Gulick sez: I shouldnt take the bait, but the sheer awfulness of mainstream foreign policy-think leaves me no choice. If only I could club this putz over the head with a hardback copy of Neil Smiths The Endgame of Globalization literally. Not for the sake of his edification far be it for me to aggrandize my own capabilities but for my own existential release. Plus the humble folks at Pen-L would be spared the collateral damage of my screed.
The bullshit detector began to ring the instant this mediocrity began dropping braindead clichés about the stark differences between the realists who endorse a US first foreign policy (never, never! NEVER! interrogate the notion of an undifferentiated national interest were all in this together!) and the liberals who selflessly espouse the liberation of humankind (3 million Vietnamese dead at the hands of our best and brightest, killing them with kindness I suppose). Rules #1 and #2 of mainstream foreign policy-think: take the claims of respective US foreign policy doctrines AT FACE VALUE (a grotesque innocence unbefitting an infant, much less a serious scholar-citizen) and represent invidious tactical differences as stark programmatic alternatives. Devine asks: Is this guy going to be HRC's foreign policy advisor? Gulick sez: This is little more than warmed-over 1990s globaloney. Take note: the secret to neutralizing rogue states that serve as terrorist havens is to enmesh them in commercial interdependence with the benign world market, a process which by fiat lifts all boats and thus dissolves the social bases of hating America, in addition to creating an abiding peace interest among economic elites and ruling groups everywhere. (Whoops, theres no accounting for World War I breaking out in the wake of historically unparalleled growth in cross-national capital and trade flows facts never seem to get in the way of playing the broken record for the umpteenth time.) China and India are getting chummier because they both have succumbed to the gospel of capitalist globalization right. To the extent they are setting aside past disputes it is because they understand the imperative to triangulate or be triangulated against in the struggle to make capitalist globalization work on their own respective terms. To the extent they are not it is because they are rivals for foreign direct investment and world market share (China wants Indias producer services niche, India wants Chinas contract manufacturing niche) in a globalized capitalism where the tendency toward the rising organic composition of K inexorably pits the emerging countries in merciless mercantilist competition with one another, lest they be destabilized by the displaced rural masses teeming into their cities. Who is this carpetbagger, the bastard offspring of Tom Friedman? Did I say warmed-over 1990s globaloney? I meant warmed-over 1950s-1960s modernization theory. Did I say warmed-over 1950s-1960s modernization theory? I meant warmed-over 1770s The Wealth of Nations. Talk about academic dishonesty of near-millennial proportions. The kind of studied idiocy which is a prerequisite to gainful employment as an IR specialist (nearly) anywhere. Youll notice the explicit absence of any mention of post-Washington Consensus Latin America in this pabulum its a bit inconvenient when on the basis of lived experience hundreds of millions of voters and tens of millions of land-poor peasant and urban poor street fighters resist the globaloney mantra that subjection to the world market=a win-win (gag me with a fucking maggot) for everyone. Of course, hes the sort whod arrange cooked exit polls and other soft political technologies to ensure that the election of our kind of guy is a fait accompli (Calderon anyone?), even if it brazenly flies in the face of the bourgeois democratic norms he overtly worships (and surely scolds the likes of Putin for disrespecting!). Sometimes transparent procedures take a back seat to desired outcomes when the holy grail of commercial interdependence is at stake, ya know? It is particularly amusing that the author takes to task the neo-cons for their dogmatic attachment to articles of faith about the insuperable might and righteousness of the US, and goes on to display an equally religious belief in the virtuosity of universal capitalist globalization. But then again, hes probably a cynical sophist who knows that the Washington Consensus is indeed in large part a Washington con what else are we to make of someone who makes it seem as if the neo-cons actually subscribe to their own public rationales (the democracy and human rights song and dance) for the Iraq misadventure? Lets be charitable and presume that he understands the Straussian principle of the benevolent lie and like the neo-cons, practices it, even if it requires frequently resorting to stale nostrums about the dichotomous vocations of realists and liberals. Now, let me exorcise being exercised by getting some exercise to the pool! John Gulick Knoxville, TN Morristown, NJ
