A
DISSENTING MAJORITY
Others
on the right have dissented from this would-be orthodoxy.
The collapse of communism, the end of the cold war, and
the troubling rise of threatening trends on the home front
have all soured grassroots conservatives on the alleged
necessity for the US to intervene on a global scale. Pat
Buchanan's critique of Western hubris has garnered
considerable support on the right, even if his recent
race for the White House did not, as conservatives wake
up to the startling and darkly disturbing insight that
the enemy is not in any foreign capital, but right here
at home. These rightists, faced with the choice of bombing
either Baghdad or Washington D.C., would more than likely
choose the latter. Llewellyn
H. Rockwell, the president of the Mises
Institute; Donald
J. Devine and David Keene, of the American Conservative
Union; and of course the indefatiguable scholars over
at the Cato Institute,
that bastion of libertarianism in the Beltway – all
have proffered important critiques of the cold warrior-neoconservative
stance, and their views more faithfully reflect the opinions
of grassroots activists than the Beltway conservative
'generals' intent on re-fighting the cold war.
'WORLD
HEGEMONY' OR BUST
The
Kosovo war was a watershed for many grassroots conservatives:
for the first time they began to see the actions of their
government as not merely mistaken, but evil. They
also began to see, with a new clarity, the domestic uses
of our interventionist foreign policy, as Clinton bombed
an aspirin factory in the Sudan to get Monica off the
front pages. This revulsion at the policies of the most
interventionist President since Teddy Roosevelt began
to translate, after a while, into a broad criticism of
interventionism in general. As Devine and Keene put it
in their trenchant critique of Robert
Kagan, a top neoconservative foreign policy theorist::
"It
is significant, however, that the Kagan areas of concern
are mostly the same ones identified by Bill Clinton as
important. For, although he disagrees with the President's
handling of foreign policy, Mr. Kagan tends to accept
Clinton's priorities rather than those of the GOP's presidential
nominee and the majority of Republicans in Congress. In
fact, Kagan and Clinton both call them 'isolationists.'
His advice to Bush was to separate himself from his fellow
Republicans by adopting an even more interventionist and
internationalist stance than Clinton or Gore. What Kagan
seeks is a Republican president who would be even more
willing than Clinton or Gore to use U.S. power to enforce
a de facto American hegemony and a set of internationalist
or universal values. Mr. Kagan and his associate Bill
Kristol, in fact, specifically endorse what they call
a 'benevolent
American hegemony' to police the world. Apparently,
they have not found their man with George Bush."
DARK
UNDERCURRENTS
But
this vigorous dissent is, naturally enough, ignored by
the Times, which is not attuned to the subtleties
of conservative thought. In any case, we are informed
that the interventionist conservatives are gearing up
for a battle royale with the Powelllians:
"Although
the administration is still in its relatively early days,
there is evidence that the disputes are unlikely to be
kept quiet, in part because of the strong ideological
undercurrents. Word has gone out to conservative writers
and think tanks from administration hard-liners to 'keep
up the pressure,' a think tank policy analyst said."
A
MAJORITY – SILENT NO MORE!
As
the Neocon High Command over at the War Party revs up
the motors of its propaganda machine, painting Russia,
China, Serbia, and the Arab world – indeed, much
of the rest of the entire world – as our implacable
enemies, allow me to rev up my own motors on behalf of
the conservative silent majority, which is more concerned
with the evil emanating out of Hollywood than with any
baleful influences flowing in from abroad. If the warmongers,
and various shills for the armaments industry, are going
to ratchet up the pressure on this yet-unformed administration,
then grassroots conservatives (most of whom supported
George W. Bush), need to do some lobbying too. As the
neocons build their grandiose architectures of global
entanglement, and redraw the map of the world to implement
their idea of "benevolence" – a conceit that seems
utterly sinister – it is time for us "isolationists"
(i.e. proponents of the traditional American foreign policy
of trade with all, entanglements with none) to proffer
our own platform, and to "keep up the pressure" on the
Bush administration, which, after all, promised us a foreign
policy based on "humility." Of course, in the case of
traditionalist conservatives, there are no grand architectures
to construct, no overarching theories to rationalize the
perpetual expenditure of troops and treasure: only a blueprint
for undoing all the harm that has been done by
the reckless misuse of American power, and returning to
the real source of our problems: the political and cultural
morass that threatens to defeat us on the home front.
Herewith, a platform for conservative noninterventionists
who hope to influence the direction of a seemingly directionless
administration, broken down by region:
A
PLATFORM THAT PUTS AMERICA FIRST
NATO
Expansion as the Expression of American Hubris
Europe
– The idea that our great enemy on this front is
Russia is a shibboleth that should have imploded when
the Berlin Wall fell. Yet we are treating the Russians
as if nothing had changed since the days of Leonid Brezhnev.
NATO expansion is a provocation and one not justified
by post-cold war events. Indeed, now that the threat of
expansionist Communism has passed into history, the pacts
and security infrastructure built up over the past fifty
years have become largely obsolescent. Not only that,
but they have become a burden on the overextended and
overtaxed US, and threaten to unsettle our relations with
the Europeans, increasingly intent on building their own
regional security arrangements. Indeed, by insisting on
American hegemony in Europe, we create a reaction that
leads to the exact opposite of its intended result: the
consolidation of an anti-American nexus on the European
continent, and the rise of the European Union as a challenge
to the American "hyperpower."
The
Balkans – Get US out! The Kosovo war was
easily the single most heinous of Bill Clinton's many
criminal acts – and that is saying a lot. We attacked
a sovereign nation that had never attacked us, in the
name of a cause that turned out to have been a fraud.
The Albanians, far from being the victims of the Balkan
tragedy, have all along been the victimizers, as dramatically
demonstrated by their rampage through Macedonia and their
now open crusade to establish a "Greater Albania." In
prosecuting his war against the former Yugoslavia, Bill
Clinton unleashed a force of almost demonic malevolence
in the Balkans. As in medicine, so in foreign policy:
the first principle must be "do no harm." The harm done
by the Clintonistas in the Balkans is almost incalculable.
The thousands killed by NATO warplanes will not be resurrected,
and the KLA genie cannot be put back in the bottle. In
making good on his pledge – presaged and subsequently
echoed by national security advisor Condolezza Rice –
to get us out of the Balkans, and let the Europeans deal
with it, the President must make an effort to undo the
harm that has been done. This means arresting the KLA
leaders responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo,
as well as the vicious and unprovoked attack on Macedonia,
locking them up, and throwing away the key – or giving
it to the Yugoslavs (still, according to us, the legal
authority in Kosovo) to throw it away. It means forcibly
disbanding the KLA camps, whose recruits are equipped,
trained, housed, and fed at US taxpayers' expense, and
cutting off all future aid. Withdrawal not only from Kosovo,
but also from Bosnia, and Macedonia – where US troops
are inviting targets for Albanian or Islamic fundamentalist
terrorists – must be the first phase of a general
withdrawal of US troops from the European continent. We
are neither needed, nor are we wanted – except by
those financial and corporate interests that thrive on
government contracts and profit from the arms buildup
mandated by NATO expansion.
The
Euro-federalist Threat
The
European Union – The hysteria generated by Russian
spy scares has diverted the attention of policymakers
from the one real threat to US interests in Europe: the
rise of the European Union (EU). While the Marxist-Leninist
project failed in the former Soviet Union, the cause of
international socialism is not completely lost as European
leftists raise the banner of a United Socialist States
of Europe to challenge the American hegemon. This resentment
of America, to be found on the European right as well
as the left, is a direct consequence of our insistence
on preserving the fiction of US domination of Europe –
a conceit that could ironically backfire in the creation
of a credible and potentially dangerous superpower rival.
The EU is a danger not only militarily, but also economically:
the consolidation of a continental trade bloc on the other
side of the Atlantic represents more of a mortal threat
to our interests than all the nuclear weapons in Russia's
arsenal.
The
Sovereignty of Small Nations – President Vojislav
Kostunica of the former Yugoslavia admonished the small
nations of Europe that they are far too willing to surrender
their sovereignty to "supra-national" organizations, whether
it be NATO, the EU, the OSCE, or some future European
super-state, and he raised the banner of Europe's mini-states
as a necessary and beneficial aspect of a continental
civilization. US policy should encourage this trend toward
European decentralism, recognizing that the present borders
of Europe have been defined by centuries of warfare and
injustice, and are therefore mutable. Why shouldn't the
Basques have their own country – and who are we to
take a position against it? The central government in
Rome has long oppressed the historically independent Italian
city-states, and if the northern Italians want to set
up what they call "Padania" – again, who are we to
say they can't? We supposedly fought a war to "protect"
the Albanian Kosovars against the alleged oppression imposed
by Belgrade – and yet, to this day, we insist that
Kosovo must continue (at least formally) to be considered
a Yugoslavian province (while actually it is an American
protectorate). Switzerland, the most peaceful and prosperous
of European nations, has consistently maintained its policy
of nonintervention and aloofness from supranational entanglements,
jealously guarding its sovereignty and integrity as assets
not to be squandered. This is our idea of a nation with
the ideal foreign policy: it makes for a good trading
partner, and a good friend. If only the US were one giant
Switzerland, where peace and prosperity reigned supreme,
the world would be a lot better off.
America
and Asia: The Teasing the Dragon
Asia
– Here is the one area where the legacy
of the Clinton years is ambiguous. Clinton declared
that China was our "strategic partner," and
his administration never escaped the taint of
having accepted large bribes from Chinese officials
and their business cohorts, who were then able
to influence US policy. On the other hand, the
Clinton administration generally followed the
parameters of our internationalist foreign policy
as set in stone for the past half century. The
"forward stance" of the US in Asia has been
a given in our foreign policy calculations for
as long as the cold war lasted. The troops sent
to occupy Japan stayed to guard their conquest
from the encroachments of Russia. But unlike
the European aspect of our globalist policy,
the Eastasian infrastructure of the cold war
has remained not only intact but also largely
unchallenged. The same conservatives who decried
the Kosovo war have a tendency to apply a different
standard where Eastasia is concerned. But here,
too, our policy must undergo a radical transformation
in view of the cold war's end.
China
– US policy toward the world's most populous nation
is alternately expressed in terms of fear, or fawning:
we are either kowtowing to Beijing, or demonizing them.
Both mindsets prevent us from seeing the truth, and
therefore determining and defending our legitimate interests
in the region. The main problem with America's policy
is that it is completely a-historical, and fails to
take into account the legitimate grievances of Chinese
nationalism. Such sentiments are invariably labeled
"xenophobia," and depicted in threatening terms, as
if a Chinese campaign against "foreign devils" might
blossom into a holy war against the West.
A
History of 'Foreign Devils' – Such a war, however,
can only come about if we ignore the modern history
of China as a nation beset by foreign invaders, interlopers
whose behavior might justly be described as devilish.
The British maintained the opium trade in China, and
fattened their coffers at the expense of the suffering
of the Chinese people. Western intervention, again and
again, sought to thwart the will of native Chinese,
who resented and fought against the "humanitarian" interventionists
of yesteryear. The British, and others, sought to "take
up the white man's burden" and "civilize" a civilization
that predated Europe's.
Taiwan:
Staying Out of It – US intervention in Chinese
affairs can only have the opposite of its intended effect:
we have no more right to decide whether Taiwan is or
is not a province of China than we have to decide whether
Kosovo is properly a part of Yugoslavia. The only way
to defuse China-Taiwan relations is to stay well out
of what both sides aver is strictly an internal
matter.
China
and the Boomerang Effect – While China does
not yet pose a military threat to the US, or its just
interests in the region, if it becomes so it will be
in large part thanks to US policy, which seems designed
to strengthen the hand of a regime that would otherwise
be weakening. It is in the interests of the Chinese
Communist regime to maintain a certain level of tension
with the US and other "foreign devils." Having given
up the moribund Marxist-Leninism of Mao's day in favor
of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" (i.e. authoritarian
nationalism), China's rulers play the nationalist card
to keep domestic dissenters from gaining widespread
support. Every time we ratchet up the rhetoric against
China, as secretary Rumsfeld recently did by naming
China as our "number one enemy," it is music to the
regime's ears because it legitimizes them in the eyes
of their subjects. For if the US is declaring that China
is their foremost enemy, then the Americans must be
jealous of China's rise into the pantheon of great powers,
resentful of all things Chinese, and implacably committed
to the destruction of the Chinese people – and,
naturally, only the Chinese Communist Party can protect
the people from such an ignominious fate. At a time
when the failure of Marxism, and the collapse of the
Soviet Union, presages a similar fate for the gerontocrats
who rule the roost in Beijing, American intervention
and the threat of it is the last shred of the regime's
legitimacy. Stripped of this, the central government
in Beijing – buffeted by global market forces,
and faced with the lack of a unifying enemy – would
quickly lose authority, and the breakup of the old Chinese
empire would proceed on schedule, mirroring a process
already well-advanced in its Russian neighbor. Our Sinophobic
policy, then, has a boomerang effect, strengthening
rather than discrediting an already fragile regime.
The
Endless Occupation: 60 Years is Long Enough
Japan
– Why does the military occupation of Japan continue
some 60 years after the end of World War II? The US presence
in Japan is a monument to the natural immortality of the
old infrastructure: once put in place, in tends to remain
long past the time when it serves any rational purpose.
The US occupation was originally intended to prevent the
return of Japanese militarism: yet, Japan, today, represents
a threat to no one. During the cold war, the rationale
for the occupation changed somewhat: US troops were supposed
to be protecting Japan from the Soviet threat. That threat
no longer exists. What, then, is the new rationale? US
(and Japanese) policymakers have yet to come up with one.
US bases in Japan are constant sources of friction between
the Japanese people and the US government, with frequent
incidents of an intolerable nature – a series of
events that, if they occurred on American soil, would
provoke a justifiably white-hot outrage. Japan is more
than capable of defending itself: that is, if it is allowed
to. In the case of Japan, more than any other example
of our outmoded and outrageously expensive foreign policy,
it is time to bring our troops home.
The
Two Koreas – A close runner-up to Japan as the
clearest case for US withdrawal is the Korean peninsula,
where both sides of the divide have recently begun serious
negotiations aimed at reunification. With the North Koreans
on the verge of collapse, and the South Koreans eager
to promote the success of their "Sunshine" policy of opening
up the North, the idea that the US must interpose its
will to stop the process is arrogance at its most overweening.
Yet that is precisely what the Bush administration has
proceeded to do, with prodding from defense secretary
Rumsfeld and the neoconservative faction of the administration.
Without its cold war allies, North Korean communism will
wither on the vine, and naturally seek to avert a human
catastrophe – massive starvation and the breakdown
of North Korean society – by merging with the democratic
South. What both Koreas are inching toward is a relatively
painless reunification. The alternative would be for North
Korea to align itself ever more closely with Beijing,
give up Kim Il Sung's old doctrine of juche (self-reliance)
and become a virtual satrap of China. President
Bush recently called for the withdrawal of North Korean
troops away from the border – a matter traditionally
handled by the South Korean government. North Korea is
now threatening to cancel all negotiations, and to restart
its rocket testing program. The presence of US troops
on South Korean soil is widely resented in Korea: they
didn't call it the "Hermit Kingdom" for nothing. While
this sort of "xenophobia" may be politically incorrect
in Washington. DC, it is a fact on the ground in the two
Koreas, and the sooner we realize it the faster we will
allow the reunification process to go forward.
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