Down With The Nation-State!

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.

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.

Squaring Circles

In the good old days when we lived in a nice, predictable bi-polar world, the Old Guys In The Kremlin were fond of the Marxist view that it was the "internal contradictions" endemic to capitalism which would assure its destruction in the fullness of time. These folks and their ideological soulmates throughout the world were also gratified by the "historical inevitability" of capitalism's collapse.

The twin pillars of "internal contradictions" and "historical inevitability" served heroically to bolster morale in the Soviet Union and attract followers, particularly in the newly independent states which proliferated during the Sixties. There is something quite appealing about the notion that the remote, impersonal force of a deity called "history" is on your side. This appeal is reinforced by being able to convince yourself that you need do nothing to win but could rely upon "internal contradictions" to bring about the defeat of the "capitalist, imperialist camp."

There are similar ideas drifting around today. On the other side of the hill, in the venues of the advocates of armed political Islam, there is a constant refrain to the effect that Islam is destined to win over the "infidels" of the West, the "apostate" regimes which govern in so many Muslim majority states, and, last but certainly not least, "the Zionist entity." There is and has been much spewing of quite overwrought rhetoric to the effect that should there be enough men who desire martyrdom, Allah will crown their expressions of faith with total victory over all of us in the "House of War."

This sort of thinking characterizes "theological inevitability," which is the Islamist's version of the Marxist dictum. If anything, the "theological inevitability" is more comforting, more motivating, more potent than was the Communist invocation of "history." Even leaving aside the proposition of seventy-two soulless virgins awaiting every incoming martyr, the idea of committing an action heartily approved by the deity has a power for True Believers which those of us who are not given to such unqualified zeal can scarcely comprehend.

OK, Geek, enough of these hosannas to fundamentalist Islam, you did write something about "internal contradictions," go somewhere with it.

Sure thing, bucko. Last time around it was the opposition which was convinced that we in the West (and particularly the US) were so riddled by the termites of contradictions that our basic economic, social, and political structures would inevitably collapse, hollowed from within. This time the internal contradictions exist as an Achilles' heel for the adherents of political Islam.

For the best part of five generations now, Islamic society, more particularly the Islamic polity, has been at odds with itself--and with basic features in the divinely given Koran. On more than a few occasions the being at odds has reached, and continues to reach, the level of a very deadly internecine war. At issue has been alternative understandings of the substance of the Koran, the Hadith (what the Prophet said,) the Sunnah (what the Prophet did and how he lived,) as well as both classic and contemporary Islamic jurisprudence. Also in play have been differing interpretations of how best to meld Islam with the realities of the contemporary world.

All of these issues bedeviled Christianity. Wars were fought. Martyrs were made in wholesale lots. It took centuries but most of the issues were settled, at least to the degree necessary to assure a high measure of social and political cohesiveness. Arguably, the only reason Judaism was spared a similar set of bloodletting fissions was the consolidation forced upon the religion by prejudice and persecution.

Islam is a late comer to the "internal contradiction" game. The heavy hand of convention, of tradition, suppressed the emergence of contradictions. The expansionist nature of Islam whether by the sword or by the slow infiltration and persuasion of the tarikas (brotherhoods) did the same. There was always the safety valve of expansion to offset the pressures of contradictions.

In recent generations, and, in particular, the years following World War II which saw the number of independent Muslim majority states go from four to almost sixty, have been the years during which the internal contradictions of Islam have become more deeply divisive and high profile. It is impossible for anyone, Muslim or not, to overlook the passionately held and massively differing views regarding what Islam is all about and how it relates positively to the realities of contemporary life.

Time to consider some of these. The roster intentionally omits the deep differences of belief and practice which pit Sunni against Shia or which relegate to the margins "minor" faith communities within Islam--which group now includes the large and in time past influential Sufis.

The most basic internal contradiction is that of the proclaimed universality of the Muslim umma (the community of believers) and national identity. In principle, loyalty of the Muslim to Muslim sort takes precedence over loyalty to any given nation, tribe, or leader. In practice, the tension has normally been resolved in favor of the latter. Leader, nation, tribe all nudge religion to the side should push come to shove--which is inevitable.

Mohammad came to receive his revelations in the context of a society deeply riven by tribal loyalties. In order to survive, Islam had to deprecate loyalty to the local. The Prophet and his successors had no option other than to exalt the religious identity over all others.

To this end not only was the concept of the Brotherhood of all Muslims central to the belief system but other aspects by which people differentiated themselves were downplayed. An example is the primacy of Arabic over other languages. Another is the insistence down to the present that the concept of the nation-state, like that of borders separating nation-states, is an invention of the Western infidels.

In practice, both national and tribal identities have prevailed. So also have local languages in all usages beyond the sacred, the theological. Even the practice of the haj, which makes the global nature of Islamic congregations most manifest, has not served to erode national, local, or tribal identities for most Muslims. This unpleasant truth has been recognized and deplored repeatedly by leaders of political Islam oriented groups both non-violent and violent.

Another contradiction which arises from the basics of Islam is that between ijtihad (independent judgement) and ijma (consensus.) This contradiction is complicated and thus worsened by the tension over when independent judgement can be made properly and disagreement over who achieves consensus--the ulema (clergy) or the society of laymen. This set of interlocking and reinforcing contradictions comes into sharpest focus over interpreting the requirements of the Koran as well as past jurisprudence.

This matter of who can interpret and to what degree interpretation is allowable has been the frontline of conflict between reformers and traditionalists, between Muslims who embrace violent political Islam and those who nail their flag to the mast of peaceful coexistence. An important symbol of this internal contradiction exists in the use of the word, jihad--does it mean the internal struggle for self-improvement in the faith or is it a reference to armed combat with the "infidels" and "apostates?"

Yet another very important internal contradiction exists in the matter of inherited monarchies. Historically Islam frowns upon inherited rule. Despite this, inherited monarchies have existed and continue to exist today as in Saudi Arabia. To a pure Muslim (which includes most if not all of today's exponents of violent political Islam), it is apostasy pure and simple that the Keeper of the Two Mosques is a king by inheritance. Kingship per se is of no importance, but kingship by virtue of birth is both important and a reason for violence.

Given the importance of Saudi Arabia and the other oil powered sheikdoms, this internal contradiction looms large in the considerations of Western decision makers. And, given the totality of Islamic jurisprudence, it is a circle which cannot be squared. The House of Saud is non-Islamic and even the bargain made between the House and the Wahhabi clergy of the Peninsula cannot change this reality and assure stability.

Then there is the matter of who has the power in an Islamic polity. Since all sovereignty rests ultimately with Allah, what is at stake here is the matter of who rules as a legitimate interpreter of the perceived will of Allah. Islam has no particular preference for any specific form of government, but it does require that the ruler be "just" as such is understood in the context of the Koran, other sacred writings, and the weight of Islamic jurisprudence. The people have the right to displace an "unjust" ruler, even violently. That, of course, leaves the question of who determines when a ruler is "unjust."

Not surprisingly, the clergy, the ulema, is of the view that only men well versed in theology and jurisprudence can do the job. This is disputed by assorted laymen who argue that determining how the will of the people mesh with the "will of Allah" is a task best suited for leaders who have the confidence of the people. In this conflict between the sacred and the profane, the victory has generally gone to the profane as has been the case repeatedly in Egypt. On the other hand, when the "sacred" win as was the case in Iran, the result can be frightfully discomfiting.

The last internal contradiction to consider (for now) is that between the implied fatalism of Islam, the "if Allah wills" sort of resignation and the demands not only of science but of life generally. Bluntly put, science is incompatible with Islam. As long as one must grant that Allah is personally responsible for the movement of each and every atom, as long as one must grant we live in a universe subject to supernatural caprice, there can be no science. There can be only the cloning, the exploitation of scientific and technological discoveries and innovations made by others.

The implications of the "will of Allah" approach to life go far beyond science. It serves to reduce humans to the status of objects, removing their capacity to be effective actors in their own drama. One result has been the conflict between reformers (and Westernizers) on the one hand and the traditionalists (once again including the majority of armed political Islamists) on the other.

Reformers and "Westernizers" have pointed to the emphasis on the power invested in the individual in both Europe and the US as the root reason these areas have not only bested the Muslim world but have dominated the globe for centuries. Their opponents whether ayatollahs in Iran, terrorists in the caves of the FATA, or the "stealth jihadists" of Muslim Brotherhood offshoots respond with claiming that emulation of any Western norms would insure that Islam ceased to be Islam.

Any of these internal contradictions can prove fatal to the "theological inevitability." Taken together they assure the advocates of violent political Islam can spill a lot of blood, most of it more innocent than not but not have any realistic chance of imposing their agenda on the rest of the world.

Therein rests the ultimate sorrow and tragedy of the war on the modern world the Islamists have started. No matter how many "martyrs" bomb their way into Paradise, no matter how many unfortunates they kill or maim, the result will be the same. They lose. They lose not simply because the rest of the world stands against them but because Islam, unlike capitalism, is termite riddled with contradictions which cannot be resolved without changing Islam beyond recognition.

ADMIN NOTE: The Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on topic comments but has been forced to take frustrating precautions against the spam comment attacks he has received.

A Force Powerful And Terrible

The most powerful force abroad in the world today is not that of atoms splitting. Nor is the result of atoms joining. It has nothing to do with matters nuclear. Rather it comes solely from human nature, the fears of humans, their deep-in-the-back-of-the-brain need for membership in the herd.

The name of the force is nationalism. Its power is great; well neigh unbeatable. Its effects can be magnificent. Or terrible.

Years ago the outstanding American diplomat and historian, George Kennan, warned that the hypergolic spread of nationalism during the great wave of decolonization was producing any number of pseudo-states ill equipped in all respects for effective use of their new, unlimited sovereignty. How right he was. And is.

The collapse of empires is always messy. Whether far back in the deepest mist of antiquity, as with the empire of Rome, or closer in time, yet still distant enough to provide a full view of the consequences as with the ending of the Ottoman Empire or that of the Dual Monarchy, the results were both tumultuous and long lived. Indeed, the world is still dealing with the echo effects of the fall of the Ottomans ninety years ago.

It is small wonder that the implosion of the British, French, Portuguese, and, most recently, the Soviet Russian empires have spread so much bloody chaos in their wake. Beyond the immediate chaos, the prompt bloodshed, the result has been the creation of states without a nation at their core or nations transformed into states not by organic forces but by the legerdemain performed by desperate politicians seeking to quickly end unpleasant sorts of status quo.

To put it bluntly and in terms with which Mr Kennan would not disagree: Most of the nearly two hundred states currently represented in the UN are not equipped to exercise sovereignty responsibly. They are not equipped by experience, by social cohesion, by political stability, by economic security, by inherent tradition to act in ways which promote a stable global political order, or to join in collective efforts to creatively address regional or global problems. The nature of the problems--economic, environmental, human rights, security, stability--does not matter, there are simply too many pseudo-states cluttering the global landscape to do other than impede the securing of mutually beneficial solutions to problems great and small.

Further complicating the establishment and maintenance of a global political system competent to address effectively the great and growing problems confronting all of us with a belly button is the phenomenon of regression which has afflicted many once flourishing and effective states. The rise to power--by election or by violence--of governments driven by ideological True Belief has forced once competent international actors to regress to pseudo-states.

While never described as "failed" or "failing" states, countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia have become international juvenile delinquents. If these were individuals rather than "states," their conduct would brand them as people in need of care, custody, and supervision.

Other countries, Pakistan comes to mind, have behaved and continue to behave in ways which are not conducive to regional stability. On occasion at least, Pakistan has been characterized as a "failed" or "failing" state. This designation is not fair. Nor is it accurate.

Like many other nations transformed overnight into "states," Pakistan was and is long, very long in basic national identifiers, most importantly the Islamic religion. It has been and is short, very short on the structures and attitudes which provide for effective international conduct as a sovereign state.

The nationalism which forced the splitting of the British Raj into the sovereign states of Pakistan and India had immediate and profound effects which impaired the capacity of both to function as effective and responsible actors in international affairs. The bloody border between the two which was not made any less bloody by the several wars between them had the effect of stunting the growth of both, but particularly Pakistan, as states ready and able to play constructive roles in international politics.

Events of the past several years indicate India has gone a long way to overcoming the extremes of nationalism which colored its earlier existence. Its actions on the international scene show India to be both a cunning and able pursuer of national interest and an effective, responsible international actor.

The same cannot be said of Pakistan. However, Pakistan is not alone in the category of being a nation in search of statedom. There are many, many others. There are, for example, the tribal, semi-feudal, Islam hagridden oil "states" of the Persian Gulf. There are as well any number of African countries which are so tribal as to not be nations let alone states.

The colonization of Africa by assorted European Powers aborted any indigenous process of forming nations and from them states. The natural propensity of people to assume the status quo would never change went a very long way to assuring that the African properties would be denied the chance to form the national identity and institutions which are the sine qua non of statehood. That historical reality can neither be denied nor speedily rectified.

This admission of reality does not give license for the preposterous notion that tribal assemblages kitted out as "states" should have a sovereign equality with the genuine article as is the current case in all international fora including but not limited to the UN. The UN and all similar entities were founded on a pair of unsupportable notions.

The very well meaning representatives of genuine nation-states who came together in San Francisco at the end of WW II confounded the idea "nation" with that of "state." That notion, specious as it was, paled into insignificance with the second wrong idea: Groups of tribes surrounded by discrete lines on a map, constituted self-conscious "nations" bound together by common language, culture, history, and defining mythology.

A similar distortion of reality came with the assumption that feudal societies founded on religious identity and ruled by autocrats more or less hereditary in nature were also competent nation-states capable and willing to act on a basis of equality with the complexly organized states of Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The specious nature of this tender-hearted assumption has been demonstrated amply by the conduct of the Arab sheikdoms over the past sixty plus years with regard to Israel and the Palestinians.

The only justification--and it is a powerful one--is the recognition back in the glory days of the UN's founding of the potency and prevalence of nationalism. Nationalism was and remains a force, the force which is not to be denied.

The truth of that contention as well as the inevitable centripetal effects of nationalism rises to high visibility in much of the world today. Russia is seeking--so far without demonstrable success--to reconquer ethnic and religious groups on its margins. Religiously reinforced tribal antipathies threaten more than one African country. The same dynamic works is bloody way in China and a few other Asian mainland states. And, the emergence to power of Los Indios or the quest for such has ripped across the South American landscape.

Offshoots or products of nationalism have popped up across both Europe and the US. The use of derogatory terms--xenophobia, nativism, Islamophobia--conceal but do not alter the reality that nationalism is not a force confined to distant, lesser developed or politically challenged countries.

Humans evolved as herd animals. That is a cliche of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. There was--and is--safety in the midst of the herd. It is the outriders and outliers who run the risk of losing in the race for survival.

And, what is the "herd?"

Simple, bucko, the preferred herd is a group of people who are closest to us and most like us. It is not simply the group closest to us in geography. It is also those who are most alike in color and shape, most alike in beliefs and values, most alike in the back of the brain: the shared mythology which is the potent but typically uncredited source of collective identity.

Mere geographic propinquity is reinforced by the epoxy of language, the glue of religion, the cement of a shared sense of having been victimized, exploited, marginalized, denied a full sense and reality of losing control of one's personhood to the will of an external "Other." The necessary result is the demand to gain full, unfettered control of a given territory and the people who live there. Usually this demand is accompanied by a shrill cry that all who are not-like-us leave our territory instantly if not sooner.

So comes "ethnic cleansing" in all its manifold expressions.

It is, of course, far easier to diagnose and describe nationalism and its consequences than it is to creatively and effectively deal with them--particularly the consequences. However, unless the reality of nationalism and the universality of the phenomenon are acknowledged, there is no possibility of coming to grips with the ills that come in its wake.

Many within the American hoi oligoi sincerely believe that we live in a post-national world, that the world is or should be seen not as a hodgepodge of entities but a single globe holding a single race. They hold an authentic and strong belief in multi-culturalism, cultural relativism, and the legitimacy as well as the necessity of international institutions.

The unpleasant ground truth is that these folk live alone in the post-national environment. The rest of the people, the assorted non-elites of the world live elsewhere. They live in a world where nationalism is the ultimate force.

And, that, bucko, is the other truth on which we must all get a grip. Only then can we have any hope of getting out of the mess created by our well-intended, well-meaning but out-to-lunch progenitors in San Francisco and so many other places.

One More Search For An Easy Out

There is little doubt that the results of last weekend's North American summit was a disappointment for advocates of immigration "reform" in the US. Bowing to the winds of political realism, President Obama admitted that there would be no effort in the direction of establishing a "pathway to citizenship" this year, campaign promises to the contrary notwithstanding.

While it may be a refreshing novelty to see the ambitious and energetic Nice Young Man From Chicago acknowledge that his Agenda of Transformation might have been a tad overreaching in its breadth, this is no way has changed the view of governments from Mexico City on to the south. In the Central American region, there are few (if any) matters of greater importance than the Great Gringo of the North opening its borders.

It might be argued that there are other, far more pressing issues than what the CentAm politicos and opinion molders call "migration," such as rampant crime, increasing poverty, and severe fraying of the social compact. However, a review of the region's media quickly shows the facility with which each and every one of these is linked to the unwillingness of the US to open its borders to all comers.

Mexican governmental officials in common with their colleagues in most Central American countries agree that the economic and social problems currently faced are monumental. But, almost without exception, the next sentence pushes responsibility onto the US for its "failure" to "reform" its "migration" laws and policies.

There is no arguing against the contention that immigration both legal and illegal has been and is critical to the social and economic stability of Mexico and other countries in the region. Not only does the aggregate of remittances from "migrants" provide highly significant revenues, the border serves as a social and political safety valve of great value to regime stability.

With the decrease in the number of "migrants" as well as the total value of repatriated remittances, the money available in the lands south of the border has decreased. At the same time the direct and indirect costs of higher unemployment and its attendant factors have increased. From public assistance to the internal drug war, the expenses have gone fast boost right on through the stratosphere.

By focusing on the Great Gringo Conspiracy To Fence US Out, the Mexican government and its elite supporters have sought to avoid responsibility for the well-being of all Mexicans. While the same may be said of other regional countries, Mexico is the local seven hundred pound gorilla as well as being the number one source of both "migrants" and complaints about American policies on "migrants."

So, it deserves the pride of place.

Mexico has large economic problems. No one would dispute this. It is also a country of vast resources, an energetic and able population, and tolerably well developed essentials such as education and public health. Again, few, if any would dispute this.

The answer to Mexico's economic difficulties does not reside in outsourcing Mexican workers to the Land of the Gringos. It rests with the development of Mexico's indigenous resources, both material and human. This, of course, costs money. A lot of money.

Mexico has a lot of exploitable minerals. It also has a whole lot of oil. Additionally, the country has very large and unexploited agricultural potential. It deserves mentioning that the minerals and oil as well as much of the agriculture was initially developed (some would say mercilessly exploited) by foreign, particularly American, money and interests.

That reality constitutes one of the two dinosaurs at the dinner table that the highly nationalistic Mexicans do not want to admit. (The other is the Mexican responsibility for the Mexican-American War in the mid-1840's. More of that in a few minutes.)

Porfirio Diaz was an autocrat. A dictator who overstayed his welcome by quite a few years. A century and more ago, after having left seminary to join the war against the US, Diaz went into politics. He became president. A sort of an early form of president-for-life. As such he oriented himself to the economic development of Mexico. In the process he sold most of the country to foreigners, particularly Americans.

During his thirty-one years in office, foreigners, specifically the gringos, came to own the vast majority of the aggregate wealth of Mexico. Concentrating at first in agriculture including ranching, the outsiders shifted to the extraction industries, including the first development of Mexico's oilfields and then transportation and industry. While the foreigners, led by Americans, did exploit Mexican labor, they did not do so to an extent significantly greater than did the Mexican elite.

Along with abusing labor, the outsiders did create the infrastructure which supported Mexico--or at least those dining at the head of the table--for generations following the overthrow of Diaz and the decades of internal war which ensued. The impoverishment of Mexicans would have been orders of magnitude worse in the wake of the bloody and highly destructive internal wars had it not been for the fruits of the (nationalized post-Diaz) industrial, extraction, and agricultural infrastructure created by the Americans and others.

Even in the diminished form, these existed after stability was restored in the late 1920s. The artifacts of the gringo "robber barons" provided a sound basis for the continued development of Mexico during the years of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Not all Mexicans benefited from the structures left behind by the expropriated foreign investments. Not by a long way.

The government, dominated by PRI for more than three quarters of a century, benefited. So did those members of the elite which supported the continuation of the one party state. The mutual back scratching of PRI and the elite assured that prosperity would be ever more mal-distributed, and that proper investment in infrastructure and human resources would be neglected.

The consequences of this inequitable distribution of wealth and lack of investment in both infrastructure and human resource development were delayed through the 1950s, '60s, and '70s by the availability of Gringoland. Under assorted "guest worker" programs as well as illegal immigration, surplus workers were siphoned off to the north and the wages, at least in part, went south.

This approach was assisted by the growth of the co-production facilities established in ever growing numbers along the border. Mexicans got good jobs at rates of pay greater than deeper in the interior of the country and American (as well as other foreign owned) companies got a decreased cost of production. NAFTA was supposed to build upon and greatly expand this avenue of economic development.

This road paved with good intentions ran into the cross-traffic of globalization. One important result of the opening of China under President Clinton was the introduction of lower cost competition to Mexico. Not even the transportation costs offset the advantages of producing goods in China or elsewhere in Asia with the result that NAFTA never has reached its full potential for Mexican development.

A major answer to the economic problems which have become increasingly acute in Mexico over the past decade is found in the oilfields, particularly the offshore fields. The proper development of these will require money far beyond the capacity of the Mexican state-owned oil company to generate. It also demands expertise which is lacked by Pemex. To put it bluntly, the proper development of the nascent oil resources under the Gulf of Mexico as well as the repair and upgrading of the old fields requires outside investment and expertise.

Privately, few, if any, Mexicans would disagree that the best, fastest, overall economic development would result from opening the new fields as well as the old to co-production schemes involving US companies. Publicly, the embracing of this position would be political suicide.

Nationalism!

Mexico is so exuberantly, so joyously nationalistic, one would be forgiven in thinking it had been independent for only a handful of years rather than the two centuries which is the case. In its adamant, almost irredentist nationalism, Mexico more closely resembles a polity in the freshness of infancy than one which has attained a respectable maturity.

In its genuine infancy, Mexico made a few critical mistakes. First, it invited Americans to settle in the province of Tejas. Second, the Mexican commander sent to squash the rebellious Texicans was better at politics than at fighting a real, shooting war. Third, the revanchist minded Mexicans sought (successfully) a war with the US.

The Mexicans had a good war plan for fighting the gringos. They were so proud of it that it was even published in the newspapers of the day. They were also proud of their army, which Mexicans assured one another would speedily defeat the Americans and reclaim Texas and the honor lost at San Jacinto. The French and British governments both concurred with the Mexicans in this belief.

All were wrong.

The US actually let the Mexicans off easily with the peace treaty, given the military and political realities. Uncle Sam kept Texas, took California (which the Polk administration wanted very much as Polk saw the US as a Pacific Ocean power) and the land lines of communication between Texas and California, which meant what is now New Mexico and Arizona. The "large Mexico" faction prevailed in Congress for two reasons: no slave-friendly terrain was included outside of Texas and the US population was going through a peak of anti-Catholic sentiment.

Far from having been the victim of Yankee aggression as Mexicans have liked to think for the past century and a half, the war was sought, provoked, and entered into with glee by the Mexican government and elite. The truth hurts nationalistic egos, but there it is.

Not that many years later it was the US which reclaimed Mexico for the Mexicans when Napoleon III tried to establish a French "protectorate" over the country. Preoccupied by the War Between the States there was nothing the US could do at first. But, when the US reminded Paris that Sherman's Army of the West was now unemployed following the Confederate surrender, the overreaching French withdrew the Foreign Legion supporting Emperor Maximilian and that was that.

Of course, this American action receives little if any credit in Mexico. In the same vein the Mexicans give no public credit to the Yankees who laid the foundations of much of the nation's prosperity. Of such is nationalism comprised.

Now, rather than get a grip on the realities of life and invite foreign firms to assist directly in the development of the oilfields and other extractive industries so as to provide both jobs now and tax revenue necessary for development generally, the Mexicans look for the usual villain--the US. Rather than let go of the badly frayed comfort blanket of hyper-nationalism and actually do something constructive about the fundamental economic and social problems, the Mexican government and elite would much, much rather heave epithets and accusations at Washington.

It is far easier and much cheaper to demand "migration" reform in the presumed needs of Mexican social and economic stability than it is to drop the myth of a history which never was and spend money which the ricos would much prefer to spend on their own perceived needs and desires. It is simpler, if ultimately self-defeating, to whine about American unwillingness to accept every Mexican who makes it across the border than to take real, effective action to solve the problems at home.

Mexico is two hundred years of age. Almost as old as the US. It is long past time that the Mexican government act its age. Quit whining, stop your bitching about the border. Get on with the job of providing a decent present and future for your citizens. Even if it means having to accept foreign investment and investors for the first time in generations.