Kaplan argues that NATO’s 7000 troop contribution to the Afghan surge should not be considered an end, but a beginning:
Consider: China is rising as a great power, particularly in the naval sphere. The U.S. will not fight a war with China, but it will leverage like-minded, democratic others such as India, Indonesia, Australia, South Korea, and Japan to help manage Chinese ascendancy in the maritime rimland of Eurasia. This will take a lot of work, and a lot of ships. And with the U.S. increasingly tied up in the Indian and Pacific oceans as the years and decades march on, it will help to rely increasingly on European forces to cover the the Atlantic and Africa for them.
Although Kaplan continues to be pushing Europe towards a more warlike nature, there seems to be a slight change in tone. Take this quote from the Dispatch:
At home, Europe’s social safety net is estimable. But what will the European Union, now with its own president and foreign minister, work toward abroad?
Now, remember this?
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.
Anyways, read the whole Dispatch at The Atlantic: Let’s Go, Europe.
The EU has no armed forces. Members have armed forces. The foreign policy of the EU will reflect that deficiency.
We discussed this once before. Kaplan believes in the nobility of struggle. I do not. I believe in task accomplishment. If there is a worthwhile job to be done, you do it, then get back to having a good time. As long as there is no existential threat, I see nothing wrong with “decadence”.
I agree. Talking about decadence reminds me of the morals based theory of why the Roman Empire fell.
As for an overarching purpose, I think moving away from the nation-state system is a struggle the EU is engaging in and winning. Not as dramatic as sending groudpounders to far away places, but it is still a substantial change. A poli sci prof once detailed the process of how member states gave up large chunks of their sovereignty to the EU Court of Justice without nary a peep, really a non-trivial transfer of power without a single shot fired.
If you want to promote the nobility of struggle or, the way I look at it, long term goal fulfillment, why does it need to be war or the conversion of the rest of the world to our ideals. Why not large scale space colonization (O’neill L-5 Society style) or transhumanism? Both of these represent a commitment to a long term objective. Both are far more noble (not to mention useful) than benighted efforts to convert other peoples to being like “us”. If Kaplan believes that our society needs a long term objective to prevent stagnation and decay (what he calls “decadence”), he is more than welcome to join transhumanism.
I used to be a big Kaplan fan, but in recent years he got too militaristic for my taste.
His November column was full of Euro-bashing. The December column is a little bit better. Hopefully the story of Jasper Schuringa’s of Flight 253 will make Kaplan think twice before using words like decadent, neopacifist, debellized, etc to describe Europeans.