The Road from Westphalia
March 30, 2015 5:23 PM Subscribe
Jessica T. Matthews reviews Henry Kissinger's "World Order" and Bret Stephen's "America In Retreat":
Can U.S. Foreign Policy Be Saved?
for lighter fare, Overthinking It: What time is it? Foreign Policy Time! Lemonhope and the conundrum of freedom
Almost from the beginning of its history, America has struggled to find a balance in its foreign policy between narrowly promoting its own security and idealistically serving the interests of others; between, as we’ve tended to see it in shorthand, Teddy Roosevelt’s big stick and the ideals of Woodrow Wilson. Just as consistently, the US has gone through periods of embracing a leading international role for itself and times when Americans have done all they could to turn their backs on the rest of the world. Two new books now join this never-ending debate.
Can U.S. Foreign Policy Be Saved?
for lighter fare, Overthinking It: What time is it? Foreign Policy Time! Lemonhope and the conundrum of freedom
Kissinger’s book, steeped in history, is a learned, thoughtful, often fascinating global tour through the various clashing views of world order […] no one alive has thought longer or harder about diplomacy or had more experience and success working at its highest levelI really don't understand why people take the NYRB seriously as a venue for political discussion when it publishes disgusting insider horseshit like this — nor why Kissinger still receives public encomia of this kind rather than invitations to the Hague.
posted by RogerB at 5:59 PM on March 30, 2015 [27 favorites]
nor why Kissinger still receives public encomia of this kind rather than invitations to the Hague.
Or to be shot by a firing squad for treason. The deaths of over 30,000 US soldiers forever stains his hands with blood.
posted by Talez at 6:11 PM on March 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Or to be shot by a firing squad for treason. The deaths of over 30,000 US soldiers forever stains his hands with blood.
posted by Talez at 6:11 PM on March 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
"I believe in national friendships and heartiest good will to all nations; but national friendships, like those between men, must be founded on respect as well as on liking, on forbearance as well as upon trust. I should be heartily ashamed of any American who did not try to make the American government act as justly toward the other nations in international relations as he himself would act toward any individual in private relations. I should be heartily ashamed to see us wrong a weaker power, and I should hang my head forever if we tamely suffered wrong from another nation"
-Theodore Roosevelt, "The New Nationalism"
posted by clavdivs at 6:18 PM on March 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
-Theodore Roosevelt, "The New Nationalism"
posted by clavdivs at 6:18 PM on March 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
Here's all you need to know about bachelor #2:
Beyond this, the books have little in common. Stephens’s is a facts-be-damned polemic, designed to show that the world has gone to hell since President Obama took office. Somehow, Obama is saddled with responsibility for the success of North Korea’s nuclear program. Stephens does not say that North Korea began the program in the 1950s, succeeded in building its first bomb twenty-two years ago, and carried out its first atomic test three years before Obama took office.
posted by thelonius at 6:20 PM on March 30, 2015 [7 favorites]
Beyond this, the books have little in common. Stephens’s is a facts-be-damned polemic, designed to show that the world has gone to hell since President Obama took office. Somehow, Obama is saddled with responsibility for the success of North Korea’s nuclear program. Stephens does not say that North Korea began the program in the 1950s, succeeded in building its first bomb twenty-two years ago, and carried out its first atomic test three years before Obama took office.
posted by thelonius at 6:20 PM on March 30, 2015 [7 favorites]
Kissinger’s book, steeped in history blood
FTFY
posted by uosuaq at 6:25 PM on March 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
FTFY
posted by uosuaq at 6:25 PM on March 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
The weird quasi-religious nature of American nationalism (all that "beacon of democracy", "shining city on a hill", "last, best hope of mankind", "U-S-A!" stuff) seems to make even people who should know better say some amazingly silly things ("idealistically serving the interests of others"?). And there's quite a lot of incoherence and arrogant ignorance and comically wrong estimation of the USA's actual influence on display in some of the linked articles, as well; this Codevilla person for instance says:
In 1919, Woodrow Wilson said that America had no other purpose than to serve mankind. At the Paris Peace Conference that concluded World War I he imagined that he could pacify all nations for all time by promoting democracy, order, and progress. But the borders he brokered spawned wars that have yet to end, while his pursuit of Progressive fantasies reaped Lenin, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao.
Those borders he talks about? Those were mostly in the Middle East. And they were decided by the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 between Britain and France...well before Versailles, and well before the USA was even in the war. Lenin and the Bolsheviks? Nothing to do with Wilson or "pursuit of progressive fantasies"; Russia had been on the brink of revolution for years (indeed, there was a revolution in 1905 that led to limited reforms), and the USA and Britain sent troops to Russia to support the White Russians against the Bolsheviks. Italy was one of the Allies during WWI; the rise of fascism in Germany may have something to do with the burden of reparations imposed by Versailles, but those reparations were imposed at the insistence of France. So this sounds like some sort of weird "America First" isolationism based on a really weak and ideologically slanted understanding of history. And this person is a professor of international relations?
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:52 PM on March 30, 2015 [14 favorites]
In 1919, Woodrow Wilson said that America had no other purpose than to serve mankind. At the Paris Peace Conference that concluded World War I he imagined that he could pacify all nations for all time by promoting democracy, order, and progress. But the borders he brokered spawned wars that have yet to end, while his pursuit of Progressive fantasies reaped Lenin, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao.
Those borders he talks about? Those were mostly in the Middle East. And they were decided by the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 between Britain and France...well before Versailles, and well before the USA was even in the war. Lenin and the Bolsheviks? Nothing to do with Wilson or "pursuit of progressive fantasies"; Russia had been on the brink of revolution for years (indeed, there was a revolution in 1905 that led to limited reforms), and the USA and Britain sent troops to Russia to support the White Russians against the Bolsheviks. Italy was one of the Allies during WWI; the rise of fascism in Germany may have something to do with the burden of reparations imposed by Versailles, but those reparations were imposed at the insistence of France. So this sounds like some sort of weird "America First" isolationism based on a really weak and ideologically slanted understanding of history. And this person is a professor of international relations?
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:52 PM on March 30, 2015 [14 favorites]
After building wealth on top of slave labor, disposessing and dominating the neighbors and the natives, Americans found no comfort in their dominion. Instead of seeking humble lives and contemplating the fortune they inherited, we choose to seek entanglements abroad. We transform our wealth and prosperity into debt and will leave our heirs enslaved to a handful of wealthy bankers.
posted by humanfont at 7:19 PM on March 30, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 7:19 PM on March 30, 2015 [15 favorites]
Stephens is explicit and unapologetic in defining what he thinks the posture of the US should be, namely the world’s policeman or, as he describes it, a cop walking a global beat
...turning the world into Ferguson, Missouri?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:15 AM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
...turning the world into Ferguson, Missouri?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:15 AM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
For what it's worth, I still can't think of Henry Kissinger without saying to myself, in his voice "No one must know I dropped my glasses in the toilet. Not I, the man who drafted the Paris Peace Accords."
posted by teponaztli at 12:53 AM on March 31, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by teponaztli at 12:53 AM on March 31, 2015 [6 favorites]
I literally will ask myself every now and then "Are you Kissinger-ing?" during an argument, just to make sure I'm not doing that thing where I know I'm smarter than everyone else so I just flail around being smarter than them just to prove it, regardless of whether it actually matters in the argument or in life generally.
I find that I and everyone around me are happier when I Kissinger less.
posted by Etrigan at 2:38 AM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
I find that I and everyone around me are happier when I Kissinger less.
posted by Etrigan at 2:38 AM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
Those borders he talks about? Those were mostly in the Middle East. And they were decided by the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 between Britain and France...well before Versailles, and well before the USA was even in the war.
Sykes-Picot was far less enduring than most contemporary commentators seem to imagine. And while Codevilla certainly seems to be being bizarrely hand-wavy when it comes to "Lenin, Stalin et al." he's right that redrawing the maps in the middle east was a central plank in Wilson's Versailles agenda, which led to concrete outcomes in the Sèvres agreement of 1920. There was a good op-ed piece by Sean McMeekin about the strange overhyping of "Sykes-Picot" in contemporary discourse about the Middle East in the LA Times recently.
posted by yoink at 9:49 AM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sykes-Picot was far less enduring than most contemporary commentators seem to imagine. And while Codevilla certainly seems to be being bizarrely hand-wavy when it comes to "Lenin, Stalin et al." he's right that redrawing the maps in the middle east was a central plank in Wilson's Versailles agenda, which led to concrete outcomes in the Sèvres agreement of 1920. There was a good op-ed piece by Sean McMeekin about the strange overhyping of "Sykes-Picot" in contemporary discourse about the Middle East in the LA Times recently.
posted by yoink at 9:49 AM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
So the US's foreign policy is either 'protecting its security' or 'idealistically serving the interests of others'? Seriously?
The claim is that these are the (competing) terms in which American leaders have framed their rationales for foreign policy. It seems an uncontroversial claim.
posted by yoink at 9:54 AM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
The claim is that these are the (competing) terms in which American leaders have framed their rationales for foreign policy. It seems an uncontroversial claim.
posted by yoink at 9:54 AM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
"... America’s encounter with world order derived from its belief in its special destiny as the engine of human progress...."
Yes yes yes, but everyone misses the point. We need to attack Iran before they change their mind, and insist on meeting us in a fair and open diplomatic exchange that might rule out any prospect of war. Pax Americana requires guns, but the butter can wait until appropriate fiscal channels can be established. Then, things go better once the KFCs and Starbucks are in place.
This was as true during Kissinger's salad days as it is now. The operating premise of the Cold War (as silly and deadly as it was) had to do with negotiations. The Frankenstein Syndrome hovering around nuclear weapons scared even such intellectual giants as Curtis Lemay. I thought I'd never see the likes of him (Lemay) ever again rise to the level of movers and shakers, but then, along came B-43 and his handlers, who couldn't imagine a tool other than The Big Stick.
By the way, the treaties of Westphalia defined certain principles regarding national sovereignty, sure enough, but they implied that sovereign states were the ones with the better weapons, and planted seeds that blossomed into the internationally adopted premise that the other, lesser, states needed to be brought under their protective umbrella until they either matured enough to govern themselves, or their plantations and natural resources played out. Probably more the latter than the former. It matters less that advanced nations have the skills to operate successfully in the international arena, and more that they have the moral high-ground--some say moral imperative--to do so. We have evolved since then in that nowadays we can use drones, where we once needed Imperial Marines, to defend the company store. (This is not a long-term viable option, but as I stated, that's not important.)
And, last but not least, The Westphalia Waltz is one of the favorite tunes of the Old Time Fiddlers here in Southern Oregonoia. It's somehow sadly appropriate that the closest anyone in our little group has come to identifying it's relevance came when one of our members (who turned 99 y/o last week) called it "The Volkswagen Song."
posted by mule98J at 10:27 AM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes yes yes, but everyone misses the point. We need to attack Iran before they change their mind, and insist on meeting us in a fair and open diplomatic exchange that might rule out any prospect of war. Pax Americana requires guns, but the butter can wait until appropriate fiscal channels can be established. Then, things go better once the KFCs and Starbucks are in place.
This was as true during Kissinger's salad days as it is now. The operating premise of the Cold War (as silly and deadly as it was) had to do with negotiations. The Frankenstein Syndrome hovering around nuclear weapons scared even such intellectual giants as Curtis Lemay. I thought I'd never see the likes of him (Lemay) ever again rise to the level of movers and shakers, but then, along came B-43 and his handlers, who couldn't imagine a tool other than The Big Stick.
By the way, the treaties of Westphalia defined certain principles regarding national sovereignty, sure enough, but they implied that sovereign states were the ones with the better weapons, and planted seeds that blossomed into the internationally adopted premise that the other, lesser, states needed to be brought under their protective umbrella until they either matured enough to govern themselves, or their plantations and natural resources played out. Probably more the latter than the former. It matters less that advanced nations have the skills to operate successfully in the international arena, and more that they have the moral high-ground--some say moral imperative--to do so. We have evolved since then in that nowadays we can use drones, where we once needed Imperial Marines, to defend the company store. (This is not a long-term viable option, but as I stated, that's not important.)
And, last but not least, The Westphalia Waltz is one of the favorite tunes of the Old Time Fiddlers here in Southern Oregonoia. It's somehow sadly appropriate that the closest anyone in our little group has come to identifying it's relevance came when one of our members (who turned 99 y/o last week) called it "The Volkswagen Song."
posted by mule98J at 10:27 AM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
yoink: "The claim is that these are the (competing) terms in which American leaders have framed their rationales for foreign policy. It seems an uncontroversial claim."
The actual quote, which starts off the article and the FPP and which my comment is commenting on, is:
"Almost from the beginning of its history, America has struggled to find a balance in its foreign policy between narrowly promoting its own security and idealistically serving the interests of others; "
This does not claim that it "has struggled to present its foreign policy as", or "has struggled to frame its foreign policy's rationale as". You added that part.
posted by signal at 11:28 AM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
The actual quote, which starts off the article and the FPP and which my comment is commenting on, is:
"Almost from the beginning of its history, America has struggled to find a balance in its foreign policy between narrowly promoting its own security and idealistically serving the interests of others; "
This does not claim that it "has struggled to present its foreign policy as", or "has struggled to frame its foreign policy's rationale as". You added that part.
posted by signal at 11:28 AM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yeah but speaking as someone outside America? There's never been anything about 'idealistically serving the interests of others,' ever. It's always been about security theatre and profit-seeking.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:47 PM on March 31, 2015
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:47 PM on March 31, 2015
Sykes-Picot was far less enduring than most contemporary commentators seem to imagine. And while Codevilla certainly seems to be being bizarrely hand-wavy when it comes to "Lenin, Stalin et al." he's right that redrawing the maps in the middle east was a central plank in Wilson's Versailles agenda, which led to concrete outcomes in the Sèvres agreement of 1920.
The USA wasn't a party to the Treaty of Sèvres, and the San Remo agreement of 1920 largely affirmed the division of the corpse of the Ottoman Empire between British and French territorial mandates with some self-governing states. When it came to the partition of the Ottoman Empire the USA was a bystander. (But blaming it on Clemenceau and Lloyd George robs Codevilla of the chance to score points against Wilson, I suppose.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:57 PM on March 31, 2015
The USA wasn't a party to the Treaty of Sèvres, and the San Remo agreement of 1920 largely affirmed the division of the corpse of the Ottoman Empire between British and French territorial mandates with some self-governing states. When it came to the partition of the Ottoman Empire the USA was a bystander. (But blaming it on Clemenceau and Lloyd George robs Codevilla of the chance to score points against Wilson, I suppose.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:57 PM on March 31, 2015
fwiw...
The Act of Killing - "A film from the point-of-view of the perpetrators, not the victims, of the 1965 killing of over 1,000,000 suspected Communists in Indonesia."
- Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World - "It can be Indispensable America (our postwar role), Moneyball America (pick priorities and accomplish them), or Independent America (limited foreign policy aspirations but lots of nation-building at home and trade abroad), and Ian prefers the latter..."
- The Method to Obama’s Middle East Mess - "Haltingly but persistently, this administration has pursued a paradigm shift in how the United States relates to the Middle East, a shift from a Pax Americana model toward a strategy its supporters call 'offshore balancing.' "
In a Pax Americana system, the United States enjoys a dominant position within a network of allies and clients; actors outside that network are considered rogues and threats, to be restrained and coerced by our overwhelming military might. Ideally, over time our clients become more prosperous and more democratic, the benefits of joining the network become obvious, and the military canopy both expands and becomes less necessary.also btw, re: kissinger...
In an offshore balancing system, our clients are fewer, and our commitments are reduced. Regional powers bear the primary responsibility for dealing with crises on the ground, our military strategy is oriented toward policing the sea lanes and the skies, and direct intervention is contemplated only when the balance of power is dramatically upset.
Since the Cold War, and especially since 1991, the Pax Americana idea has predominated in our foreign policy thinking. But in the Middle East, there has been no real evolution toward democracy among our network of allies; instead, their persistent corruption has fed terrorism and contributed to Al Qaeda’s rise.
The Act of Killing - "A film from the point-of-view of the perpetrators, not the victims, of the 1965 killing of over 1,000,000 suspected Communists in Indonesia."
Charles Monroe-Kane: One of the most powerful moments for me in the film is this mundane moment in a car where one of the leaders of the genocide says to you: "Hey Josh, war crimes are defined by the winners. I'm a winner."posted by kliuless at 1:32 PM on April 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Joshua Oppenheimer: "...and I get to make my own definition..."
CMK: "And I get to make my own definition of what that means." Did they win?
JO: They won. I mean that's what the film's about. Indonesia could now have a popular movement to unseat these guys, perhaps through mobilizing, organizing in the context of the very corrupt, even criminal electoral democracy that Indonesia has today; things could change, the balance of power could change. The film has certainly provided ammunition for that fight, but nevertheless the film is a resp... the whole raison d'etre of this film, the reason I made it is because it's an expose of what happens when the killers win. And, somehow, I have this feeling that that's not the exception to the rule. Genocide, we think ok the Nazis, we think the Khmer Rouge, they were thrown out of power, there have been tribunals, there's been some form of justice, however incomplete and impartial, but I would suppose that's the exception to the rule. That perpetrators of mass political violence normally win and then normally take power. And that's why the perpetrate the violence. If every time it happened or most of the times they have their comeuppance, they wouldn't do it anymore. And then all that's unique in Indonesia perhaps is the boasting of the perpetrators. That's an allegory for the rule; a metaphor for the rule. And the reason they boast is simply, it's not just that they won -- and this is where it implicates all of us -- it's because the rest of the world, at least the western world, supported them at the time of the killings and have supported them enthusiastically ever since. And they know that. So when they meet a foreigner with a camera, they don't think this is something they should be ashamed of, they boast and they boast openly.
Latest Wikileaks TPP Document Release Has Obama Administration on the Defensive
posted by jeffburdges at 3:21 PM on April 6, 2015
posted by jeffburdges at 3:21 PM on April 6, 2015
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Some americans' lack of self-awareness about their country's actual military history is awe inspiring in its sheer obliviousness.
posted by signal at 5:50 PM on March 30, 2015 [24 favorites]