The end of the cold war was marked by more than merely the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact "empire." The unfreezing of the bipolar icecap which had put a heavy and quite repressive hand on global politics as well as the internal politics of the component parts of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact subordinates started a series of escalating attacks upon the nation-state generally. After centuries of unquestioned dominance as the basic unit of international relations, the seemingly eternal nation-state was under threat on two fronts.
One axis of attack was both predictable and fully expected by observers of global affairs: the internationalists, particularly those of the Western European and American elite. Some sang the praises of supra-national organizations both regional and global. Others gave one shout-out after another on behalf of transnational business entities. Both groups damned the narrow, parochial focus of the nation-state with its preoccupation concerning national and strategic interests.
With far more joy than sorrow, infinitely greater anticipation than regret, members of the several elites drawn from both the Left and the Right consigned the nation-state to the status of museum curio while anticipating that the new age of globalization and supra-national organizations would mean a better future for all people everywhere. Abandoning the nation-state for new, bigger, better forms of organization would, it was repeated, usher in a world of peace and plenty, of prosperity and environmental purity.
Slightly less than ten years ago, the presumably unilateral George W. Bush did his not inconsiderable bit to further the cause of the supra-nationalist camp. Far from being a robust adherent of the go-it-alone school of international relations, George W. Bush showed himself to be squarely in the middle of the American version of multilateralism.
It would have been politically and diplomatically possible, arguably even preferable, to have declined the offer of assistance given by NATO in the wake of 9/11 and dealt with Afghanistan, Taliban, and al-Qaeda with purely American means. The later seeking of a UN figleaf to cover the policy genitalia of the Bush/Cheney administration with respect to regime change in Iraq did the US no useful service while holding the American effort ultimately hostage to the views, policies, and politics of other countries.
By seeking the support and agreement of supra-national organizations, the Bush/Cheney administration stood solidly in the diplomatic tradition of Harry Truman and LBJ far more than in the footsteps of his father who relied on a US constructed ad hoc coalition when he went to war a decade earlier. By so doing, the allegedly unilateralist George W. acted to lessen the future freedom of the US to act as a fully sovereign nation-state.
George W. Bush shared the common view of the American and Western European elites that the nation-state should be lessened in the exercise of untrammeled sovereignty. Regardless of his sometimes less than temperate rhetoric, this President Bush had a faith in the ability of supra-national institutions to restrain the nation-state from pursuing its national interest regardless of the costs imposed on others. He was also a deep believer in the capacity of transnational business to increase stability and real wealth. In essence, he stood on the Right but leaned to the Left.
Over the past decade the view of the nation-state as being an obstacle to creating solutions to global problems has grown greatly. Whether the problem at hand is one of keeping the peace, protecting the environment, creating greater economic stability, assuring access to food and clean water, providing employment and fairly distributing wealth, or assuring human rights, the default position has been to seek the proper supra-national organization, public, or private.
During the past decade, the UN has constantly sought to extend its reach. Along with its subordinate agencies, the UN has looked for ways by which it can intervene in the domestic affairs of member states. There have always been good intentions in play: protecting refugees, protecting civilians against repressive acts by their governments, assuring human rights. Typified by the convention based on the doctrine termed "responsibility to protect," the UN's reach has far extended beyond its practical grasp.
In the years since the end of the cold war, there has been a proliferation of defensive insurgencies by ethnic and religious communities chaffing under the governance of majorities coming from different groups or beliefs. What has been observed ever since the blood letting in the wreckage of the artificial nation-state once called "Yugoslavia" has been a real world application of the self-determination of nations, a doctrine first given form by Woodrow Wilson nearly a century ago.
From Kosovo to the Northern Caucasus to Darfur and South Sudan, defensive insurgencies (aka separatist movements) have resulted not only in massive loss of life and even more massive refugee streams but military interventions or the calls for such interventions. In all cases the calls have been directed to and answered by supra-national organizations ranging from the UN to NATO to the African Union. There is no indication that the trajectory of defensive insurgency has reached its apogee yet. This means there will be more demands for more international intervention in the future.
In recent months, offensive insurgencies (revolutions) have joined with the defensive sort as a very popular pastime. This has resulted in one more outpouring of demands for outside intervention by the "international community." The demand has been answered in Libya by a combination of three supra-national organizations, the Arab League, the UN and NATO. Similar demands with regard to Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria have yet gone unanswered.
The single greatest reason the latter three states have been given a "pass" and left unmolested by missiles and bombs delivered by aircraft operated by governments responsive to the doctrine of R2P is the existence of two countries which do not share the negative view of the nation-state so prevalent in the West. These two countries are Russia and China. Neither accept the proposition that the nation-state is either evil or obsolete (or both.) Neither go along with the belief that countries have the right to intervene in the internal affairs of another if given the OK by the UN or some other supra-national organization.
But all the foot dragging on well-intended, forceful interventions is not confined to the Boys in the Kremlin or the Trolls of Beijing. Nor are the Boys and the Trolls the only people who reject the negative view of the nation-state. In a delightful irony the views put forth in the Kremlin and the Forbidden City are shared by the common folk, the hoi polloi in both the US and the countries of Western Europe. Blinded by an arrogant certainty in the correctness of their own multilateral, multinational, multicultural beliefs, the political, media, and academic elites of the US and Western Europe do not understand that their view of the nation-state is rejected completely by their own fellow citizens.
As recent elections in Europe have shown, there is a strong rejectionist current running among the European citizenry. "Populist" right wing parties have done very very well at the polls in large part due to their rejection of the primacy of supra-national organizations. While not yet tested in an election in the US, there are strong hints that We the People are not ready to embrace the notion that American sovereignty should be ceded in part to supra-national organizations.
The number of challenges to the nation-state by defensive insurgencies will probably continue to grow in the nest few years. It is also to be expected that there will be an ever increasing call for international intervention not only in the case of defensive insurgencies but also under the doctrine of R2P. At least some of these demands will be answered by one supra-national organization or another. Even if the UN Security Council does not heed the call due to the ever present Russian or Chinese veto, some other entity will pick up the slack.
Even in the event no structured supra-national organization does take responsibility to intervene, one or another of the oft maligned and purportedly obsolete nation-states will do so--if its interests require. From this it is legitimate to infer that the number of nasty little wars of peace imposition will grow in the years to come. Practically speaking this means the number of asymmetric wars will grow apace.
Against the backdrop of asymmetrical wars it becomes conceivable, even desirable, for states to use proxy conflicts as an instrument of policy. This will go beyond the past practice of governments such as the Syrian to use terrorist groups as instruments of state policy.
Not too pretty a scene to contemplate, eh, bucko? Makes you wish for the good old days of the cold war when affairs might have been risky, but the world was remarkably stable. Looking ahead, the only thing which gives grounds for thanks is that the elites have been wrong. Tomorrow more than ever it will be the self-interested nation-state which serves as the bulwark against raging instability and war.
In a world full of candidates for devolution, the only genuine force for stability, peace, and some semblance of prosperity is the self-centered nation-state. It and not the supra-national organization is and remains the last, best hope of human kind.
It is time the elites and their iconic figures such as President Obama and Secretary Clinton get a grip on that defining reality. Otherwise, their delusions of a UN inspired heaven on Earth will be the death of us all.
Showing posts with label Nation-state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nation-state. Show all posts
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Maybe If We Pretend Hard Enough---
Political scientists call it, "let us define our dependent variables," but little kids are more honest. Politicians call it "nation-building," but little kids are more honest. The UN calls it "responsibility to protect," but little kids are more honest.
Little kids call it, "Let's pretend."
And here we are today playing let's pretend under all the upscale rubrics mentioned. We are playing it in the Ivory Coast. We are playing it in Yemen. We are playing it in Libya.
In each case our opponent in this great game is called a "strongman," or a "dictator," or, more politely, an "authoritarian ruler." In each case the venue of this great game is called a "state," or a "nation," or a "country." In each case we maintain with the straightest of faces that our goal is to "support the people," or "to promote the rights of the citizens," or, most simply, to gain "democracy," or, even simpler and hazier, to seek "reform."
All the terms, all the fine sounding words, all the lofty thoughts behind the words constitute a lie. Perhaps not an intentional lie, but an untruth nonetheless. Tergiversation by volitional ignorance covers the situation.
Each of the venues mentioned as well as others such as Sudan or Somalia are not by any realistic understanding "nations," let alone "nation-states." All are geographical expressions inhabited by assorted tribal peoples of differing, even antipodal, customs, values, norms, and, most important, senses of identification. Each of the "dictators" is actually nothing more than the accepted leader of one tribe. None are national leaders for none has a unified nation to lead.
In the Ivory Coast the ousted former president is actually the leader by tacit acceptance if not more active support of the Southern, non-Muslim tribal confederation while the new guy is the tacitly accepted leader of the Northern, Muslim tribal groupings. In Yemen, the embattled Saleh emerged from the base of support of one tribe and maintained his power by playing off the other tribes against each other. And, in Libya, Brother Leader is likewise a tribal chieftain whose rivals are from another, far larger tribal assembly located in the far east of the country.
Tribal leaders are not and never will be national politicians as the term is understood in the West. Nor are the agglutinations of tribes under their authority "nations" as the word is applied in the West. The absence of national identity means that by definition there can be no nation-state, no truly national polity controlling the instruments of government.
Tribal leaders including the die hard "dictators" of Yemen, Libya, and the Ivory Coast are motivated by deep and powerful considerations such as personal and group honor which have been moribund for many, many generations in the US and the rest of the West. The tribal leader incarnates in himself not only his personal honor, his personal power, but that of his family, clan, and tribe. This is at a far cry from the motivators of contemporary Western politicos. It is even at some distance from the motivators of more typical dictators of the ideological sort, for these may have an inflated sense of self but rarely believe the entire honor, potency, and status of a social group is embodied in their person.
When Gaddafi cried, "I am history! I am the revolution! I am Libya!," he was not simply exhibiting what in the West would be considered a psychopathology but stating a ground truth that would have been (and was) understood by tribal leaders around the world. Gbagbo in his upmarket bunker understood. So also did Saleh as the vipers on whose heads he danced squirmed and twisted. Karzai all the way off in Afghanistan understood, despite his status as an "elected" leader. So also did Maliki in Iraq, again regardless of the special cachet of a Western approved "election."
Tribal leaders, all of whom have "death before dishonor" in an invisible tattoo inscribed across their chests, do not think like Western politicians. Their calculus of political rationality is completely different. It would require the resurrection of an American politician such as Andrew Jackson to have an effective translator. Andy Jackson, like the majority of domestic politicos of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries was a tribal leader in transition. While focused on developing a nation, these men were emerging from sectional identities equivalent to those of a tribe.
Other countries throughout the West had their own transitional figures, men part way between the tribal, regional past and the nation-state future. History demonstrates that the process of congealing a true national identity is one of equal parts time and blood. War as well as the passage of decades of shared experience and defining mythology is needed to overcome the inertia of the tribal/regional past. The West has had the time--and more to the point--the spilled blood necessary to forge national identities and politics, to become full fledged nations and nation-states.
Libya and the Ivory Coast had any organic centripetal movement put in stasis by periods of colonization. And Yemen never emerged from a tribal, feudal dynamic. (Neither did Afghanistan despite the existence of a monarchy other than brief periods when under external threat.) The attempt by the well intended statesmen of the West and the diplomats and the bureaucrats of the UN to create actual functioning nation-states from the tribal cloth of the Ivory Coast or Yemen or Libya will be unsuccessful.
It is not a matter of money. Consider that the EU and France have offered 840 million bucks to the Ivory Coast; that is not mere chump change. Neither is the vast quantity of American and other peoples' money spent on civilian development and governance programs in Afghanistan. The sands of Libya will ultimately soak up as much international aid as the wealth of its oil fields produced to date. None will matter.
Money does not create a state. Neither do good intentions. Nor do military interventions. American and other governments had best realize that in none of these cases as well as others yet to occur will the end product be other than confederations of tribes riven with animosities old and new. No matter what is done by outsiders, the Ivory Coast, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, or even Iraq will not become genuine nation-states in the near- or mid-term future.
In a very real sense the less that is done by the outsiders under any of the noble terms referenced above, the better the results for the locals. The less done for the suffering locals, the faster they will have to weld together their own nation by their own blood and sweat. They will have to do what all of us in the West have done--bring about a national identity and a national polity by passion and suffering over time.
There is no faster way to do it. And, history shows, no better method. It seems to be written in our DNA, to suffer is to progress.
Little kids call it, "Let's pretend."
And here we are today playing let's pretend under all the upscale rubrics mentioned. We are playing it in the Ivory Coast. We are playing it in Yemen. We are playing it in Libya.
In each case our opponent in this great game is called a "strongman," or a "dictator," or, more politely, an "authoritarian ruler." In each case the venue of this great game is called a "state," or a "nation," or a "country." In each case we maintain with the straightest of faces that our goal is to "support the people," or "to promote the rights of the citizens," or, most simply, to gain "democracy," or, even simpler and hazier, to seek "reform."
All the terms, all the fine sounding words, all the lofty thoughts behind the words constitute a lie. Perhaps not an intentional lie, but an untruth nonetheless. Tergiversation by volitional ignorance covers the situation.
Each of the venues mentioned as well as others such as Sudan or Somalia are not by any realistic understanding "nations," let alone "nation-states." All are geographical expressions inhabited by assorted tribal peoples of differing, even antipodal, customs, values, norms, and, most important, senses of identification. Each of the "dictators" is actually nothing more than the accepted leader of one tribe. None are national leaders for none has a unified nation to lead.
In the Ivory Coast the ousted former president is actually the leader by tacit acceptance if not more active support of the Southern, non-Muslim tribal confederation while the new guy is the tacitly accepted leader of the Northern, Muslim tribal groupings. In Yemen, the embattled Saleh emerged from the base of support of one tribe and maintained his power by playing off the other tribes against each other. And, in Libya, Brother Leader is likewise a tribal chieftain whose rivals are from another, far larger tribal assembly located in the far east of the country.
Tribal leaders are not and never will be national politicians as the term is understood in the West. Nor are the agglutinations of tribes under their authority "nations" as the word is applied in the West. The absence of national identity means that by definition there can be no nation-state, no truly national polity controlling the instruments of government.
Tribal leaders including the die hard "dictators" of Yemen, Libya, and the Ivory Coast are motivated by deep and powerful considerations such as personal and group honor which have been moribund for many, many generations in the US and the rest of the West. The tribal leader incarnates in himself not only his personal honor, his personal power, but that of his family, clan, and tribe. This is at a far cry from the motivators of contemporary Western politicos. It is even at some distance from the motivators of more typical dictators of the ideological sort, for these may have an inflated sense of self but rarely believe the entire honor, potency, and status of a social group is embodied in their person.
When Gaddafi cried, "I am history! I am the revolution! I am Libya!," he was not simply exhibiting what in the West would be considered a psychopathology but stating a ground truth that would have been (and was) understood by tribal leaders around the world. Gbagbo in his upmarket bunker understood. So also did Saleh as the vipers on whose heads he danced squirmed and twisted. Karzai all the way off in Afghanistan understood, despite his status as an "elected" leader. So also did Maliki in Iraq, again regardless of the special cachet of a Western approved "election."
Tribal leaders, all of whom have "death before dishonor" in an invisible tattoo inscribed across their chests, do not think like Western politicians. Their calculus of political rationality is completely different. It would require the resurrection of an American politician such as Andrew Jackson to have an effective translator. Andy Jackson, like the majority of domestic politicos of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries was a tribal leader in transition. While focused on developing a nation, these men were emerging from sectional identities equivalent to those of a tribe.
Other countries throughout the West had their own transitional figures, men part way between the tribal, regional past and the nation-state future. History demonstrates that the process of congealing a true national identity is one of equal parts time and blood. War as well as the passage of decades of shared experience and defining mythology is needed to overcome the inertia of the tribal/regional past. The West has had the time--and more to the point--the spilled blood necessary to forge national identities and politics, to become full fledged nations and nation-states.
Libya and the Ivory Coast had any organic centripetal movement put in stasis by periods of colonization. And Yemen never emerged from a tribal, feudal dynamic. (Neither did Afghanistan despite the existence of a monarchy other than brief periods when under external threat.) The attempt by the well intended statesmen of the West and the diplomats and the bureaucrats of the UN to create actual functioning nation-states from the tribal cloth of the Ivory Coast or Yemen or Libya will be unsuccessful.
It is not a matter of money. Consider that the EU and France have offered 840 million bucks to the Ivory Coast; that is not mere chump change. Neither is the vast quantity of American and other peoples' money spent on civilian development and governance programs in Afghanistan. The sands of Libya will ultimately soak up as much international aid as the wealth of its oil fields produced to date. None will matter.
Money does not create a state. Neither do good intentions. Nor do military interventions. American and other governments had best realize that in none of these cases as well as others yet to occur will the end product be other than confederations of tribes riven with animosities old and new. No matter what is done by outsiders, the Ivory Coast, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, or even Iraq will not become genuine nation-states in the near- or mid-term future.
In a very real sense the less that is done by the outsiders under any of the noble terms referenced above, the better the results for the locals. The less done for the suffering locals, the faster they will have to weld together their own nation by their own blood and sweat. They will have to do what all of us in the West have done--bring about a national identity and a national polity by passion and suffering over time.
There is no faster way to do it. And, history shows, no better method. It seems to be written in our DNA, to suffer is to progress.
Monday, March 7, 2011
You Can't Teach A Pig To Sing
And, more to the point, you cannot create/impose a modern Western style nation-state on a traditional, tribal, majority Muslim society. This brutally honest, brute fact is the single greatest lesson of the Afghan experience. Even Iraq demonstrates clearly and convincingly the impossibility of imposing a "democratic" government on a society which is not traditional but is both tribal and majority Muslim. The state of affairs in Pakistan indicates the absurdity of insisting that a majority Muslim society which is neither overtly tribal nor particularly traditional has made of itself a modern, Western style nation-state.
This should not be interpreted to mean that there are no Muslims who seek the individual power and dignity inherent to a democratic republic. Nor should it be taken to imply that Muslim majority states do not merit a democratic republican form of government. It certainly should not be seen as averring that Muslim majority nations are not capable of creating and maintaining a democratic republic.
Experience, which is to say, history, demonstrates that the Western understandings of political and social organization cannot be imposed on a traditional, tribal, Muslim majority people. History also demonstrates that there is a profound opposition to Western understandings built into Islam. Many clerics in Muslim majority countries have pointed out that the strictures of Islam preclude the democratic republic as a "lawful" form of government as such exalts man over the deity by denying that the deity is the source of all law and all proper conduct by believers. These clerics may or may not be a majority of all Muslim clergymen, but they and their understanding of the requirements of their faith deserve to be taken at face value.
Consider for a moment the reaction in Afghanistan running from Hamid Karzai to Afghans on the street to the tragic incident recently in which American gunships and artillery killed nine Afghan children all under the age of fourteen who were innocently gathering firewood in the wrong place at the wrong time. Karzai bluntly rejected the personal apology offered by General Petraeus (a very rare action by the aloof supreme commander.) Karzai and his people have protested this incident as they have previous "friendly fire" deaths of Afghan civilians. At the same time the Afghan president and Afghan citizens generally have been mute regarding the far more numerous non-combatant deaths occurring as a result of insurgent suicide bombers and roadside bombs.
To the Afghans presently as to the Iraqis a couple of years ago, the notion of co-religionists killing non-combatants is far less offensive to sensibilities than is the killing of civilians by infidel troops. This is not, as is often alleged, because they hold the "civilized" Americans and their equally "civilized" allies to a higher ethical standard than they do the "savage" insurgents. Afghans today like Iraqis yesterday and, perhaps, Yemenis or Libyans tomorrow do not consider the Americans and other Westerners more "civilized," suitable to be held to a higher standard of conduct than indigenous "barbaric" fighters.
Quite the contrary. Afghans today like the Iraqis of yesterday and any potential Muslim co-belligerent of the future see the Americans and other Westerners as both infidels and "savages" while believing their fellow Muslims are the "civilized" combatants.
Wait one, bucko. Think about that assertion. Consider it carefully. The unwashed, flea bitten Afghan peasants living in stone huts way back in the hills with a history of tribal and clan violence which is far more bloody than the legendary feuds of Appalachians think of us, the Americans, the good guys, as barbaric, savage infidels who carry evil in their packs and speak blasphemy whenever they open their mouths. The same folks, the ones our government has committed our troops to protect and nurture in their political, social, economic, and cultural "development" see what we are doing as threatening the very basis of identity, of society, of life itself.
In the estimate of the people we were assured would welcome our liberation, our uplifting, our presence, we are evil incarnate. We are the very devil. We are the barbarians.
It is an unpleasant and highly inconvenient truth to accept. But, there it is. Our Western understandings of politics, of society, of culture is utterly abhorrent to the recipients of our largess. Even if there are individual Afghans, or Iraqis, or Libyans or Yemeni, or even Somali who would see American efforts to foster political, social, economic, and cultural change as good, they are and will continue to be a distinct minority. The majority of each and all of these societies is satisfied with the status quo. Even those who agitate for political revolution are essentially satisfied with the social and cultural status quo.
In this context it is critical to remember that the people who make the news are those who are in the minority. It is the feminists, for example, in Afghanistan or Egypt, Yemen, or Iraq who are news. And, they are news because they are few and rare on the ground. The same applies to advocates of Western style impartial law administered by an independent judiciary. The proponents of a secular government or religious parity are equally news because they are so few and far between.
The non-newsworthy, which is to say the overwhelming majority, are quite happy if things go on as they have for generations, centuries. All humans are afflicted with great inertia when it comes to change in the social and cultural milieu. Even in the West, yes, even the US, extreme or very rapid change in the structures of society, or the norms of culture, are viewed at best with suspicion and at worst with rejection by many, even most of the society. You need only think back to the Sixties to see that reality in dramatic and high profile operation.
The more traditional, the more tribal or the more Islamic a people are, the greater will be the inherent inertia, the resistance to change, particularly change which is imposed by outsiders, by infidels. Islam alone by virtue of its theology, its sacred writings, its emphasis on precedent in the interpretation of Shariah is even more inertia laden, more resistant to change. This resistance is boosted orders of magnitude when the change appears to be the artifact of the infidel.
Our efforts at nation-building were seen for what they have been: Change imposed by infidel outsiders which undercut not only Islam but the identity of the nation as well as its norms, values, and worldviews. The fact that we saw our efforts as selfless in nature, lofty in goal, and beneficial in effect in no way alters the negative perceptions of the people in the crosshairs of our self-assigned noble mission of uplifting the locals.
The abject and counterproductive failure in Afghanistan particularly when taken in conjunction with what can be accurately but charitably characterized as an "incomplete success" in Iraq militates powerfully against any future interventions in traditional, tribal, majority Muslim societies. This means quite simply that with the exception of retaliation based punitive operations or carefully considered humanitarian relief missions in the wake of natural disasters, the US and other Western states should refrain from any military or military backed endeavor in states such as Libya, Somalia, or Yemen.
To narrow the focus slightly, the reality of antipodal understandings as between the outside interventionary force and the target population means that those who argue there is no answer to the pirates of Somalia until there is a stable government in the place must refrain from seeking to create/impose such a government. Any military intervention in Libya, even air attacks delivered with the greatest of care so as to limit civilian casualties, will necessarily result in indigenous opposition to the foreign, infidel action.
The combination of historical and recent experience allows the formulation of an axiom: Any attempt to stabilize a deteriorating or failing state will result in terminal destabilization. A corollary would be: Nation-states cannot be created; they can only create themselves.
Looking forward, Secretary Gates is in Afghanistan today. It is to be hoped that he is coming to the conclusion that the mission, the goal of nation-building so unwisely embraced by George W. Bush and his fellow muscular Wilsonians has failed and must be wrapped up as quickly and cleanly as possible. It is also to be hoped that the reluctance, indeed the rejection, Secretary Gates expressed recently regarding interventions in traditional, tribal, majority Muslim societies informs the decision making which must be made regarding Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
Remember these wise words: "You cannot teach a pig to sing. It will fail and only annoy the pig."
This should not be interpreted to mean that there are no Muslims who seek the individual power and dignity inherent to a democratic republic. Nor should it be taken to imply that Muslim majority states do not merit a democratic republican form of government. It certainly should not be seen as averring that Muslim majority nations are not capable of creating and maintaining a democratic republic.
Experience, which is to say, history, demonstrates that the Western understandings of political and social organization cannot be imposed on a traditional, tribal, Muslim majority people. History also demonstrates that there is a profound opposition to Western understandings built into Islam. Many clerics in Muslim majority countries have pointed out that the strictures of Islam preclude the democratic republic as a "lawful" form of government as such exalts man over the deity by denying that the deity is the source of all law and all proper conduct by believers. These clerics may or may not be a majority of all Muslim clergymen, but they and their understanding of the requirements of their faith deserve to be taken at face value.
Consider for a moment the reaction in Afghanistan running from Hamid Karzai to Afghans on the street to the tragic incident recently in which American gunships and artillery killed nine Afghan children all under the age of fourteen who were innocently gathering firewood in the wrong place at the wrong time. Karzai bluntly rejected the personal apology offered by General Petraeus (a very rare action by the aloof supreme commander.) Karzai and his people have protested this incident as they have previous "friendly fire" deaths of Afghan civilians. At the same time the Afghan president and Afghan citizens generally have been mute regarding the far more numerous non-combatant deaths occurring as a result of insurgent suicide bombers and roadside bombs.
To the Afghans presently as to the Iraqis a couple of years ago, the notion of co-religionists killing non-combatants is far less offensive to sensibilities than is the killing of civilians by infidel troops. This is not, as is often alleged, because they hold the "civilized" Americans and their equally "civilized" allies to a higher ethical standard than they do the "savage" insurgents. Afghans today like Iraqis yesterday and, perhaps, Yemenis or Libyans tomorrow do not consider the Americans and other Westerners more "civilized," suitable to be held to a higher standard of conduct than indigenous "barbaric" fighters.
Quite the contrary. Afghans today like the Iraqis of yesterday and any potential Muslim co-belligerent of the future see the Americans and other Westerners as both infidels and "savages" while believing their fellow Muslims are the "civilized" combatants.
Wait one, bucko. Think about that assertion. Consider it carefully. The unwashed, flea bitten Afghan peasants living in stone huts way back in the hills with a history of tribal and clan violence which is far more bloody than the legendary feuds of Appalachians think of us, the Americans, the good guys, as barbaric, savage infidels who carry evil in their packs and speak blasphemy whenever they open their mouths. The same folks, the ones our government has committed our troops to protect and nurture in their political, social, economic, and cultural "development" see what we are doing as threatening the very basis of identity, of society, of life itself.
In the estimate of the people we were assured would welcome our liberation, our uplifting, our presence, we are evil incarnate. We are the very devil. We are the barbarians.
It is an unpleasant and highly inconvenient truth to accept. But, there it is. Our Western understandings of politics, of society, of culture is utterly abhorrent to the recipients of our largess. Even if there are individual Afghans, or Iraqis, or Libyans or Yemeni, or even Somali who would see American efforts to foster political, social, economic, and cultural change as good, they are and will continue to be a distinct minority. The majority of each and all of these societies is satisfied with the status quo. Even those who agitate for political revolution are essentially satisfied with the social and cultural status quo.
In this context it is critical to remember that the people who make the news are those who are in the minority. It is the feminists, for example, in Afghanistan or Egypt, Yemen, or Iraq who are news. And, they are news because they are few and rare on the ground. The same applies to advocates of Western style impartial law administered by an independent judiciary. The proponents of a secular government or religious parity are equally news because they are so few and far between.
The non-newsworthy, which is to say the overwhelming majority, are quite happy if things go on as they have for generations, centuries. All humans are afflicted with great inertia when it comes to change in the social and cultural milieu. Even in the West, yes, even the US, extreme or very rapid change in the structures of society, or the norms of culture, are viewed at best with suspicion and at worst with rejection by many, even most of the society. You need only think back to the Sixties to see that reality in dramatic and high profile operation.
The more traditional, the more tribal or the more Islamic a people are, the greater will be the inherent inertia, the resistance to change, particularly change which is imposed by outsiders, by infidels. Islam alone by virtue of its theology, its sacred writings, its emphasis on precedent in the interpretation of Shariah is even more inertia laden, more resistant to change. This resistance is boosted orders of magnitude when the change appears to be the artifact of the infidel.
Our efforts at nation-building were seen for what they have been: Change imposed by infidel outsiders which undercut not only Islam but the identity of the nation as well as its norms, values, and worldviews. The fact that we saw our efforts as selfless in nature, lofty in goal, and beneficial in effect in no way alters the negative perceptions of the people in the crosshairs of our self-assigned noble mission of uplifting the locals.
The abject and counterproductive failure in Afghanistan particularly when taken in conjunction with what can be accurately but charitably characterized as an "incomplete success" in Iraq militates powerfully against any future interventions in traditional, tribal, majority Muslim societies. This means quite simply that with the exception of retaliation based punitive operations or carefully considered humanitarian relief missions in the wake of natural disasters, the US and other Western states should refrain from any military or military backed endeavor in states such as Libya, Somalia, or Yemen.
To narrow the focus slightly, the reality of antipodal understandings as between the outside interventionary force and the target population means that those who argue there is no answer to the pirates of Somalia until there is a stable government in the place must refrain from seeking to create/impose such a government. Any military intervention in Libya, even air attacks delivered with the greatest of care so as to limit civilian casualties, will necessarily result in indigenous opposition to the foreign, infidel action.
The combination of historical and recent experience allows the formulation of an axiom: Any attempt to stabilize a deteriorating or failing state will result in terminal destabilization. A corollary would be: Nation-states cannot be created; they can only create themselves.
Looking forward, Secretary Gates is in Afghanistan today. It is to be hoped that he is coming to the conclusion that the mission, the goal of nation-building so unwisely embraced by George W. Bush and his fellow muscular Wilsonians has failed and must be wrapped up as quickly and cleanly as possible. It is also to be hoped that the reluctance, indeed the rejection, Secretary Gates expressed recently regarding interventions in traditional, tribal, majority Muslim societies informs the decision making which must be made regarding Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
Remember these wise words: "You cannot teach a pig to sing. It will fail and only annoy the pig."
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Cardinal Richelieu And The Death Of The Christian Sodality
Once upon a time, kiddies, long ago in far off Europe, the Western Christians--you know, the Holy Universal Catholic Church, the Western branch of Christianity after the Great Schism of a thousand years earlier--saw themselves as being one great faith community--equivalent to the Arabic word and Muslim concept of the Ummah. This idea had propelled European political thinking for generations almost beyond count. The dual rulership of Pope and Emperor, specifically the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, had soldiered on for centuries challenged only briefly on the margins.
Then, in only a couple score of years the intellectual edifice of the Catholic sodality crumbled, fragmented. It was replaced by the concept of the nation-state pursuing amoral national interest for reasons of state. This constituted the single most critical and shocking change in European political and social understandings in all the years which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Most surprisingly, the revolution was the work of one man. More surprisingly the one man was not religious dissident Martin Luther, but a Prince of the Church, Cardinal Richelieu. Richelieu may have been a Catholic. He might have been a good Catholic in his beliefs, practices, and life. But, he was first and foremost a Frenchman. As a self-conscious man of France, the Cardinal acting in his capacity as First Minister of His Most Catholic Majesty, Louis XIII, rejected the notion of a universal empire of Catholics responsive to Pope and Emperor. He replaced that hoary bit of received conventional wisdom with the radical idea that a state acted with no moral basis other than what might be in the state's best interests.
In his thinking--and the actions which resulted--Richelieu was the precise opposite of the Holy Roman Emperor, the towering figure of the House of Hapsburg, Ferdinand II. There is an ancient and not necessarily relevant saying among European historians that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, was not Roman, and was not truly an empire. Ferdinand II would have rejected totally the contention that his empire was not just that--an Empire. He would have pushed back even harder against the characterization of his empire as not being holy.
Ferdinand II was a very good, highly committed son of the Church. He sincerely believed that foreign policy must be conducted according to the desires and needs of the Christian God. He also believed with all his heart that he even more than the Pope was capable of both ascertaining the will of God and acting in a consistent moral fashion to achieve the will. Finally, Ferdinand II accepted completely the idea that there was a single Christian, (Catholic) sodality. To Ferdinand the rantings of a Luther or a Calvin were the ravings not only of lunatics but the message of the devil. These heretics and all who supported or agreed with them must be extirpated.
Here it must be recalled that the Protestant Reformation came into existence for religious reasons, but survived because secular rulers in the multitude of petty German states saw protestantism as a tool for national identity and exaltation. The Reformation grew and spread because Cardinal Richelieu saw the same potential and exploited it with great effect on behalf of French identity and interests.
Which brings us to the most important, most decisive, and (until the mid-Twentieth Century) most bloody war in European history, the Thirty Years War. The Thirty Years War decided many things. At the top of the list the war by the time it was ended in 1648 was the permanent destruction of the Catholic Christian sodality--the Christian version of Islam's ummah--replacing it with the self-interested nation-state. The war lasted thirty years in largest measure because Cardinal Richelieu fearing the encirclement of France by the Hapsburg dominions convinced His Most Catholic Majesty King Louis XIII to underwrite the costs of the war being waged by Protestant rulers including Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Finally, seventeen years after Ferdinand II started his war of counter-reformation, France entered the war directly so as to consolidate its position and assure the defeat of the Holy Roman Empire.
That's right, a Prince of the Church and a king who styled himself His Most Catholic Majesty conspired to defeat the champion of Catholicism, Ferdinand II, and the Pope. While there were apologists for France and Richelieu who tortured logic and murdered reality to justify the actions of king and minister, Richelieu engaged in no such sophistry. He said what he believed: A nation-state acted in pursuit of its own interests, its own reasons of state, and this was sanctified by results alone. In short, the ends justified the means.
States were not in Richelieu's view like individual human beings. While individuals might best be governed by moral or ethical codes in their interactions, states can only pursue self-interest for self-defined reasons. States unlike people could act properly only insofar as they defended and advanced their collective identity and the interests which arose organically from that. A nation-state, he concluded, could only survive by defending its identity and interests. Further, it could only prosper if it advanced its interests even at the expense of other nation-states.
This view, which was universally adopted in the wake of France's clear success, assured there would be conflicts armed and otherwise almost non-stop. As a consequence Europe experienced more wars per century than any other region of the world. As another result, Europe emerged as the preeminent region. The linkage between evolving political complexity, social organization, and technolological advancement with the recurrent limited warfare is clear.
While no historical analogy is exact, an analogy is suggestive. History does not repeat itself but it can have present day echoes of long past dynamics and events. So it is with today's political Islam, particularly the variant espousing a global caliphate encompassing the totality of the Muslim ummah.
The current political changes underway in North Africa and the Mideast in predominantly Muslim polities will assure the US and the West generally will have to deal with regimes predicated upon some form of political Islam. The chief anxiety abroad in the US and elsewhere is that the form of political Islam with which we will be dealing will consist exclusively of the most ambitious sort--the proponents of the global caliphate, the universal ummah. The European experience, the success of Richelieu against opponents as given to the idea of a faith based universal morality demanding a One True Faith dominated world, suggests that the anxiety might be overdrawn notwithstanding the seeming success of what has been termed "stealth jihad" in parts of Europe and the US.
It merits noting that despite the declarations and hopes within the Western elites that nationalism and the nation-state are bankrupt, dying institutions, they are alive and well throughout the world--including Muslim majority states. Turkey, Egypt, even Iran are strongly nationalistic in their views. Arguably, the mullahs in Tehran have been successful in keeping their regime in power by exploiting the nationalism of the Iranian population.
In Egypt, specifically the Egypt of Nasser, the concept of "Pan-Arabism" floundered on the reef of national identity and national interest. To other Arab states the Nasserist concept smacked of a stealth imperialism. To Egyptians, the problem was seen differently: Why Pan-Arabism rather than an Arab bloc marching to the music composed and played in Cairo? All of Nasser's attempts to create a "United Arab Republic" failed due to nationalism. Even when Islam was invoked, as it was albeit belatedly, the appeal to common faith like the appeal to a common tongue did not overcome national identity.
Turkey has a long history of using Islam to reinforce the Turkish national identity. Starting in the last days of the Ottoman Empire and extending down to the AKP of today, religion has been invoked as a buttress for the national identity. Along with language, religion has been employed consistently as a means of identifying and expressing Turkey in comparison to other nations and states. As Erdogan expressed recently in a speech to expat Turks in Germany, the rejection of assimilation is critical lest Turkish identity and national interests be weakened. Admittedly, the Turks have taken national identity to extremes as with the forced removal of Armenians early in the Twentieth Century, but the most important takeaway is not the mass deaths of those being removed but rather the reason--nationalism, national identity, and national interest.
As a result it is fair to conclude that the AKP will not surrender Turkish identity or national interest to the radical notion of a universal ummah or the pursuit of a global caliphate. Nor will the Turkish government put national interest at risk to promote "stealth jihad" or any other form of expansionist political Islam.
The various peoples of the world are today too aware of the reality of national identity. In this way they are far advanced over the Europeans of the early Seventeenth Century. They are also far ahead of the Europeans of the time of the Thirty Years War in having a long experience with the formality of the nation-state. This in and of itself lowers the appeal of the universal ummah and the hallucinatory global caliphate.
None of this implies that a regime based on political Islam will not use Islam law including the barbaric punishments, the degradation of women, and the suppression of free expression. All may well exist soon in Egypt or elsewhere. However the adoption of Islamic law in all its backward and barbaric features does not represent a threat to the West and other civilized states in and of itself. Beyond that, the nature of communications today insures that a highly restrictive and reactionary sort of Islamic code will be met with widespread resistance. The adoption of Shariah is a self-limiting proposition in any organized state--even as has been seen in Iran.
Universality based on religion is not new. Nor is it unique to Islam. History demonstrates that when the universal is met by the specific, the universal loses. People do not identify on a universal basis. They construct corporate identities on shared values, language, geographic propinquity, and, most importantly, a shared historically based mythology. This is what the canny Cardinal intuited in the early Seventeenth Century and supported his concept of the nation-state pursuing national interest at the expense of others. His ethic not only was alive and well back then, it lives and breathes today--throughout the Muslim world.
Then, in only a couple score of years the intellectual edifice of the Catholic sodality crumbled, fragmented. It was replaced by the concept of the nation-state pursuing amoral national interest for reasons of state. This constituted the single most critical and shocking change in European political and social understandings in all the years which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Most surprisingly, the revolution was the work of one man. More surprisingly the one man was not religious dissident Martin Luther, but a Prince of the Church, Cardinal Richelieu. Richelieu may have been a Catholic. He might have been a good Catholic in his beliefs, practices, and life. But, he was first and foremost a Frenchman. As a self-conscious man of France, the Cardinal acting in his capacity as First Minister of His Most Catholic Majesty, Louis XIII, rejected the notion of a universal empire of Catholics responsive to Pope and Emperor. He replaced that hoary bit of received conventional wisdom with the radical idea that a state acted with no moral basis other than what might be in the state's best interests.
In his thinking--and the actions which resulted--Richelieu was the precise opposite of the Holy Roman Emperor, the towering figure of the House of Hapsburg, Ferdinand II. There is an ancient and not necessarily relevant saying among European historians that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, was not Roman, and was not truly an empire. Ferdinand II would have rejected totally the contention that his empire was not just that--an Empire. He would have pushed back even harder against the characterization of his empire as not being holy.
Ferdinand II was a very good, highly committed son of the Church. He sincerely believed that foreign policy must be conducted according to the desires and needs of the Christian God. He also believed with all his heart that he even more than the Pope was capable of both ascertaining the will of God and acting in a consistent moral fashion to achieve the will. Finally, Ferdinand II accepted completely the idea that there was a single Christian, (Catholic) sodality. To Ferdinand the rantings of a Luther or a Calvin were the ravings not only of lunatics but the message of the devil. These heretics and all who supported or agreed with them must be extirpated.
Here it must be recalled that the Protestant Reformation came into existence for religious reasons, but survived because secular rulers in the multitude of petty German states saw protestantism as a tool for national identity and exaltation. The Reformation grew and spread because Cardinal Richelieu saw the same potential and exploited it with great effect on behalf of French identity and interests.
Which brings us to the most important, most decisive, and (until the mid-Twentieth Century) most bloody war in European history, the Thirty Years War. The Thirty Years War decided many things. At the top of the list the war by the time it was ended in 1648 was the permanent destruction of the Catholic Christian sodality--the Christian version of Islam's ummah--replacing it with the self-interested nation-state. The war lasted thirty years in largest measure because Cardinal Richelieu fearing the encirclement of France by the Hapsburg dominions convinced His Most Catholic Majesty King Louis XIII to underwrite the costs of the war being waged by Protestant rulers including Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Finally, seventeen years after Ferdinand II started his war of counter-reformation, France entered the war directly so as to consolidate its position and assure the defeat of the Holy Roman Empire.
That's right, a Prince of the Church and a king who styled himself His Most Catholic Majesty conspired to defeat the champion of Catholicism, Ferdinand II, and the Pope. While there were apologists for France and Richelieu who tortured logic and murdered reality to justify the actions of king and minister, Richelieu engaged in no such sophistry. He said what he believed: A nation-state acted in pursuit of its own interests, its own reasons of state, and this was sanctified by results alone. In short, the ends justified the means.
States were not in Richelieu's view like individual human beings. While individuals might best be governed by moral or ethical codes in their interactions, states can only pursue self-interest for self-defined reasons. States unlike people could act properly only insofar as they defended and advanced their collective identity and the interests which arose organically from that. A nation-state, he concluded, could only survive by defending its identity and interests. Further, it could only prosper if it advanced its interests even at the expense of other nation-states.
This view, which was universally adopted in the wake of France's clear success, assured there would be conflicts armed and otherwise almost non-stop. As a consequence Europe experienced more wars per century than any other region of the world. As another result, Europe emerged as the preeminent region. The linkage between evolving political complexity, social organization, and technolological advancement with the recurrent limited warfare is clear.
While no historical analogy is exact, an analogy is suggestive. History does not repeat itself but it can have present day echoes of long past dynamics and events. So it is with today's political Islam, particularly the variant espousing a global caliphate encompassing the totality of the Muslim ummah.
The current political changes underway in North Africa and the Mideast in predominantly Muslim polities will assure the US and the West generally will have to deal with regimes predicated upon some form of political Islam. The chief anxiety abroad in the US and elsewhere is that the form of political Islam with which we will be dealing will consist exclusively of the most ambitious sort--the proponents of the global caliphate, the universal ummah. The European experience, the success of Richelieu against opponents as given to the idea of a faith based universal morality demanding a One True Faith dominated world, suggests that the anxiety might be overdrawn notwithstanding the seeming success of what has been termed "stealth jihad" in parts of Europe and the US.
It merits noting that despite the declarations and hopes within the Western elites that nationalism and the nation-state are bankrupt, dying institutions, they are alive and well throughout the world--including Muslim majority states. Turkey, Egypt, even Iran are strongly nationalistic in their views. Arguably, the mullahs in Tehran have been successful in keeping their regime in power by exploiting the nationalism of the Iranian population.
In Egypt, specifically the Egypt of Nasser, the concept of "Pan-Arabism" floundered on the reef of national identity and national interest. To other Arab states the Nasserist concept smacked of a stealth imperialism. To Egyptians, the problem was seen differently: Why Pan-Arabism rather than an Arab bloc marching to the music composed and played in Cairo? All of Nasser's attempts to create a "United Arab Republic" failed due to nationalism. Even when Islam was invoked, as it was albeit belatedly, the appeal to common faith like the appeal to a common tongue did not overcome national identity.
Turkey has a long history of using Islam to reinforce the Turkish national identity. Starting in the last days of the Ottoman Empire and extending down to the AKP of today, religion has been invoked as a buttress for the national identity. Along with language, religion has been employed consistently as a means of identifying and expressing Turkey in comparison to other nations and states. As Erdogan expressed recently in a speech to expat Turks in Germany, the rejection of assimilation is critical lest Turkish identity and national interests be weakened. Admittedly, the Turks have taken national identity to extremes as with the forced removal of Armenians early in the Twentieth Century, but the most important takeaway is not the mass deaths of those being removed but rather the reason--nationalism, national identity, and national interest.
As a result it is fair to conclude that the AKP will not surrender Turkish identity or national interest to the radical notion of a universal ummah or the pursuit of a global caliphate. Nor will the Turkish government put national interest at risk to promote "stealth jihad" or any other form of expansionist political Islam.
The various peoples of the world are today too aware of the reality of national identity. In this way they are far advanced over the Europeans of the early Seventeenth Century. They are also far ahead of the Europeans of the time of the Thirty Years War in having a long experience with the formality of the nation-state. This in and of itself lowers the appeal of the universal ummah and the hallucinatory global caliphate.
None of this implies that a regime based on political Islam will not use Islam law including the barbaric punishments, the degradation of women, and the suppression of free expression. All may well exist soon in Egypt or elsewhere. However the adoption of Islamic law in all its backward and barbaric features does not represent a threat to the West and other civilized states in and of itself. Beyond that, the nature of communications today insures that a highly restrictive and reactionary sort of Islamic code will be met with widespread resistance. The adoption of Shariah is a self-limiting proposition in any organized state--even as has been seen in Iran.
Universality based on religion is not new. Nor is it unique to Islam. History demonstrates that when the universal is met by the specific, the universal loses. People do not identify on a universal basis. They construct corporate identities on shared values, language, geographic propinquity, and, most importantly, a shared historically based mythology. This is what the canny Cardinal intuited in the early Seventeenth Century and supported his concept of the nation-state pursuing national interest at the expense of others. His ethic not only was alive and well back then, it lives and breathes today--throughout the Muslim world.
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