Sigh…
I know that the blogosphere and msm are rife with arguments about how interventionist policies have actually caused this kind of instability, but I’m not sure how just going home and having nothing to do with this chaos does anything to address it either. The Powell notion of “you broke it you buy it,” isn’t quite what I’m getting at here, but atomizing ourselves into our separate nationa-states, especially when you’re privileged enough to live in as wealthy a nation-state as America (or others as the case may be) just seems too… self-serving.
As always, my mind is drawn to questions about how we might formulate policies that are more sensitive to the dynamics of regional stability and growth and cultivate an ability and willingness to work with with people in those regions to promote such phenomena. Can we formulate a strong foreign policy that has a clear moral component and that serves our national interests in a broad non-Randian more Nashian sense? Perhaps not immediately or easily, but the possiblity strikes me as worth struggling towards.
Regardless, my thoughts and prayers with the people of Pakistan.
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5 comments
“I know that the blogosphere and msm are rife with arguments about how interventionist policies have actually caused this kind of instability, but I’m not sure how just going home and having nothing to do with this chaos does anything to address it either.”
I really sympathize with this point, Scott. I pride myself on being an “isolationist,” and think that our collectively ignoring the Founding Fathers’ prescience on this, here south of the border, is one of the greatest flaws in our political culture. Very early in the stages of this prolonged Iraqi conflagration, I, though not fervidly, did support our efforts. I very quickly saw the error of my ways. However, as you note, just going home is somewhat disconcerting, especially, to me, because at least some of the blame lies with past intervention.
When I interviewed Ron Paul, he suggested that if we were to pull out of Iraq, then in time, just as in Vietnam, which by most counts seems to be doing pretty well, the people will repair their own nation. It’s a very nice anodyne, but, as much as I usually think RP is on the (hard) money, I fear that this attitude ignores the complexities present in Iraq and Pakistan (and Afghanistan) that didn’t pose a threat in Vietnam, to wit, the ethnic and/or sectarian divisions within these horribly artificial modern nation-state constructs.
I do often fear that many of my Old/Alternative/Paleo/whatever Right peers (and I, too,) all to often create a too-ideal dichotomy between good “isolationism” and bad Wilsonianism, and we deny the obligation that the nations whose past interventions have ignited flames and stirred up dormant prejudices and tensions. For those of us who really do want to see a more “isolationist” foreign policy, or even a “Nashian” foreign policy that may involve more intervention, having a very frank discussion about the issue you raise here, I think, is imperative. But perhaps not so likely; maybe because of insularity, and maybe because of prudence: Once we intervene in one place, even in a very smart, safe way, the potential and temptation for prolonged presence there, or for other smart, safe intervention elsewhere becomes vexingly strong.
Nathan: You interviewed Ron Paul? For the Terp, I assume?
In any event, this is a topic that truly vexes me, and Scott and I have exchanged our share of ideas on this since even before the League was formed.
Something that never really gets discussed in all of this is the way in which so many problems in Africa and South Asia have their roots in (mostly European) colonialism and especially in the very arbitrary line-drawing that resulted in. Those arbitrary lines have major implications, but our foreign policy has a tendency to treat them as if they weren’t arbitrary.
Mark: Yep, back in October, for what became the December issue of the paper. It’s here, in case you’re interested: http://nathancontramundi.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/the-ron-paul-interview/
“Those arbitrary lines have major implications, but our foreign policy has a tendency to treat them as if they weren’t arbitrary.”
Yep. How, though, do we address this issue? They’re arbitrary, and that matters, for sure, but when national sovereignty corresponds to these arbitrary boundaries, how do we act without serious breaches of these nations’ sovereignty (even if that seems not to be an impediment to most foreign intervention already)? I’m not sure that we can overtly encourage the collapse of capriciously constructed countries, nor that we should do so surreptitiously, even if the end result may be the “right” thing, so where does that leave us, other than to engage in micromanaging that probably should be left to the nations’ governments — and even the state/provincial governments therein?
Indeed, Nathan is quite right. Arbitrary at one point have become deadly serious over time.
I’m long overdue on a post discussing moral clarity in foreign policy, it should be written before too long. But my focus here has been military in nature and I think a larger discussion about interactivity vs. isolationism writ large would also be of use. There are strong points on both sides and they deserve to clash in a meaningful and dialectic way to see what might fall out.
Nathan:
That is the million dollar question I suppose. But it would be nice if our discussion on foreign policy at the very least recognized that the continuing result of those lines is a lot of countries that have multiple nations, and a lot of nations that are scattered throughout multiple countries. Those lines were drawn a long time ago, but the affected nations haven’t at any point decided to conform their boundaries to the official country boundaries. When Europe was still governing them, the arbitrary lines were I suspect less important, perhaps due to a common enemy sort of unity.
This issue of nations not conforming to official boundaries rather limits our ability to meaningfully improve things in any given intervention by increasing the likelihood of some pretty nasty unintended consequences. It doesn’t eliminate that ability, or at least I don’t think it does, but it certainly needs to be cause for a humility that is all-too-often missing from our foreign policy debates (on all sides, I might add).
I don’t know how to solve this problem – in fact the answer probably varies depending on the case. But if we intervene somewhere with the intent of installing a new government or just deposing an old one, it’s an issue that may have a tendency to make the cure worse than the disease.