THE
ARROGANCE OF POWER
Of
course, the outcome of this short-lived hostage crisis
was a bitter reminder to the ideologists of American arrogance
that fate occasionally intervenes to punish hubris. After
terror-bombing Serbia into submission without suffering
a single casualty, and doing the same to Iraq, the American
elites in government and the media thought they could
get away with anything. They already had deluded
themselves into thinking they were omniscient, and it
was but a short distance to believing that they were omnipotent
as well. US policymakers and their pundits-in attendance
thought they were as gods, who could direct their thunderbolts
in any direction, and that no one would defy them out
of knee-knocking fear. The Hainan incident proved them
wrong.
THE
POWER OF ARROGANCE
But
arrogant people, especially those who hold political power,
don't like to be proven wrong. In the economic
world, those who learn from their mistakes by correcting
their behavior are rewarded with success in the form of
profits. In power-politics, however, those who stand corrected
will usually compound their errors rather than admit they
were wrong. Otherwise they will lose "face."
THE
TWO FACES OF "LOSING FACE"
This
concept of "face" – as applied to both sides –
was the subject of much discussion at the height of the
crisis, and was utilized to explain American as well as
Chinese behavior. But what, exactly, can this mean? Lose
"face" – in whose eyes? In the Chinese context, the
meaning of this was clear enough and widely acknowledged:
it meant that if the regime didn't stand up to the Americans,
they would lose "face" in the eyes of their own subjects.
But on the American side of the equation, the spin was
quite different. For example, the by-now-infamous
editorial in the Weekly Standard, sourly denouncing
Bush's graceful diplomatic exit from the quicksands of
another prolonged hostage crisis, was clearly concerned
that this alleged loss of "face" could only serve to further
embolden the Chinese. This is nonsense: for we can hardly
base our strategic decisions on how we are perceived by
the Chinese, but instead must construct a policy based
on the objective facts. Our Eastasian policymakers must
objectively assess the realistic balance of military power
and define our legitimate national interests in the region.
In the case of the former, a poor Third World nation like
China is no match for the mighty US, and Beijing is acutely
and painfully aware of this fact. But aside from this,
and the obvious problem of maintaining that our own "national
security" involves hovering in disputed waters 70 miles
from China's shores, an important point is getting lost:
none of the commentary on the Hainan affair, including
that in the Weekly Standard, discussed the really
serious loss of "face" by the US government resulting
from the Hainan incident. . . .
WAR
AND LEGITIMACY
The
biggest loss of "face" – that is, legitimacy –
for the Americans occurred right here at home.
Every time we are caught with our pants down overseas
– every time we are nabbed for meddling in other
people's business – the credibility and legitimacy
of our political leaders, and their rotten foreign policy
of global intervention, is called into question. Please
don't bore me with hifalutin' notions about the alleged
evils of "moral equivalence." The same rules that
apply to the Commie gerontocrats ensconced in Beijing
rule the fate of those kleptocrats in Washington D.C.:
once they lose their legitimacy, they are finished.
Be it a democracy, or a dictatorship, a state headed by
a President or a Commandante, all are utterly dependent,
in the end, on the consent of their subjects. Whatever
its coloration or rationale, the regime, absent this consent,
collapses, as their former subjects rise up and simply
shrug them off. This nearly happened during the Vietnam
war, when the US government insisted on following the
same policy that failed in Korea, and led to disaster
for the French at Dienbienphu. The result was that our
rulers nearly lost their legitimacy at home, at
least for a while. It happened to the Soviet Union in
the 1990s,: again, the catalytic agent was a foreign policy
disaster, namely the Kremlin's ill-fated intervention
in Afghanistan, where apathetic Soviet conscripts were
simply cut to pieces by the motivated Mujahadeen.
Suddenly, the weakness of the Soviets had been exposed,
and not just to the people of Afghanistan: the Soviet
defeat inspired the peoples of the Soviet Union itself
to rise up and confront their oppressors, who didn't seem
so mighty after all.
THE
COLD WAR AS THEATER
The
same fate awaits any American regime that dares, once
again, to launch a land war in Asia – or, indeed,
any prolonged military conflict in a foreign land. What's
more, our rulers know this: the much-noted aversion of
the American people to body-bags coming home with their
sons and daughters in them is second only to the aversion
of American policymakers to picking fights where the odds
aren't overwhelmingly in their favor. Sure, they'll knock
around poor little Serbia, and beat up on the Iraqis:
but the Chinese, who number close to a quarter
of the world's population? Fuggedaboutit! Such
a war could not, by its very nature, be in our interests,
and the goal of US policy must be to prevent it rather
than provoke it. While the New Republic and the
Weekly Standard scream "appeasement" in unison,
this assumes that the Chinese are inherently malevolent,
unchanging, and eternally dedicated to our destruction.
In short, the Chinese are the demons of the cold war,
revived and brought back for a second and even more profitable
run.
ANTI-CAPITALIST
ANTI-COMMUNISM
But
the updated version of this little morality play is a
little different from the original in that, on both the
right and the left, there is a distinctly anti-capitalist
tone to many of the lines, a sneering disdain for an America
that puts profits before "face," or, as the New Republic
opines: "The Bush administration, which believes that
the business of America is business, is failing at the
business of America, which is not business. It is democracy."
Against this capitalist plot to sabotage "democracy,"
the editors of the New Republic haul out a new
and refurbished . . . anti-Communism! As they put it:
"In
the aftermath of the suave American surrender this week,
it is important to restate the principles that should
form the foundation of American policy toward China. The
first of those principles is the enduring relevance of
anti-communism. Yup, anti-communism. For anti-communism
never denoted merely an opposition to the Soviet Union
and its empire. (Only the primitive right believes that
it did.) Anti-communism was, rather, the most arduous
and the most urgent instance of a foreign policy that
acted on values as much as on interests, an idealistic
foreign policy that adopted as its objectives the expansion
of free societies and free markets. Such a foreign policy
did not mistake the pursuit of those objectives for American
imperialism. It also did not mistake the expansion of
free markets for the immediate enrichment of American
businessmen and consultants. Now, China is not exactly
Communist; but it is not exactly not Communist either.
Its leaders are embarked on a sordid experiment: they
wish to prove that economic liberalization does not entail
political liberalization, that capitalism can thrive in
the bosom of authoritarianism. They are, in short, in
transition from communism to fascism. But anti-fascism
is the philosophical twin of anti-communism, or it should
be. A non-Maoist tyranny in China is still a tyranny in
China, and still a proper object of American opposition."
MARXISTS
AGAINST COMMUNISM
It
is no doubt another delusion of the "primitive right"
that free enterprise is the opposite of communism, and
a principle worth fighting for, with free trade its international
concomitant. Immune to irony, or to any form of self-examination,
these "anti-Communist" liberals, with their disdain for
the profit motive, have given a peculiarly Marxian ring
to their "anti-Communism." Oh, but anti-communism never
really just entailed opposing an alleged Soviet threat,
we are told: instead, it was a glorious expansionist crusade
to export our "values." It was "idealistic" – so
much so, that it didn't confuse advocating "free markets"
with actually having a free market when it came
to trading with our Commie adversaries. Of course, in
spite of cold war trade barriers, it was precisely this
sort of economic penetration that eventually led to the
overthrow of the Communist system in Eurasia: but then,
such a strategy would be far too pragmatic for such exalted
"idealists."
ILLIBERAL
LIBERALS
It
is fascinating – in the sense that the horrible can
be compelling – that we should hear "anti-Communism"
now being revived and trumpeted, not only by the Right
but also by the Left. For the struggle against the Soviet
Union was used by precisely these people to argue for
the expansion of government power at home. If we didn't
institute a welfare state, said the New Dealers, the Communists
would take over (this in spite of the prominent position
of many Communists in the New Deal "Popular Front" coalition,
some at the highest levels). Truman made the same arguments,
and it was he who really got the cold war going,
while consolidating and expanding the power of the federal
government on every front: he threatened to nationalize
the steel industry in the name of "national security,"
and it was the liberal "anti-Communists" of the New
Republic persuasion who were in the forefront of the
witch-hunt against domestic dissent. They relentlessly
red-baited the non-interventionist movement, (with liberals
like Arthus Schlesinger, Jr., accusing Senator Robert
A. Taft of being a Communist "dupe") and openly took advantage
of the collectivizing tendencies of any war, cold or hot,
on a free society. They remembered the warning of Randolph
Bourne, back in the days when liberalism meant opposition
to wars of aggression, that "war is the health of the
State" – and rubbed their hands together in gleeful
anticipation.
'ANTI-FASCISM'
– A SHORT HISTORY
Of
course, the editors of the New Republic naturally
would bring "anti-fascism" into it. They, after
all, were the leading journal of the interventionists,
back in the 1930s, howling for the rescue of their heroically
endangered Soviet Union at Hitler's hands, and, in wartime,
bitterly calling for the suppression of such instruments
of "sedition" as the Chicago Tribune. They are
right, of course: "anti-fascism" is the Siamese
twin of "anti-Communism." Indeed, these doctrines were
advocated by the same people, only at different times.
The ironic interdependence of these two "antis" is underscored
by their common history, for it was "anti-fascism" in
the realm of foreign policy that saved the Kremlin from
destruction. That is why its international agents and
their fellow travelers coined the term "anti-fascism"
and pushed the cause – in the pages of the New
Republic of the 1930s – with such systematic
thoroughness,. Without "anti-fascism" ensconced as the
guiding principle of US foreign policy, there would have
been no "anti-Communism" – because there would have
been no Communism.
WATCH
YOUR WALLET
The
self-perpetuating mechanism in place here ought to excite
the suspicion of any thinking man or woman, or, indeed,
of anyone with the street smarts to avoid being hustled.
When they declare that a new Enemy is on the horizon,
and that we must drop everything and arm ourselves for
the coming Armageddon, reach for your wallet – and
hold on to it. Creating a diversion is the oldest trick
in the pickpocket's book. When they describe horrific
conditions imposed by an all-powerful central government
that steals from the poor to give to the state-privileged
rich, that regulates its citizens to death and even kills
them, look to see if there is a similar entity existing
much closer to home – and remember Waco.
THE
MAIN ENEMY
With
the end of the cold war, and the implosion of Communism
as a political system and as an idea – the
War Party has been in a permanent funk. The "hate China"
campaign is their last chance to create a Satan with a
sword that both Left and Right can agree on. If they don't
succeed, then the continuity of their foreign policy –
indeed, of their whole rotten system – is threatened.
For, without an external enemy, whose defeat is mandatory,
Americans can turn, once again, to the problems besetting
them at home: the erosion of constitutional government,
the onerous tax burden, the exponential growth of Big
Government and the loss of our civil liberties. Bereft
of external enemies, Americans – our rulers fear
– will turn against their real enemy: an omnivorous
federal Leviathan eating away at our freedom on every
front – and we couldn't have that, now could
we?
A
MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN
This
is why it is no surprise that the Church of Al Gore and
the "conservative" idolaters of John McCain are united
in their rage over the outcome of the Hainan incident,
and why they speak with one voice in their bitter hatred
of China. The "national greatness" conservatives of the
Weekly Standard, who hailed the prosecution of
Microsoft and have always disdained the "anti-government"
rhetoric of alleged right-wing "extremists," have much
more in common with their newfound liberal friends than
a reflexively belligerent foreign policy stance. Radical
or even significant tax cuts are out of the question if
we have to rearm in the face of the alleged Chinese threat.
Trade issues, too, are going to be dominated by the rhetoric
of the new left-right cold warrior coalition, with Barney
Frank and Nancy Pelosi, the quintessential "San Francisco
Democrats" (the first metaphorical, and second actual),
lining up with Henry Hyde and Bob Barr – with the
labor unions and the arms industry cheering in the popcorn
gallery.
BLURRING
THE LINES
In
any coalition the various factions make concessions in
a tradeoff that is to their mutual benefit. If the anti-capitalist
rhetoric of the "hate China" lobby on the right is in
the nature of a concession, then the Left, too, will be
giving ground on other issues – immigration policies
and civil liberties, to start with. On the right, we are
already hearing the crude racist jokes, and talk of Chinese-Americans
as a potential "fifth column" in the US: how long before
their fellow warmongers on the left follow suit? If, during
the first cold war, as many Russians were working in high
technology sectors as Chinese-Americans are now, how long
before both conservative and liberal "anti-Communists"
would have put a stop to it?
TRADING
PLACES
What
happens, in any coalition in which the constituent elements
are tied together by a single overriding foreign policy
issue – whether it be "anti-fascism," "anti-Communism,"
or anti-whatever – is that eventually these
disparate elements merge and blend together into a single
united movement. This is what happened to both the "anti-fascists"
and the "isolationists" of yesteryear: the radical leftists
who allied with Anglophile aristocrats and others to forge
the "anti-fascist" interventionist coalition of the 1930s
eventually moved rightward, from Marxism to Rooseveltism
to neoconservatism. On the other hand, the old-style liberals
such as John T. Flynn who joined the American First Committee
– an organization made up primarily of conservatives
opposed to entering the European war – eventually
became conservatives, that is, opponents of the Roosevelt
regime and its centralizing, anti-capitalist tendencies.
THE
PARTY OF BIG GOVERNMENT
A
new cold war would be an absolute disaster for the cause
of economic freedom and individual liberty. With the left
and the right drawing ever closer together on domestic
as well as foreign policy issues, there would, in effect,
be only one party in this great "democracy" of ours: the
War Party. Such a party, encompassing both ends of the
political spectrum, would be united in its enthusiasm
not only for foreign wars, but also for the high taxes
required to pay for them. It would be united on the need
to spy on its own citizens, as well as other countries,
and united on the need to preserve Big Government, in
all its bloated glory: after all, could a constitutional
and strictly limited US government reliably project its
power into the South China Sea? Could it defend Taiwan?
Could it safeguard Israel? Would it have the sheer bulk
and imperial magnificence to face down a resurgent Russia?
Clearly, the answer to all these questions is no –
which is why the War Party must always and forever be
the party of Big Government.
