More antidote to Mearsheimer and Walt – Kenneth Pollack’s recent editorial “A Last Chance to Stop Iraq”. Pollack demonstrates once again that Saddam has consistently surprised the world with how far along his weapons programs are, and that he is not deterrable. As Pollack puts it, Saddam may not be suicidal, but has on several occasions been “inadvertently suicidal”. Time to take him up on it once and for all.
Chicago Boyz Archive
The Consistency of General Powell
Most of America seems to be walking around only vaguely aware that their country is about to embark on a medium-sized but quite consequential war. The remainder, especially those who troll blogspace, scramble for each new crumb of news. And there is nothing wrong with that. But sometimes some eye-opening material resides in less current sources.
I just finished revisiting my copy of My American Journey, by Colin Powell. I found the following passages to be very timely. Please pardon a lengthy quote.
[W]hy didn’t we push on to Baghdad once we had Saddam on the run? Why didn’t we finish him off? Or, to put it another way, why didn’t we move the goalposts? What tends to be forgotten is that while the United States led the way, we were heading an international coalition carrying out a clearly defined U.N. mission. That mission was accomplished. The President … had promised the American people that Desert Storm would not become a Persian Gulf Vietnam, and he kept his promise.
Id. at 525.
From the geopolitical standpoint, the coalition, particularly the Arab states, never wanted Iraq invaded and dismembered. Before the fighting, I received a copy of a cable sent by Charles Freeman, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “For a range of reasons,” Freeman said, “we cannot pursue Iraq’s unconditional surrender and occupation by us. It is not in our interest to destroy Iraq or weaken it to the point that Iran and/or Syria are not constrained by it.” Wise words, Mr. Ambassador. It would not contribute to the stability we want in the Middle East to have Iraq fragmented into separate Sunni, Shia, and Kurd political entities. The only way to have avoided this outcome was to have undertaken a largely U.S. conquest and occupation of a remote nation of twenty million people. I don’t think that is what the American people signed up for.
Of course, we would have loved to see Saddam overthrown by his own people for the death and destruction he had brought down on them. But that did not happen. And the President’s demonizing of Saddam as the devil incarnate did not help the public understand why he was allowed to stay in power. It is naïve, however, to think that if Saddam had fallen, he would necessarily have been replaced by a Jeffersonian in some sort of desert democracy where people read the The Federalist Papers along with the Koran. Quite possibly we would have wound up with a Saddam by another name.
Id. at 526.
Much of what Powell has done in the last several months can be seen as an attempt to replicate the situation he faced in 1991. First, the desire to have a limited, defined, U.N.-mandated mission. Second, the desire to have a broad coalition, for the very purpose of limiting the possible scope of American aims and ambitions with regard to Iraq in the event of a war. Powell wants limited “goalposts” set so the United States does not get into something too big or too risky. Third, the focus on the “stability” concerns of the region’s Arab governments, particularly Saudi Arabia. Fourth, the dread of having to occupy and impose a government on Iraq. Note the rhetorical gimmick Powell employs here, the false dichotomy between Saddam and a Jeffersonian democracy. There were and are certainly better alternatives to Saddam’s regime short of some fantasy scenario. Note also the remarkable statement that Saddam “was allowed to stay in power”.
Worrisome recent articles indicate that the current State Department plan is to minimize the effect of any United States occupation of Iraq, to placate the Saudis. Kanan Makiya’s article is entitled “Our hopes betrayed”. Makiya asserts that the leaked State Department documents indicate that “The plan, as dictated to the Iraqi opposition in Ankara last week by a United States-led delegation, further envisages the appointment by the US of an unknown number of Iraqi quislings palatable to the Arab countries of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia as a council of advisers to this military government. ” In other words, we are planning to leave much of the Baath party apparatus, the guys who run the torture chambers, in place in a post-conquest Iraq for the purpose of appeasing the Sunni leadership of the Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia. To quote General Powell, “I don’t think that is what the American people signed up for.” How deeply General Powell has been involved in this planning, or even how true these rumors are, cannot at yet be known. But, let’s assume arguendo that these rumors are basically true.
Why are we doing this? Why does the State Department want to preserve “stability” at the expense of any hope for freedom or progress for this “remote nation of twenty million people” we are about to liberate at the price of American and British blood? First, I suppose, bureaucratic inertia. The State Department is terrified of any change in the region because its institutional interest lies in preserving the personnel and regimes it has invested in and cultivated. The State Department’s franchise is access, knowing whom to call. If a brand new regime comes along, all that goes in the waste basket. The last thing these guys want is the House of Saud swept into the trash can. Furthermore, more controversially, the State Department has been corrupted by Saudi bribe money. Daniel Pipes has been writing about this, very plausibly. ( This will be full text when the Spring Issue is published.)
On the same point, this article is also disturbing. It notes that:
The Pentagon and the vice-president Dick Cheney are broadly in favour of introducing Western-style democracy to Iraq but the State Department under Colin Powell and the CIA believe it could have a destabilising influence on the region.
Iraq’s neighbours, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are also vehemently opposed to any federal arrangement that gives power to Iraq’s Kurds or Shiites.
As General Powell noted in his memoir, after the U.S. and Iraq had ceased fighting:
For a moment, it looked as if the war might flare up again. In March, the Iraqi Shiites in the south rose up in arms to demand more recognition from Baghdad. Saddam responded by sending in his troops to suppress the uprising. In the north, the Kurds tried to shake off the Iraqi yoke. Neither revolt had a chance. Nor, frankly, was their success a goal of our policy. President Bush’s rhetoric urging the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam, however may have given encouragement to the rebels. But our practical intention was to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile toward the United States.
American Journey at 530-31 (emphasis added).
Same thing, different decade. The freedom of any of the people of Iraq “frankly, was not a goal of our policy” in 1991. Nor, apparently, for some in the Bush administration, is it a goal now. For those who value stability above all else, it is necessary to prevent the majority Shiites or the Kurds from having any autonomy, even within a unitary Iraq, since we must placate the Turks and Saudis. To keep these communities in a unitary Iraq and subject to a Sunni minority, our State Department apparently believes that it must maintain or create an authoritarian state in Iraq to enforce discipline. In other words, the United States, to satisfy the State Department and certain of our so-called allies in the region, must be complicit in the creation of a new despotism. In General Powell’s words, “a Saddam by another name”.
Fortunately, we have another ally, not in the region, who is a real ally — Britain or, at least, its Prime Minister, Mr. Blair. Mr. Blair’s recent, brilliant speech convinced, grudgingly, various center-left acquaintances of mine (including, incredibly, my wife!) that the war is just and necessary. The main focus of Blair’s case, made to a Labor Party audience, was the necessity of ending Saddam’s tyranny and bringing a better life to the Iraqi people. I am sure that Blair is sincere. But that aside, what he has done is reached out to a very significant center-left/liberal constituency which can be swayed by Wilsonian/Gladstonian appeals. This is the same liberal-hawk community which supported the wars against Serbia. They did so because they believe in fighting against tyranny and spreading liberal values, even at gunpoint. (Of course, President Bush made similar arguments, with evident sincerity, in his State of the Union Address. However, Mr. Blair, as a man of the Left has credibility with this constituency which Bush does not and cannot have.) If Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are serious about the moral dimension of this cause, the liberal internationalist, nation-building dimension, and I think they are, they had better act soon to thwart the short-sighted purported “realism” of the United States State Department.
I have left a question hanging which is implicit in much of the foregoing: Is Powell a villain?
I have to say he is not. The most important thing to understand about Powell is that his whole career has been shaped by Vietnam. The Gulf War was, in this analysis, consciously shaped by him to be the exact opposite of Vietnam. It was a coalition effort, with limited aims, which was executed swiftly, with few lives lost, with no nation building involved, with no long occupation or long-term foreign placement of United States troops, and wound up and ended quickly and successfully, allowing us to “declare victory and come home.” Powell is also a “realist” with a pessimistic and tragic cast of mind. The world is full of dangers, and things could always be much, much worse. Tinkering with something stable and reliable, like the Saudi regime, even if it is not what we’d like it to be, is foolhardy . Hard decisions have to be made, and utopian fantasies have no place. Preserving Iraq is a way of protecting the Gulf oil from the Iranians, for example. It is a choice made from a small set of alternatives, all bad. Most of all, he is a soldier, for whom sending people out to war, to risk life and limb in the service of do-goodery is a prescription for lots of dead soldiers, limitless commitments, and frustrated hopes — Vietnam all over again. Powell is a conservative in this strict and narrow sense.
I find Powell’s viewpoint appealing. I am close to it myself. We live in a fallen world scarred by original sin. Most good intentions lead to Hell, or its suburbs. Big, open ended political projects, especially those requiring the use of force, are almost always doomed.
Nonetheless, there are moments when the existing template won’t do. When major steps need to be taken because the world we know, or parts of it, are disintegrating. We can try to prevent the disintegration, or channel it and begin building a more stable, successor structure. The Middle Eastern order arose from the collapse of Ottoman power at the end of World War I. It has always been a ramshackle affair. (See David Fromkin’s brilliant book A Peace to End All Peace.) The apparent stability of the existing regimes in the region rests on their ongoing repression and little more. We can try to hold that lid on the pot forever, or begin pushing the region toward a more long-term stable form of governance, more liberal and democratic, more free. Is this risky? Yes. Is remaining the ally and supporter of the tyrannies of the region, in perpetuity, risky? Yes, very much so, more so. In fact, the ongoing tyranny in the Arab world, supported by the United States in the name of “stability”, more than anything else was the source of the September 11 attacks. (See the brilliant article by Michael Doran, “Somebody Else’s Civil War”. Also, as an antidote to the notion that the Palestinian problem is the root cause of the animus against the United States in the region, see this essay, “Palestine, Iraq, and American Strategy” also by Michael Scott Doran). The truest realism for the current situation is a substantial commitment to changing the region in a positive way, while we can still influence events. In other words, we need to stop fearing instability as if it were the ultimate evil. (See the excellent article by Ralph Peters, “Stability, America’s Enemy”.) In any case, instability is not something we can stop. The region is unstable, and is going to change radically, because the existing structure is rotten and doomed.
These moments of major change occur infrequently, but they occur. The American founding was one such moment. The American Civil War and Reconstruction was another. The European occupation of the Mideast after World War I was another. The rise of Hitler and the rearmament of Germany, and the foreign response to it, was another. The British withdrawal from India and the partition was another. The early Cold War and the Marshall Plan and the creation of NATO was another such pivotal moment. Some of the moments were handled well, others badly, some worked out favorably, others disastrously. Sometimes it wasn’t clear at the time, at least at first, that anything major was going on. It took wise and far-seeing leaders to discern that major events were in the offing, requiring novel thinking. At such times “business as usual” is anything but the prudent course.
September 11 signaled clearly and unmistakably that the existing order in the Muslim world is not only not working but is a major and growing threat to the United States. A major change in how business is done is going to happen in the Muslim world. We can help to channel and direct it, or we can cling to the past and be dragged along. Reimposing tyranny on Iraq in the interests of a phantom “stability” and to placate regimes which are part of the problem would be a step in the wrong direction. We will need to take the risk that our values and institutions have application elsewhere, that they do indeed reflect universal aspirations, as the Declaration of Independence claimed. In fact, spreading these values is now an explicit policy goal, according to the National Security Strategy of the United States, which says “In pursuit of our goals, our first imperative is to clarify what we stand for: the United States must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them.” It goes on to say that “America must stand firmly for the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of worship; equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic tolerance; and respect for private property.” Which is all pretty universalist.
So, to conclude, General Powell is not a villain. He is a smart and serious man, a well-intentioned public servant, a man who hates to use force but is willing to do so if necessary, a cautious man who has had to look parents of dead soldiers in the eye. But, if he supports these plans to maintain an authoritarian regime in Iraq, he is failing to see the meaning of the moment in which he has been called to great office, and he is deeply mistaken about what is good for America, for the people of Iraq, and the world.
Evil Secrets
On this business about France and German opposition to the United States attacking Iraq, Mr. den Beste was right and I was wrong. His basic argument was that the French and the Germans must have something to hide, and that was why they were so strongly opposing the upcoming U.S./U.K. conquest and occupation of Iraq. I argued that domestic political factors were sufficient to explain their behavior.
Recent developments, in particular the leaked “peace plan”, have shown I was mistaken.
Den Beste has excellent coverage and analysis of this leaked Franco-German plan. (here and here and here.) There is no need for me to repeat or summarize his posts. Read them if you haven’t already. The recent Franco-German effort to thwart the military build-up in Turkey is consistent with all of this. David Warren has excellent coverage of this episode, though he mistakenly attributes the Franco-German actions to “vanity”.
No. It is not vanity. There is something far more serious and menacing going on here.
After mulling this business on and off today, I am left with the following train of thought. The Germans and the French are not just making gestures of opposition. They are seriously trying to prevent the United States and Britain from going into Iraq. They are persisting in this in the teeth of the manifest intention of the U.S. to go in. In other words, they are putting themselves into explicit opposition to the United States on a matter which the United States has made clear is necessary for its security. This is a very serious thing to do. They are openly and explicitly and consciously making themselves allies of a country the United States has made clear is its enemy. Moreover, the French and Germans know they have a weak hand, and they are imposing great political costs on themselves in continuing to push this. But they are persevering. So, as den Beste notes, where they are going to such extraordinary lengths to try to prevent the US from going into Iraq, and their public explanations are inadequate or incredible, they must have some concealed motive. What motive? Fear of discovery of their complicity with the Iraqi regime is the most likely explanation. The thinking along these lines has been that the French and Germans don’t want the world to know that they have been selling weapons technology to Iraq. This disclosure would be embarrassing, but is it enough to justify the increasingly desperate efforts the French and Germans are making?
Let us take it a step farther. Let’s assume that the French and Germans have been actively assisting Iraq to acquire WMD, especially nuclear weapons. Why would they do this? First, of course, money. That has to be part of it. In the German case, I think it is probably the main part. But they are running huge risks just for money. There must be more. What?
At least in the case of the French, a plausible explanation would be a positive desire to see Iraq armed with WMD, and to assist it to acquire them. Why? Pure power politics. France sees itself in a zero-sum power struggle with America. But America is the Hyperpower. France is forced to dance to Washington’s tune. So, France is a non-status quo power, which wants to terminate American Unipolarity. But it cannot do so on its own. It simply lacks the size, economic power, military power, vitality, efficiency – everything which it would need for a direct challenge to the United States. There is no way for France to get into the same league as the United States. France has tried to build a European Union which would offset U.S. power, with itself as primus inter pares, but it is clear to everyone with half a brain that this project will never be a true challenger to the United States.
That leaves to France only the option of doing of things which positively harm the position of the United States. France cannot do this overtly, because the United States can crush French militarily if it came to it. Therefore, arming Saddam is a way to covertly harm the United States to the advantage of France. The French benefit from nuclear weapons proliferating, because this has the effect of neutralizing American conventional military power. The French benefit from Saddam becoming an unassailable regional power in the Persian Gulf, as a client and covert ally of France, because this makes them a major player in the region through their ties to Saddam, and damages American interests in the region. The French might even believe that they would benefit from the provision of nuclear weapons to terrorists, so long as they were used against the United States. A nuclear detonation in New York or Washington or Chicago or all three would severely damage the United States. Destruction on this scale would cause worldwide economic disruption. But it would also render the United States a much less formidable actor, far less able to make its influence felt abroad, since it would be absorbed with police activity and reconstruction at home. This would enhance the relative power of other states at the expense of the United States, including France. Complicity in the destruction of millions of American lives is a price the senior political leadership in France would probably be willing to pay to enhance France’s political position in the world, if it could get away with it, and if its own consequent economic losses were not unendurably severe.
Now, with the United States about to invade Iraq, all contacts between Iraq and its European trading partners and covert allies will be dragged out into the daylight. Hence the last-ditch attempt to impose a U.N. “occupation”. The game of using Iraq against the United States, if it existed, is now over. The goal of the French and Germans, with their half-baked ongoing inspections proposal, is now damage control and cover-up, to sanitize the place and prevent disclosure of their role.
How’s that for a good old Jacksonian conspiracy theory? I’m not sure how much of this I believe. Brooding in my car on the Eisenhower Expressway leads to a pretty dark view of the world. My wife thinks I’m going nuts. But the behavior of the French and Germans is so far out of whack that something very ugly indeed may well lie behind it. And I have always considered the French political leadership to be a malign force. They are implacable enemies of America, not the contemptible but basically unserious “cheese eating surrender monkeys” scorned throughout the wide realms of blogistan. My sense is that the average Jacques and Marie dislike America but don’t wish us any harm. Their leaders are different.The documents and witnesses we will obtain when we take Baghdad are going to yield up secrets which some people would rather never saw the light of day, not all of them Iraqi. It will be time for truth, though whether that truth ever gets out to the American public is another question. (See David Warren’s excellent column on our government’s refusal to speak the truth about the behavior of various foreign countries.)
This is all one more good reason to conquer Iraq.
We’d better do it soon.
Tony Blair on the BBC
One of my friends in the UK send along this link to the BBC’s interview with Tony Blair about the upcoming war with Iraq. (click on the phrase “Tony Blair’s Newsnight interview point by point” for video).
It was interesting for an American viewer who does not watch TV at all to see this. The interviewer was actually openly rude and interrupted constantly. Really boorish. I don’t think anybody should have to put up with that, let alone a democratically elected leader. But my wife, a veteran BBC viewer, tells me that is the done thing over there – harsh, cross-examination-style interviews of politicians. I also noted that the interviewer baldly misstated various facts, apparently to get a rise out of Blair, as well as taking a really insulting tone. The hand-picked audience consisted only of opponents of the war. The ideological lefties were pretty easy for him to deal with. But the “regular guy” types of questioners were much tougher.
Blair probably lost ten pounds doing this interview. What a workout. But, God bless him, he had his facts and arguments under control and put in a terrific performance. No wonder he is PM. I wonder if he changed anyone’s mind with it?
I have a lot respect for the British system, and the toughness and verbal facility and quick-wittedness of the British politicians who can handle this type of thing. Whenever I watch the questions in parliament, I think that most of our stuffed-shirts couldn’t handle it. Of the Presidents we’ve had in my lifetime, I think only Clinton (whom I detest) could probably have done OK, and also maybe Nixon. Those were both extremely smart and Clinton was good on the fly, and Nixon was always well-prepared. Either of the George Bushes, Reagan, Carter — no way.
The basic tone of the show and the questioners highlights the extent to which the USA is out of step with other countries, even the relatively friendly British. One guy actually said Powell’s presentation was “laughable”, and he was serious. Another guy asked Blair if the United States was going to be subject to disarmament by the U.N., and while he was being flip, he genuinely believed the U.S. is a more dangerous country than Iraq. The crowd seemed in basic agreement with these sentiments. The contempt for America and in particular for Bush is noteworthy, and jumps out at the American viewer. It is just assumed, obvious, a given, that the United States is a moronic country led by a moronic president. It is a good thing more Americans don’t realize how despised we are even in Merrie Olde England. The response would be to reciprocate, and that would not be productive. It’s a pity these people feel as they do, but ultimately not worth worrying about when our security is at stake. If a bunch of people in the North of England don’t like us, they’ll just have to lump us. And if they don’t want to go to war with Saddam, they are out of luck with Blair at the helm.
Blair has political courage to stick with the US on this. It would have been easier for him to bail out earlier, or never go down this road at all. Then the USA would have gone in alone, anyway, but Blair would probably have been more popular at home. He must actually believe it’s the right thing to do. He certainly projected that in the interview. He is a remarkable guy. He has an enormous amount of good will here in the U.S., whatever happens to him politically in Britain. Maybe Clinton can move to Britain and Blair can move to the U.S. Bottom line, if the war goes well, Blair will benefit politically, though to what degree I’m not sure. I think people may be resentful even if we win handily. Less uncertain is that if the war goes badly, Blair is finished. It’s a bet the ranch approach he’s taken. I suppose Gordon Brown would take over then. The Tories are a nullity at the moment.
Besides an apparent sincere belief in the rightness of this course, there is clearly another factor at work. Blair has extraordinary access to Bush and has been privy to the war planning at the highest levels from the beginning. No doubt he has been shown in complete detail what the war plans are, since Britain is making a very major contribution. I, like many people, am hoping the war will be a swift, crushing blitzkrieg. I have lots of reason to think this will be the way the war will actually go. That Blair is so confident gives me confidence.
We shall all know soon how well- or ill-founded Blair’s confidence is.
Britain a “Great Power”?
Iain Murray cites to this essay by Christopher Caldwell in the current Spectator. Caldwell’s rhetorical query is whether Britain is a “Great Power” or not. He concludes that Blair’s leadership has led Britain to a closer relationship with the United States, both in terms of public popularity, and in high-level contacts, which has in turn allowed Britain access to advanced U.S. military technology. On this basis, Caldwell appears to answer his own question with a pretty firm, “yes”.
However, I think that the situation is actually a lot better for Britain than Caldwell makes it out to be. He casts Britain almost exclusively as an adjunct to American power. However, his use of the shorthand term “Great Power” is not consistent with this characterization. The image the phrase conveys is one of Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna, or Lloyd at Versailles, or Churchill at Yalta – Britain as a peer in a militarily multipolar world. That type of status has not existed for a long time. Britain has been, and is, an important country even if it is not a true peer of the most powerful country of the day. Britain rarely ruled by raw muscle, even in its greatest days, but was rather a country which played a relatively weak hand extraordinarily well. I read recently that in 1900, Britain ruled 100+ million people in India with something like 100,000 people, military, civil government, and civilians. Chutzpah and discipline more than muscle built the Empire on the subcontinent. Britain amassed a global empire and managed to make money out of parts of it, something the other Europeans never really managed, and they did it on the cheap, both in terms of money and manpower. Britain spent even its most powerful decades in mortal dread of a single European power amassing enough population and economic might to swamp them – and managed again and again to be the banker and arsenal and safe haven and coalition manager for whoever was at odds with the leading land power in Europe. For centuries Britain preserved its role as offshore arbiter. But it was always outclassed in terms of brute strength by the various would-be European hegemons. So the current situation has been one of degree more than of kind. For the last 50 or 60 years we have had, successively, bipolarity during the cold war, and we now appear to have unipolarity. But even unipolarity is not “divinity”, as Charles Krauthammer pithily puts it, and other countries besides the United States are important actors. It should be no surprise to us that Britain has managed to make the most of this situation, as it usually has out of whatever situation of (relative) weakness it has faced.
Caldwell is right that Britain under Blair has managed to ingratiate itself with the United States. However he is wrong to focus so much on this aspect of the relationship, as if Tony Blair were primarily a clever salesman. That is not really it. Any number of countries would like to be the “best pal” of the United States. It is only Tony Blair who was in the gallery when Bush spoke to Congress after the September 11 attacks, and it is Blair whom Bush will be meeting with prior to the upcoming blitzkreig against Saddam’s regime in Iraq. If, say, Aznar or Berlusconi had been invited to be at either of these two events, they’d have come. But Blair, i.e. Britain, was the power the United States turned to, not any of the others. The “special relationship”, especially when the United States is looking for assistance, does actually exist. The Anglo-American alliance which has lasted through many travails over many decades continues to exist despite greatly changed circumstances. Why?
It is not, at least not much, a matter of sentimentality. There certainly is some sentiment involved. Those who are historically-minded remember our countries’ joint efforts in world wars and the Cold War. There are many ties of blood and marriage and personal contact between many here and many in Britain, obviously enough, going back four centuries. There are a certain number of Americans who are Anglophiles, some of whom are influential. And some of us will remember until we die the Queen of England having the Division of Guards play the Star Spangled Banner after 9/11. Queen Elizabeth, say what you like about the monarchy generally, understands that hers is a formal and symbolic role, and that great and terrible moments demand grand, ceremonial gestures. If I ever had a moment of actual love for any country but my own it was that moment.
But nations live in an anarchic world which is essentially a violent, merciless snake pit. Sentimentality can only go so far. The United States does not value Britain’s friendship and cooperation primarily due to sentiment. The United States values Britain because Britain is a very valuable ally in a dangerous world.
It is interesting to read British bloggers and other commentators talking about their counry. The conservatives see the Autumnal hues of decay and decline. They always talk about their country as basically a “has been”, as a minor leaguer. Even the patriotic ones do this. They were raised on a diet of Corelli Barnett and of fading maps of lands marked in red, all lost. When I hear these people I think of Philip Larkin’s poem “Homage to a Goverment”. The statues remain, but the greatness is over. No matter how good things may be, the British conservatives live in the shadow of a seemingly greater past. One particularly clear example can be found in Alan Clark’s diaries. Clark was a genuine eccentric, and not particularly nice, but he was also a man of strong emotions who truly loved his country. But his was a love which was saturated with pain for something which is lost, or which is slipping away into nothing before his eyes. Clark constantly harks back to the soldiers who died in the trenches of World War I, the aircrews of Bomber Command going down in flames over Germany, the sense that Britain spent its substance in the great wars of the twentieth century, leaving only a husk. Clark is more articulate than most people, but this basic notion is probably common on the conservative side of the political spectrum in Britain. I think also the apparent failure of Thatcher to “revive” Britain (at least to the degree hoped for) has cast a shadow into the soul of British conservatives and Libertarians. They look to the past and find the present wanting, and look into the future with dread. British leftists, on the other hand see a future of Britain relinquishing its unique identity and history, and repudiating its former martial glory, its former world role, all of which they are ashamed of. They look at Britain’s past and see only racism and injustice and oppression and class division, an historical canvas only lightly dotted with a minority of “troublemakers” and Little-Englanders and trade unionists and Fabians whose heirs they imagine themselves to be. As to the future, the British left seeks the dissolution of the United Kingdom into its sub-parts, and the joinder of these fragments as medium-sized provinces to a socialist European entity.
What these two political poles have in common is a perspective of permanent and inevitable decline and even termination of their nation, the conservatives with regret, the leftists with eagerness and malice and a spirit of revenge.
Tony Blair is a curiosity in large part because he is not a declinist. He actually sees a dynamic role for Britain in the years ahead. He is, in this sense, the heir not of the Labor Party of Clement Atlee, that wound up the Raj in India, but of the older school of liberal imperialists like Henry Asquith who sought to use Britain’s wealth and influence to do good in the world, and in their Empire, in addition to accruing military, political and economic advantage, even at the cost of certain of those advantages. Blair is not embarrassed to hold out his country as basically good, with a past which is not entirely shameful, and as a positive example to the world. This kind of expansive liberal spirit, not crippled by self-doubt or self-loathing, has long been missing on the left, both here and in Britain, and it harks back to an earlier age. Blair is therefore at odds with his own party as well as with most of the conservatives at the same time. But Blair is actually more right than everybody else on this point. That Blair is right may be more apparent from the perspective of the United States than it is in Britain. Several thousand miles of salt water may provide a clearer perspective on this issue.
Let’s just compile an “inventory” to demonstrate what I am talking about. In the sphere of hard power Britain has exceptionally large and capable military forces. It has a navy which can project power thousands of miles from home. It has able, disciplined and well-equipped land-forces. Moreover, Britain has made a much larger commitment to technology and inter-operability with the United States military than any other country, and hence is able to work with the United States and make a significant and valued contribution to joint operations. Britain also has a special strong-suit in the key military capability of the age, special operations forces. Britain’s SAS and SBS are every bit as good as what the Americans have in this department. Also, the British have a long history and retain deep skills in “operations other than war”, such as peace-keeping, as well as in so-called low intensity operations, the “small wars” which have long been Britain’s forte, and which will be characteristic of the decades ahead. Britain is a nuclear power which is trusted with its nuclear weapons. No one loses any sleep worrying that the British Prime Minister will go insane and release his bombs. Britain has exceptional signals intelligence capability, with a long and unique history of close cooperation with the United States in this department. Britain has unusually good human intelligence assets all over the world, particularly in its former empire.
Another hard power criterion is economic wherewithal. Again, Britain is a major player. It has, last I checked, the fourth largest economy in the world. It is, compared to its European neighbors, a much more dynamic country. However much Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit may have declined from a prior heyday, it is still much more enterprising than most other countries in the world. It is, as it has been for centuries, still a magnet for high-skilled immigrants from the Continent and from around the world. Similarly, it is a safe-haven for foreign capital. It is a technologically advanced country which does not have nearly the degree of Luddite-type resistance to change and innovation which one sees in Europe. Britain is, as it has been for centuries, one of the financial capitals of the world. By some measures, London is the premier center for finance in the world. Britain is, I have read, the largest foreign investor in the United States, and vice versa. This continues a centuries-long, deep link between the economies of our two nations. The business styles of the two countries, while different in many respects, are compatible. And Britain has extraordinary business connections and contacts all over the world, derived from its former Empire, as well as from centuries of ocean trade and serving as an entrepot for the world.
Politically, Britain is exemplary. It is an extremely stable country. It has a functioning representative democracy and a politically mature populace. Elections happen on time and votes are accurately counted and peaceable changes of government occur as a matter of unremarkable course. It has, by world standards, honest and efficient courts.
In terms of soft power, Britain is a first-rank player as well. It is still, by world standards, a free, open, liberal society. It has a vibrant media, with a free press and newspapers which runs all the way from the near-scholarly to the topless girl-next-door on page three. Britain is one of the beacons in the world of democracy, public order, legality and fair play. Britain is a cultural treasure house, a center for entertainment from the most sophisticated to the very vulgar indeed. And of course it is the founding homeland and a major participants in the world sports of soccer and cricket. Perhaps most importantly, Britain is the hearth and heartland of the lingua franca of the age, the English language, Britain’s greatest gift to the world, which will only become more dominant in the years ahead. The ongoing and increasing predominance of English in world culture and commerce will continue to provide many advantages to Britian in many arenas.
Of course, none of the foregoing means that Britain has not been ruthless, cruel, greedy or duplicitous on many, many occasions. It does not mean that in the long annals of the rise and relative decline of Britain there have not been crimes and villainy aplenty. It does not mean that Britain is not a country which has daunting problems today, with a terrible increase in criminality and social disorder, for example, or a horrendous decline in educational standards. It does not mean that Britain’s respected military does not need much more money, and liberation from a stultifying political correctness which is undermining it. Nor does it mean that Britain does not face daunting hazards in the future. It does. Britain may yet suffer disasters which will futher reduce its significance in the world. It may be broken into pieces and subject to an unaccountable bureaucratic Fourth Reich run by the French and Germans from Brussels. That Orwellian scenario is on the outer reaches of the possible, but it is not sheer fantasy. And none of the foregoing means that Britain can ever aspire to being the dominant military and political power it briefly was during Victoria’s reign. It can’t. For better of for worse, the days of Palmerston, Disraeli and Gladstone are gone forever. But these are caveats, not the main story.
So that is the balance sheet. Looking at the facts as objectively as one can, it is simply folly not to recognize that Britain is, now, today, in 2003, a major player, a powerful and important country which still has a significant role to play in the world, and that it can and should be a force for good in the world. Blair seems to realize this better than almost any of his countrymen. I hope they open their eyes and see what he sees.
Britain is America’s most important ally. Tony Blair is George Bush’s most important foreign colleague. This is because, plainly and simply, Britain brings more to the table than anybody else does. The special relationship exists because Britain is worth having a special relationship with.
To conclude, to use Caldwell’s term, however inapt it may be: Yes, Britain is a “great power”.