Democratic Realism

D. Spencer Hines

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Mar 6, 2004, 10:46:38 AM3/6/04

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"It was the end of everything — the end of communism, of socialism, of
the Cold War, of the European wars. But the end of everything was also
a beginning.

On December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union died and something new was born,
something utterly new — a unipolar world dominated by a single
superpower unchecked by any rival and with decisive reach in every
corner of the globe.

This is a staggering new development in history, not seen since the fall
of Rome. It is so new, so strange, that we have no idea how to deal
with it. Our first reaction — the 1990s — was utter confusion.

The next reaction was awe. When Paul Kennedy, who had once popularized
the idea of American decline, saw what America did in the Afghan war — a
display of fully mobilized, furiously concentrated unipolar power at a
distance of 8,000 miles — he not only recanted, he stood in wonder:
“Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power;” he wrote,
“nothing. . . . No other nation comes close. . . . Charlemagne’s
empire was merely western European in its reach. The Roman empire
stretched farther afield, but there was another great empire in Persia,
and a larger one in China. There is, therefore, no comparison.”

Even Rome is no model for what America is today. First, because we do
not have the imperial culture of Rome. We are an Athenian republic,
even more republican and infinitely more democratic than Athens. And
this American Republic has acquired the largest seeming empire in the
history of the world — acquired it in a fit of absent-mindedness greater
even than Britain’s.

And it was not just absent-mindedness; it was sheer inadvertence. We
got here because of Europe’s suicide in the world wars of the twentieth
century, and then the death of its Eurasian successor, Soviet Russia,
for having adopted a political and economic system so inhuman that, like
a genetically defective organism, it simply expired in its sleep.
Leaving us with global dominion.

Second, we are unlike Rome, unlike Britain and France and Spain and the
other classical empires of modern times, in that we do not hunger for
territory. The use of the word “empire” in the American context is
ridiculous. It is absurd to apply the word to a people whose first
instinct upon arriving on anyone’s soil is to demand an exit strategy.

I can assure you that when the Romans went into Gaul and the British
into India, they were not looking for exit strategies. They were
looking for entry strategies.

In David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, King Faisal says to Lawrence: “I
think you are another of these desert-loving English.. . . The English
have a great hunger for desolate places.” Indeed, for five centuries,
the Europeans did hunger for deserts and jungles and oceans and new
continents.

Americans do not. We like it here. We like our McDonald’s. We
like our football. We like our rock-and-roll. We’ve got the Grand
Canyon and Graceland. We’ve got Silicon Valley and South Beach.

We’ve got everything. And if that’s not enough, we’ve got Vegas —
which is a facsimile of everything. What could we possibly need
anywhere else? We don’t like exotic climates. We don’t like exotic
languages — lots of declensions and moods. We don’t even know what a
mood is. We like Iowa corn and New York hot dogs, and if we want
Chinese or Indian or Italian, we go to the food court. We don’t send
the Marines for takeout.

That’s because we are not an imperial power. We are a commercial
republic. We don’t take food; we trade for it. Which makes us
something unique in history, an anomaly, a hybrid: a commercial republic
with overwhelming global power. A commercial republic that, by pure
accident of history, has been designated custodian of the international
system. The eyes of every supplicant from East Timor to Afghanistan,
from Iraq to Liberia; Arab and Israeli, Irish and British, North and
South Korean are upon us. That is who we are. That is where we are.

Now the question is: What do we do? What is a unipolar power to
do?..."

Charles Krauthammer
---------------------

Provocative....

DSH

Akorps666

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Mar 7, 2004, 12:55:51 AM3/7/04

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>Now the question is: What do we do? What is a unipolar power to do?..."

That's an excellent analysis. As far as what we need to do, on the military
level we need to strengthen our defenses against terrorism, and prosecute the
war against the terrorists to the maximum extent possible. On the diplomatic
level the main thing is to strengthen our friendships with Russia and China.

Perception is rooted in the past, so the longer a period of peace and
prosperity a people has, the more delusional they become, blind to the
catastrophic threats they face, so the more vulnerable and defenseless they
become against those threats, and the greater the disaster when catastrophe
finally strikes. What happens is that the brain checks its worldview against
the sense data, and the longer that world is peaceful and prosperous and
pleasant, the stronger becomes the delusion that that is the unalterable
reality of the world. A reflexive cycle sets in, anything inconsistent with
that worldview elicits a negative reaction, so dissenters are silenced, like
Cassandra, the messengers of doom are condemned rather than the warnings
heeded. That reinforces the delusionary worldview even further, until finally
it collapses, like the stock market boom collapsed, or the illusion of safety
here at home collapsed on 9-11. A good example is Martha Stewart, she has done
so much good for people in her life, and had so much success, that she probably
can't fathom what is happening to her, how a tiny technicality can destroy a
lifetime of good works, and how the unthinking masses can turn on her like a
mob of howling wolves baying for blood, despite her having done no harm to
anyone. One has to be strong-willed and driven by a positive view of the world
to achieve so much success, but then the brain tends to shut out any voices
that might warn of impending disaster. Saddam Hussein and Hitler are historical
examples of political leaders who apparently became completely delusional, due
to lies told by their syncophantic subordinates, chosen by those leaders
themselves, any dissenters being silenced. The assumption needs to be made that
enemy leaders in future will be similarly completely delusional, we can't
assume that they will be rational or we may end up in a disaster, as almost
happened during the Cuban missile crisis, and other incidents where nuclear war
was avoided by the narrowest of margins.

The only escape from our delusional worldviews, short of learning the hard way
from possibly catastrophic experiences, seems to be abstract logical thinking
and questioning our premises, to see if we are operating under false premises
and a delusional worldview. Game simulations of course allow us an opportunity
to try out various scenarios without experiencing the real catastrophes they
simulate, though simulations are not perfect either. But if the results of the
game/simulation don't match our expectations, we should examine them very
carefully, rather than dismissing them (for example the Japanese simulations of
Midway are a good historical example, as Dallas pointed out).

But normally the delusional worldview is so entrenched that only a huge shock
can shatter our illusions. The media exists to flatter us and feed our
illusions even further, so with the advance of technology the human race
becomes even more delusional. I just hope the terrorists don't figure out how
much attention they can get by attacking those soft media targets.

Even someone like the extremely intelligent posters like Thornley and Black,
both very logical and insightful, can have blind spots without realizing it and
not see the threat. On the other hand I may imagine threats that don't exist,
having seen so many disasters first hand for some inexplicable reason. The
other day I was watching a train carrying cargo containers offloaded from a
ship, and I kept having visions of those containers carrying nuclear bombs,
exploding, and spreading radioactive waste all over our lovely region. Checking
those cargo containers for radioactive materials needs to be priority numero
uno I think, as far as defensive measures go. Offensively just keep hunting
down the terrorists with the maximum effort possible, exactly like we are doing
already.

Dudhorse

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Mar 7, 2004, 2:36:37 AM3/7/04

to

"D. Spencer Hines" <D_Spenc...@usa.yale.edu> wrote in message
news:j2v2c.52$Oo5....@eagle.america.net...
> "It was the end of everything - the end of communism, of socialism, of

> the Cold War, of the European wars. But the end of everything was also
> a beginning.
>
> On December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union died and something new was born,

> something utterly new - a unipolar world dominated by a single

> superpower unchecked by any rival and with decisive reach in every
> corner of the globe.
>
> This is a staggering new development in history, not seen since the fall
> of Rome. It is so new, so strange, that we have no idea how to deal

> with it. Our first reaction - the 1990s - was utter confusion.

>
> The next reaction was awe. When Paul Kennedy, who had once popularized

> the idea of American decline, saw what America did in the Afghan war - a

> display of fully mobilized, furiously concentrated unipolar power at a

> distance of 8,000 miles - he not only recanted, he stood in wonder:

> "Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power;" he wrote,
> "nothing. . . . No other nation comes close. . . . Charlemagne's
> empire was merely western European in its reach. The Roman empire
> stretched farther afield, but there was another great empire in Persia,
> and a larger one in China. There is, therefore, no comparison."
>
> Even Rome is no model for what America is today. First, because we do
> not have the imperial culture of Rome. We are an Athenian republic,
> even more republican and infinitely more democratic than Athens. And
> this American Republic has acquired the largest seeming empire in the

> history of the world - acquired it in a fit of absent-mindedness greater

> even than Britain's.
>
> And it was not just absent-mindedness; it was sheer inadvertence. We
> got here because of Europe's suicide in the world wars of the twentieth
> century, and then the death of its Eurasian successor, Soviet Russia,
> for having adopted a political and economic system so inhuman that, like
> a genetically defective organism, it simply expired in its sleep.
> Leaving us with global dominion.
>
> Second, we are unlike Rome, unlike Britain and France and Spain and the
> other classical empires of modern times, in that we do not hunger for
> territory. The use of the word "empire" in the American context is
> ridiculous. It is absurd to apply the word to a people whose first
> instinct upon arriving on anyone's soil is to demand an exit strategy.
>
> I can assure you that when the Romans went into Gaul and the British
> into India, they were not looking for exit strategies. They were
> looking for entry strategies.
>
> In David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, King Faisal says to Lawrence: "I
> think you are another of these desert-loving English.. . . The English
> have a great hunger for desolate places." Indeed, for five centuries,
> the Europeans did hunger for deserts and jungles and oceans and new
> continents.
>
> Americans do not. We like it here. We like our McDonald's. We
> like our football. We like our rock-and-roll. We've got the Grand
> Canyon and Graceland. We've got Silicon Valley and South Beach.
>

> We've got everything. And if that's not enough, we've got Vegas -

> which is a facsimile of everything. What could we possibly need
> anywhere else? We don't like exotic climates. We don't like exotic

> languages - lots of declensions and moods. We don't even know what a

> mood is. We like Iowa corn and New York hot dogs, and if we want
> Chinese or Indian or Italian, we go to the food court. We don't send
> the Marines for takeout.
>
> That's because we are not an imperial power. We are a commercial
> republic. We don't take food; we trade for it. Which makes us
> something unique in history, an anomaly, a hybrid: a commercial republic
> with overwhelming global power. A commercial republic that, by pure
> accident of history, has been designated custodian of the international
> system. The eyes of every supplicant from East Timor to Afghanistan,
> from Iraq to Liberia; Arab and Israeli, Irish and British, North and
> South Korean are upon us. That is who we are. That is where we are.
>
> Now the question is: What do we do? What is a unipolar power to
> do?..."
>

> ...
>
> ..... make sure we don't go broke trying to hold onto something we never
really wanted in the first place. As far as demanding a exit strategy
before foreign intervention that was a painful lesson of Vietnam. Maybe
thats what separates us from other countries in that for the most part we as
a nation do learn what works and what does not.

David Read

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Mar 7, 2004, 4:01:36 AM3/7/04

to

"D. Spencer Hines" <D_Spenc...@usa.yale.edu> wrote in message
news:j2v2c.52$Oo5....@eagle.america.net...

> "It was the end of everything - the end of communism, of socialism, of