't need us, and we're irrelevant, so we're not with you.
US: Wanna help though?
Others: Um, no, not with that attitude.
US: You suck!
posted by namespan at 9:52 AM on March 12, 2003

I'll apologize ahead of time for addressing two different posts by two different people in my reply.

when will or could that ever occur?

When we've finally defeated Lichtenstien. Those guys are the root of all evil in the world :-)

Nature abhorring a vaccuum and all that.

I agree something will fill the void but who is to say what it is? In the 1800's who would of thought that the US would have become the world's only superpower? Who would have thought the 3 or 4 guys who made up a small company called Microsoft would one day eclipse almost the entire technology industry. Only a small handful of companies that made up the Dow Industrial Average are even in business today. If one thing is certain in life, it's change. I know, cliche, but it's true. There are an infinate number of scenarios with an infinate number of possible outcomes. Neither you nor I can predict what will happen that far out.

I'm also skeptical that the U.S. would ever permit anyone else to steal out title of "biggest kid on the block"

As I pointed out above, the US doesn't have to permit it any more than Russia allowed itself to fall from superpower. I guess it's difficult to picture because we're framing the question with a certain set of facts and trying to see what might happen. But those facts can and do change and it's nearly impossible to predict what can or will happen. I wish I could. I would be doing a lot more investing right now :-)

in order to bring about a unified, "globalized" world bound together by commerce,

I guess one has to ask if that's a bad thing. If the world competition became about commerce instead of land or power. I'm not saying it is but it seems, at least in the abstract, to be much more peaceful than what we have today. I'm not talking about the extreme where everyone is out to crush one another but more of that middle ground where there is healthy competition and incentive for adding value into the system.

There's an enormous amount of capital in the goodwill of our allies.

namespan, I wish I could agree in the way you would like me to on that thought but I simply cannot. I feel like Don Corleone in the Godfather, our true enemies have yet to reveal themselves and sadly, I feel that our enemies (not in a military sense but in the power grab sense) are France and Germany. Eight of the current 15 EU nations have sided with the US. Thirteen of the 13 EU candidate nations have sided with the US. Yet, France and Germany stand defiant. Even Germany's lead representative to the US is raging mad in the way that Schroeder has made it impossible for him to find middle ground with the US. Now you can believe that they are doing it for moral reasons or even reasons of financial or political self-interest but I'm afraid I can't accept that. They have gone too far and have allowed too much to be put at risk to believe they have any intentions other than to increase their power at the expense of the US. I could be wrong, and to some degree I hope that I am, but if you actually go back and look at the extremes that France and Germany have gone to over the last 12 months to thwart the US it does not take a lot of imagination to develop the notion that their objections are not honorable.

If France and Germany actually believed in what they claim they believe in, the disarmament of Iraq, why did France not threaten to cancel its oil contracts with Iraq unless Iraq complied? Why have then not appealed to Saddam? Why are all of their efforts not being put towards pressuring Saddam to disarm? The quickest way for them to stop war, if that were their goal, would be to remove the reason the US has for attacking.

Some could say that Bush has contributed to this animosity and they would be 100% correct but it's funny how a ruthless dictator who thumbs his nose at the world via his refusal to comply with the UN seems to be held in higher regard than the president of the US.

In any case, however, nothing I can think of justifies doing it alone as a superior option, much less doing it with the animosity of the world....

I guess you can look at that several ways. First is, the US is not going it alone. As I just stated 8 of 15 EU members and 13 of 13 EU candidate nations have come out in support of the US. Second, if it were not for the intense lobbying efforts of France and Germany, it is highly likely many more nations would join. The French refuse to allow any resolution that allows for war to pass. They are attempting to block such a resolution from even coming before the members of the UN because they don't want the vote to go on record.

We always complain because our politicians are more willing to do what is popular than what's right but now we're saying that we should do what's popular even if that may not be what's right.

I'm not a huge fan of Bush as a politician. I don't agree with many of his thoughts or actions on the domestic front. But the thing I found myself thinking about was the 1980's and Ronald Reagan. Our only true ally then was the UK. The same people who are shocked at Bush's behavior are the same people who heaped scorn on Reagan for calling the Soviets the Evil Empire. Gorbachev and many other then high-ranking Soviet officials have said that that was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. Reagan's resolve and unwillingness to bend to the pleas of many Western European allies put so much internal pressure on the Soviet Union that they found it more and more difficult to maintain control. Today, we find ourselves with one real ally, Britan, and again today we are being asked to tone it down, to take it easy, to not risk war for the sake of peace. You can take issue, you can point out where this or that was different from the situation today, but that was my own personal reflection as flawed as it may be.
posted by billman at 11:10 AM on March 12, 2003

namespan, I wish I could agree in the way you would like me to on that thought but I simply cannot. I feel like Don Corleone in the Godfather, our true enemies have yet to reveal themselves and sadly, I feel that our enemies (not in a military sense but in the power grab sense) are France and Germany.

I can agree to an exent: I think France and Germany's motivations are somewhat transparent -- they are seeking political power in a world that could otherwise marginalize them. Part of this is through the EU, which will become an increasingly powerful force, and they can be more the California, New York, and Texas of that state. Part of it is through the emerging tradition of international law (ie.. the U.N.). They can't be a military or economic superpower right now, so this is a huge portion of their strategy. Independent action of a coalition of the willing weakens the institutions they count on for political power. I don't see how that makes them our enemies, unless we are basically opposed to developing the institution of the U.N. itself. Which is sortof the tack the current administration has taken.

It's also worth noting France and Germany have been cooperative in other respects since Sep 11: arrests of terrorists, sharing of intelligence, helping with Afghanistan. There is something special about the prospect of attacking Iraq.
posted by namespan at 1:27 PM on March 12, 2003

I have to derail everyone with a great compliment - This has been one of the best discussions I've seen here on Metafilter. Good stuff, and what the site has been built for.
posted by tgrundke at 6:56 PM on March 12, 2003

Tgrundke - I noticed this phenomenon on another Mefi "Iraq" ('Raq'?) thread today: polite, civil, thoughtfull discussion. I think people are tired of yelling so loudly.
posted by troutfishing at 9:17 PM on March 12, 2003

troutfishing: Perhaps this will be in breaking with the civil nature of the thread but I also happen to notice that many of the usual suspects also happen to be absent from the discussion.

I have very much enjoyed this thread due to the fact that most everyone has had something intelligent to say AND is willing to at least give other opinions consideration. Not consideration in the sense that one is swayed by the argument but rather that one can at least recognize that a position other than their own can be valid.

And if anybody feels differently they are a stupid and evil person :-)
posted by billman at 11:53 PM on March 12, 2003