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From
http://www.thetexasmercury.com/articles/copold/DC20011028b.html
}}}>Begin
The
Decline & Fall of the Neocon Empire: Domestic Complications Derek
Copold
Author�s
preface: (The first
part of this series dealt with the negative ramifications of
adopting an imperialist foreign policy. In it, I paid particular
attention
to past American failures in Southwest Asia. Here, I answer the
more
positive claims made by a broad range of neocons, including Max
Boot, Jonah
Goldberg, Mark Steyn and Rich Lowry. DC)
National Review�s editor, Rich Lowry,
likes �nation building.� He wrote a rather illuminating article
about it. Not that the article was incisive, mind you; it was, in
fact,
nothing more than another rehash of the same old interventionist
yakety-yak.
But in the center of this mish-mash lurked a sentence which
perfectly
captures the imperialist mindset. I reproduce this eye-catching
quote from
Mr. Lowry here: "In Vietnam, the problem wasn't politics per se, but
bad politics, a foolish policy of incrementalism that never aimed to deal
the enemy a decisive blow." In other words, American imperialism failed in
Vietnam only because those in control didn�t act like real imperialists.
This is not without its irony. Mr. Lowry is the editor of a magazine that
was established explicitly to combat Communism, and here he is echoing the
apology communists almost always use to explain their own failures. The
diehards among them still insist that in the Soviet Union the problem wasn�t
Communism per se, but bad Communism, a foolish policy of not allowing the
dictatorship of the proletariat to wither away as Karl Marx insisted it
should. Now, I could go into the problems and history
surrounding Vietnam, including the fact that the French, who had failed
there before us, were anything but incremental, but that would sidetrack us
into an entirely different discussion. The point is that the same argument
Mr. Lowry makes about Indochina can be and is applied to almost any failed
policy. Mention a previous disaster like Vietnam and the imperialists
immediately find some point at which they think the US should have zigged
when it zagged. "Aha!" they exclaim. "If only we had done x
instead of y, then our intervention would have succeeded." As they are
using pure conjecture, proving them wrong is damn near impossible. That is,
pointing out other complications, other zigs, will only encourage these
people to find yet more imaginary zags, and, now having left the realm of
reality, there�s nothing left to stop them. This kind of discussion almost
always collapses into a self-created quagmire of argument and
counter-argument. The only way out of this bog is through examining
what these imperialists define as success; what is their goal? Knowing that,
we can judge whether or not the effort is worth the trouble, or if it is
even possible. Fortunately, finding that success is easy enough. Almost
every "empire-ho!" article I read cites the reconstruction of
postwar Germany and Japan as an example of imperial triumph. To be fair, these are
good answers. Both
countries are certainly better off than some of the other alternatives
offered so far. For example, the Wall Street Journal�s Mr.
Max Boot and National Review Online�s Mr.
Jonah Goldberg point to the Philippines from 1899-1935 and Haiti from
1916-1933 as successes. Why? Neither of them proved to be stable
democracies, and, in fact, they still aren�t. Even under American
occupation, they never did very well. Bravely, Mr. Boot goes one further and
points to Bosnia, claiming that if we hadn�t intervened there, Sarajevo
would have become Kabul-West. With pride he points to four terrorists
arrested by our Bosniak buddies, and further claims that because of our
Kosovo intervention, we saved Macedonia from their Albanian separatists. To
this I�d say four arrests is an awful lousy return for our Bosnian
investment, particularly since Serbs would have never let the terrorists in
in the first place, and they�d have done it for free. As to those Albanian
separatists, the only reason they�re a problem is because we intervened on
their behalf once before, giving them a taste for a �Greater Albania.�
And as we forced the Skopje government to give in to their demands, it
appears that their terrorism paid off just dandy. No, all these others fall short,
and so we come
back to Germany and Japan, and these two countries aren�t completely
unqualified successes either. Despite suffering massive devastation during
WWII, both nations still boasted a population capable of operating a
civilization. They were both mono-cultural, and their people had high level
of education. They both also had a functioning civil service, and in Japan
we benefited immensely from the blessings of Emperor Hirohito. But above
all, we should note, the average German and Japanese citizen was motivated
to cooperate with his Allied occupier, so as to stave off a Soviet take
over. I think it no great stretch to claim that future conditions for
"nation-building" will never again be so ideal. But for the purposes of this
article, let�s
assume that if we had the ability we could replicate this level of success
or at least come close by installing a permanent colonial presence in those
benighted nations which are so desperate for our help. By doing so, we can
study the most important variable in this entire equation: the American
people. Are they up to this task? Can they build and maintain an empire? To
determine this, we need examine the task
itself. First, it compels us to seize military control of whatever country
it is that needs saving. It�s sort of a Newtonian law: No one can be saved
until they�ve been bombed. Secondly, we need to provide all the trappings
of civilization, or, as Jonah Goldberg puts it in another article
of his, "That means building schools and churches and markets�"
And that means we�ll need construction engineers, teachers, ministers,
investors, civil servants and whole lot more. Got it? Good. Let�s start with the
military angle. The one
factor interventionists never pay much attention to are the people they plan
on dragging into their hare-brained adventures. These wonks all simply
assume that there�s this infinite pool of willing and eager soldiers ready
to die for the sake of civilizing some half-assed country on the other side
of the globe. They act as if they are writing in 19th-century
London, surrounded by men from a Rudyard Kipling novel, all eager for
adventure abroad. Not a few of these desk-bangers are prone to mawkishly
reminiscing about the days of "pith helmets" and "jodphurs"
when they write. Unfortunately for them, however, we live in 21st-century
America, not Victoria�s England, and there is no such pool of eager
fighters. Nor is the situation likely to change much. Before the 9/11
attack, Americans were growing more and more averse to military service, and
those now in the military were leaving it largely because of the morale
problems created by deployments to godforsaken countries like Bosnia. (I
have one friend whose marriage broke up because of his extended overseas
absences. Frustrated and disgusted with the military�s indifference to his
well being, he gave up his career in the Air Force and separated.) If you want
evidence of this, then take a look at
many of these calling for intervention: Jonah Goldberg, Rich Lowry, Max
Boot, Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, etc. Almost none of them have served.
You might be thinking that I mention this for the sake of highlighting
neo-conservative hypocrisy. You�re right, I do. There�s something
sickening about a crowd who continually demands war, but doesn�t want to
fight.. However, it also illustrates the non-militaristic nature of the
American populace. If these warmongers won�t sign up, what makes them
think others will? Of course, the Wordperfect Warriors could try drafting
soldiers, but that won�t last beyond the first real colonial war. If
modern America found herself trapped in real imperial conflict, like the
French did in Algeria, we�d have a replay of the 60s, exponentially. Don�t get me
wrong. There are plenty of fine
men and women who now serve, and the 9/11 attacks are sure to inspire an
enlistment surge. Thanks to this increased recruitment and a stop-loss order
preventing those who are in from leaving, America will have enough
servicemen for this war, though barely. But that won�t be the case when it
comes to maintaining an international empire over the long haul, after
September�s rage has passed, particularly on the scale imagined by the
likes of Kristol, Kagan, Boot and company. The main reason for that is because
keeping an
empire together is dirty work, and life in these United States is just far
too comfortable for that work to ever become enticing. Empires like
Victorian Britain could recruit soldiers because, at the time, life in the
mother country sucked. Then, the average man had to eke out a living by
farming a miserable plot of land in famine-stricken Ireland; or he was
forced to risk being buried alive in a dank hole as he mined coal in Wales;
or he needed to work a thankless 16-hour shift in a dangerous mill in the
Midlands. Given these options, colonial service, despite its dangers, looked
rather inviting. Today, though, not even the most extreme American poverty
approaches these conditions, which means the US can never muster the kind of
a colonial army the British Empire did. So much for the soldiers. But they aren�t
even
half of the problem. Remember that civilizing thing Mr. Goldberg was yapping
on about? We still have to scare up all sorts of professionals who are
willing to leave their salaried positions in the US and work for the
government in some Third World hellhole, often under hostile conditions. Do
we have such a pool of eager volunteers? Again, the evidence doesn�t seem to
indicate
it. For example, let�s look at teachers. Here in Houston, there are
several billboards around town featuring the portrait of some adorable
moppet. This child looks out you pleadingly as he or she asks, "Will
you be my teacher?" It�s all part of a campaign being conducted by
the Houston school district to recruit teachers. Apparently, the city is so
short of them that it must rely on full-time substitutes to educate Houston
children. Houston isn�t alone either. If it were, we wouldn�t be treated
to the sight of public service ads on national TV begging youngsters to
consider a career in the pedagogical arts. Now my question to the
neo-colonialists is this: If there aren�t enough teachers for the kids in
Houston, Texas, then how do they think they can find enough for the rest of
world�s children? They can�t. But why let reality get in the way
of a good fantasy? Even the normally levelheaded Mark Steyn delights in
these delusions. In a Spectator
column he suggested making this empire into an Anglo-American venture which would
use "�British courts and Canadian police and
Indian civil servants and American town clerks and Australian
newspapers." Like Communism, pyramid schemes and Robert
Heinlein�s Starship Troopers, this all sounds good on paper, but
looks very different when it�s in living color using real actors. Tony
Blair�s Britain is in chaos, the Canadians can�t even maintain their own
armed forces, the Indians can barely their own country together, the
Australians have little population to speak of, and I can�t think of any
good reason why an American town clerk would want to up and move to Asia,
Africa or Latin America. Hardly the stuff of empire. It�s really the last point
that�s the killer.
Again, like Communism, neo-colonialism holds absolutely no interest to the
common man beyond appeals to his better nature. For example, the common
argument claiming that some country should be democratic is one such appeal.
Now the concept of democracy-over-there may have merit, but it does not
affect the common citizen beyond eliciting a vague sentiment of approval. A
more motivated citizen may even support a military operation in
pursuit of
that goal, but that�s about as far as his or her better nature
will carry
you. Once that citizen sees his own son or daughter coming back
in a body
bag, things change. The crusade for democracy begins to lose its
shine. Any empire built on this foundation rests on a bed of sand.
Such an edifice will collapse under even the slightest of pressure.
Pity those beneath it when that time comes. And it always does.
Derek Copold
End<{{{
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