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Younghusband
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Younghusband

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November 10th, 2009

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War! What is it good for? Liberating the East and engendering domestic civil society of course

After my speechless commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was left speechless after reading Robert D. Kaplan’s Wall-related Dispatch from The Atlantic.

Kaplan plays down the geographic symbolism of the Berlin Wall (an “artificial border”) and maintains his theme of geographic determinism (which I have called myopic): “twenty years after the end of the Cold War, classical geography continues to shape the terms of global politics”. But this statement is nowhere near as controversial as Kaplan’s closing comments about America “losing” Europe after the fall of the Wall, and a shock-inducing rhetorical question followed by some logic straight from ancient Rome:

What does the European Union truly stand for besides a cradle-to-grave social welfare system? For without something to struggle for, there can be no civil society—only decadence.

Is Kaplan suggesting that the EU’s lack of will to fight for liberty abroad has lead to a deteriorated self identity? Read the article in full. Fulminate below.

Comments to this entry

Felix
November 10, 2009
7:49 am
I think that his argument is more along the line that without the existential threat of Soviet invasion/nuclear annihilation to unite it and give common purpose (and a framework to demand sacrifices from her people), Europe has turned inwards and is incapable of acting decisively and proactively on the world stage. I think he views the "lack of will to fight for liberty abroad" as a symptom rather than the cause.
tdaxp
November 10, 2009
12:36 pm
A very weird post. Kaplan criticizes Europe for doing little to protect against Russia, but ignores the fact that of the anti-Soviet blocs (the United States, the European Community, and China), only Europe engaged in profound changes to its body politic and its Constitution to contain Russia. From the Maastricht Treaty (which created the EU), to the enlargements (now to the borders of Leningrad!), to the Lisbon Treaty (which replaces the Articles-of-Confederation veto system on most issues with a Constitution-style double-majority system), Europe has transformed from an economic bloc to a economic-monetary-political federal alliance.
Joe Jones
November 10, 2009
1:12 pm
Weird indeed, but mostly because of misappropriation of the term "European Union."

I don't think the point of the EU was ever "social welfare." The original point of European integration (in the form of the Coal and Steel Community) was to make it much harder for World War III to break out in Western Europe by making the key continental powers hopelessly interdependent. Ever since then, the main goal has simply been co-prosperity: sharing economic resources (in the form of goods, services and people) in order to make everyone better off. The single currency and all the political nonsense in the European Council / Commission / Parliament are ancillary to the core goal of efficiency across borders. In both regards, the EU has been hugely successful.

On the other hand, the various Western European countries do essentially stand for cradle-to-grave social welfare systems, but this is not really an EU problem (except inasmuch as EU mechanisms make more resources available to redistribute). Japan, Canada and Australia are all basically in the same boat, and the US is getting there quickly than many realize.

Kaplan's basic point makes sense, but I think he simply got the scope wrong.
Curzon
November 10, 2009
2:27 pm
Is Kaplan alone in thinking that the EU is doomed? I've read plenty of pundits and commenters from both the university/foreign affairs sphere and the private/investment sphere who say the union is destined to fail, some even saying (in 2002) that "it has a half life of ten years." Most importantly, we have yet to see how the EU will fare and function during a real internal or external crisis. As there is not the military or police power -- i.e. the "monopoly of force" -- available to stop a state to walk out, and the union is an entirely volunteer one, I basically agree with Kaplan that it will not withstand a crisis, and think that he's in the majority of those who evaluate the longevity of the EU when he says that.
Bryce
November 10, 2009
4:00 pm
I suppose if you repeat enough cliches fast enough, normal people won't stop to check them.

"Indeed, once again – thanks to its plans to build natural gas pipelines directly to Western Europe—it holds the ability to split Eastern Europe off from the West and hold the former Warsaw Pact nations captive."

That is, if it wants to risk its own oil revenues.

"Meanwhile, Germany is torn between east and west"

Of course it is.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4864600,00.html

"And the Near East once again is announced by a series of developmental gradations, rather than by a hard and fixed border, beginning, as in Ottoman days, in the middle of the former Yugoslavia, and ending somewhere in Central Asia."

Huh? So the Near East isn't actually "announced" at all? Nor is it really "near" in its ultimate manifestation.

"We saw the strength of Iranian civil society during last spring’s uprising."

No, we saw a bunch of dudes in urban areas with access to the Internet. We didn't really see what was going on anywhere else. And not many people bothered to find out, because that would have entailed journalism, ironically, of the sort than Kaplan claims to champion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election
kurt9
November 10, 2009
10:36 pm
I think Kaplan is way off base. Western Europe is at peace and relatively prosperous. in the article, Kaplan himself admits that Western Europe faces no existential threats to its well-being. Why should young people be expected to risk their asses for any reason other than to protect themselves from an existential threat, one that Kaplan admits does not exist? I don't believe in fighting for any reason other than to protect my own personal liberty. The liberty of others is not worth the sacrifice of my own life and well-being, especially peoples and cultures I have nothing in common with.

Kaplan just believes in the mindless blood sacrifice for no reason at all. Only a sucker would subscribe to Kaplan's argument.
JNick
November 11, 2009
12:05 am
"The liberty of others is not worth the sacrifice of my own life and well-being, especially peoples and cultures I have nothing in common with. "

Kurt, not to be snotty, and perhaps a little blunt, but that logic taken to its next step is how you get Jews in gas chambers. It's in effect saying, I don't care about X group, because I'm in Y group, do what you want to those people. That's why its important to fight for Muslim women in Afganistan, the dissidents in Iran, and support everyone seeking liberty. Its all well and good that its something that we in the West get to take for granted. But when we let our governments silently allow other governments abuse their peoples it teaches them that they can abuse us.

Again, I mean no personal disrespect, I just think that's an idea that leads to a very dangerous place.
M-Bone
November 11, 2009
12:13 am
To me, whether the EU will last or not, Kaplan's argument sounds a bit like Fukuyama warbling about the end of history in the weeks after 9-11. He has a theory (not his own) that works for interpreting much of history, is useful in understanding "hot" areas like north Asia, and is usually backed up with rather keen observation in his writing. Trying to make it into the one coverall theory of everything, however, ignores many recent theories of nationalism and just comes off like some kind of odd Hegelian "shed blood as culture" meets a mountain range mythos.

I'd still like to see him write on Takeshima/Dokdo, though.
kurt9
November 11, 2009
12:42 am
That's why its important to fight for Muslim women in Afganistan, the dissidents in Iran, and support everyone seeking liberty.

You should join the military (if you're not already in it).

As long as there is no mandatory conscription, I don't care at all about this. No one should be required to risk their own well-being for these kinds of conflicts. I respect the European young people for not wanting anything to do with these senseless conflicts. They've got better things to do with their lives.
Sejo
November 11, 2009
3:10 am
Kurt, Western Europe – as well as Central-Eastern Europe – is at peace, and even prosperous compared to fifty or sixty years ago. True. And surely no one in the whole world craves to sacrifice life for his/her liberty or the country in which has happened to be born.
Still, if us Europeans are at peace and prosperous, it is for an enormous and still unpaid debt to the British subjects from all the Empire/Commonwealth and the American citizens – not to mention the Poles, the ‘free’ Frenchmen, the Jews from Eretz Yisrael, the partisans in France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, etc. – who, be them conscripts or volunteers, left their homes to save us all, us Europeans as well as the whole world, from the worst threat ever happened to our species.
To those men and women of good will and blind courage, it is my humble opinion, one should confront him/herself.

Then again, we can discuss if the current threats by Al Qaeda or whatever it is what we call Al Qaeda, the talibans and the general global chaos are threats worth responding with a massive military mobilization. But if a few hundred of millions are free to shop in their favourite Carrefour, Tesco, Coop, speaking their own language and worshipping their God or no God at all, well, they – we – owe it to those who were kind enough to think of themselves as members of the same human community.
No life has been wasted in the effort. Lost too many, but wasted not even one.
kurt9
November 11, 2009
3:18 am
I think Kaplan is entirely wrong in another way. Ralph Peters has argued that the only reason why Europe is so "decadent" and "peace-loving" is because they do not consider the cultures and fights that Kaplan discusses in his article to be an existential threat to them. He believes that at some point in the future, the Muslims will do something incredibly stupid, like blow up the Eiffel Tower or something like that, and that will serve as the catalyst that will result in the Europeans either running all of the Muslim immigrants off the continent or simply rounding them up and exterminating them. Do consider that they do have experience performing these kinds of acts.

Link

I think Kaplan is making the same mistaken assumption about the Europeans as the Japanese did about us in 1941.
Sejo
November 11, 2009
3:48 am
Peace-loving? If we can call peace what we gain with the British SAS teaching to Gheddafi special squads how to ‘perform’ better, possibly another Lockerbie; what we obtain paying for Gaza's schoolbooks where Hamas teaches that Israelis are not human beings but pigs; what we get defending Hezbollah and its building of a new arsenal. Or what we earn by selling our entreprises, from family-run to large ones, to the Chinese hard cash.
For this is Europe, politically speaking. A frightened area, barely paying the ‘barbarians’ at the borders to not invade Rome again. A suicidal tactic, from my civis Romanus point of view, as history has already taught us how the affair ends.

Still, it's an interesting point of view, Kurt, the one exposed by Ralph Peters. Thank you very much.

Ah, and I forgot to mention the Soviet soldiers and citizens between the valorous. My fault.
Curzon
November 11, 2009
6:48 am
This post on the Reason blog was doing OK until it ended by linking to snotty nose Bissel.

http://reason.com/blog/2009/11/10/robert-kaplan-war-is-purpose-p
Younghusband
November 11, 2009
1:02 pm
I saw that earlier today as well Curzon. Nuts to Bissel.

Also, check out The Economist on Europe's place in the world from a few weeks ago:

It is not that the EU is inactive. At their most recent meeting on October 27th, EU foreign ministers nodded through an increase in aid for Pakistan, slapped sanctions on Guinea and agreed to lift the last European sanction on Uzbekistan, an arms embargo. The EU flag flutters from warships hunting Somali pirates, and snaps in the Kabuli breeze, notably over an EU police-training base. But the truth is that the EU does not really have foreign policies: it has instruments and tools, such as aid money and co-operation agreements with endless third-country “partners”.


I think the EU has its hands full keeping Europe together, never mind exporting its ideals elsewhere. The EU was only founded in 1993 and does not yet have a president or a foreign policy. America had been around for nearly 150 years before it deigned to lend a hand in the First World War. A missionary zeal for liberalism seems such an essential American trait (starting with manifest destiny and all that). It is this kind of writing that gets Kaplan painted with the neocon brush, which I don't think he deserves.

I understand the desire to get the world's second largest economic zone to live up to its potential as a force for international liberalism. But I think they still need time to get all their ducks in a row. Many of their members are on the military bandwagon of international liberalism in the form of NATO anyways. If all those disparate European members of NATO were part of the alliance as a single entity such as the EU, Kaplan would have written a very different article indeed.
kurt9
November 11, 2009
7:58 pm
Then again, we can discuss if the current threats by Al Qaeda or whatever it is what we call Al Qaeda, the talibans and the general global chaos are threats worth responding with a massive military mobilization....

If you are really convinced that there are existential threats out there, help me find $20 million in finance and I will develop the racially specific bio-weapons to exterminate this threat, once and for all. Our industries can also manufacture "terminator" style robots to accomplish the same task. Neutron bombs work quite well too. My approach is superior because it would allow me to kill large numbers of "the enemy" without me having to put my own butt on the line. In warfare, I do not consider the "enemy" to be human. I consider the enemy as something to be destroyed, nothing more. If you can kill the women and children of the enemy AND destroy all of their cultural artifacts, so much the better because you want to eliminate the enemy's ability to reproduce and to propagate their culture and worldview.

I'm sure you would agree that my methods are rather extreme. This is why I do not believe in warfare unless it is absolutely necessary (i.e. to destroy an existential threat). I consider the destruction of an existential threat to be the only thing worthy of the risk of my life and well-being. I consider all else to be unworthy of my attention, let alone my physical well-being. I do not believe in involving myself in the affairs of others, let along anything like Kaplan's concept of liberation. Show me an existential threat and get me the finance, and I will eliminate it for you. Otherwise, leave me the f*ck alone.

As for the Peters article, he is correct. People really do fight like crazy when subjected to real threats. They simply do not believe in risk their life and limb to involve themselves in "other peoples's" fights.

I really do think that most people are more like me than like Kaplan or yourselves. At least those I know personally. Most people just want to be left alone to mind their own business. If you stick your nose in their business, they will cut it off and stick you in the gut for good measure. Otherwise, they're content to leave you alone as well.

They simply do not believe in risk their life and limb to involve themselves in "other peoples's" fights.
kurt9
November 11, 2009
8:34 pm
To reiterate my point, I do not believe in the "nobility" or "gallantry" of warfare. I consider warfare to be a grim, ugly, but necessary task you do to annihilate an enemy with the greatest speed and economy such that you can get back to living your chosen life as quickly as possible. Any other considerations or concepts of warfare are spurious.
M-Bone
November 11, 2009
8:59 pm
How do average Joes even imagine war at present? From commentary on the soon to be hit "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" from Wired -

"Soon after, players are tasked with battling Russian invaders on American soil. The image of paratroopers floating down over the suburbs is, also, surprisingly powerful. As one of Modern Warfare 2’s dutiful soldiers, I picked off Russian invaders as they took cover behind pumps at a familiar-looking gas station. I defended a fast food restaurant from waves of foot soldiers.

Eventually, I climbed to the roof of a burger joint to take down an enemy helicopter. I watched the bird spin out of control over bullet-ridden chain restaurants, adding another plume of smoke to the already smoldering sprawl.

It’s all very realistic, and it’s doubly powerful because the game’s storyline could be pulled from today’s headlines."

The face of X-Box patriotism.
SJPONeill
November 11, 2009
10:53 pm
I agree with Felix (comment #1 above). If the EU really wants to focus inwards, then good on it. But it should not be wasting lives in places like Afghanistan unless its heart is really in the fight - and I would say that NONE of the EU nations deployed to Afghanistan really want to be there and are not really achieving much except prolonging the pain for everyone.
Younghusband
November 12, 2009
5:16 am
Kaplan has been Opinionated.
kurt9
November 12, 2009
8:00 pm
There really isn't any reason for the U.S. to involve itself in the Middle East. Consider the countries and regions that surround the Muslims Middle East (MME). Europe, Russia, China, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. You can think of these regions as the front-line states. They are closer to the Islamic caliphate than we are (we sit comfortably in our own continent and hemisphere). If islamism becomes real problem, these are the guys that will have to deal with it more than us, since Muslims R us sit in their own backyards.

All of these regions, except maybe for India, have within historical time periods demonstrated the willingness to kill mass numbers of people when suitably provoked. The Sub-Saharan Africans did their rift-valley genocides in the mid 90's. The Chinese killed million of their own people under Mao. The same for the Russians under Stalin, and the Holocaust was the Europeans last bout of this activity. It seems to me that if Islamism really does become an existential threat, that these front-line states will be the closest to it and, if history is any guild, will have no compunction about dealing with it straight away.

As Americans, we can just grab a bag of popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the spectacle.

This, of course, brings me to my next point. That is, the fact that the front-line states such as China, Russia, and India are not treating the Muslims as the existential threat that the our neo-cons claim they are strongly suggests to me that, just maybe, they really are not an existential threat at all. "Spengler" (you all know who he is) has opined in the past that the Muslim Middle East is more of danger to itself than anyone else. I think that he is right.
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